Superman, he's a force for good right. He believes in justice, truth, honesty and treating people right. he does not believe in guns. So how did this image get passed?
Ok, so he's just returned from the dead. His powers aren't at full whack. But Superman shouldn't be a gun toting musclebound meat head! Yet in this picture that's what he is. And what's worse is that Steel and Superboy are cheering him on. Ok, Superboy has just bene hatched/birthed/cloned/whatever, he's still young and doesn't have a full moral compass yet, but he's been programmed to have a personality. No one wearing the S shield and purporting to be on the side of good should ever be this gun happy.
From Adventures of Superman #504.
Ok, so he's just returned from the dead. His powers aren't at full whack. But Superman shouldn't be a gun toting musclebound meat head! Yet in this picture that's what he is. And what's worse is that Steel and Superboy are cheering him on. Ok, Superboy has just bene hatched/birthed/cloned/whatever, he's still young and doesn't have a full moral compass yet, but he's been programmed to have a personality. No one wearing the S shield and purporting to be on the side of good should ever be this gun happy.
From Adventures of Superman #504.
5 comments:
Even the action figure came with a gun. http://toyriffic.blogspot.com/2008/11/superman-never-made-any-money.html
LOL!
The lowest point of the entire Doomsday saga...
I gotta admit... I like that whole Death&Return of Superman arc. As far as 90s story arcs go in comics, it's not as bad as, say, Knightfall.
But this sequence.....ugh..
oh gods, that action figure is awful...
I actually have to DEFEND this scene, at least in part, because it WAS consistent with post-Crisis Supes' characterization at that point:
1. Supes iasn't the one who completely swore off firearms. That's Batman. Supes just avoids them because a) they're generally unneccessary for him under nearly all circumstances, and b) they're generally too dangerous to others. However....
2. Supes was looking at the prospect of fighting off an entire alien army, and later Mongul and Cyborg Superman, with the fate of Metropolis and the world (including Lois and his parents) at stake, a very small fraction of his powers, and only Superboy and Steel on his side. In a situation as extremely desperate as that one, I can see Clark using firearms.
3. The guns appeared to shoot lasers rather than bullets, for whatever that's worth.
4. In Supes' continuity at that time, Pa Kent, while an extremely moral man, was also a war vet, and understood the painful realities of the battlefield. No doubt he taught that to Clark.
5. Roger Stern, who wrote the chapter AFTER this one, showed Superman using what little super-senses he had to take great care to avoid a body count.
6. Only Superboy was really cheering, and, as originally conceived by Karl Kesel (who wrote the featured scene), was actually cloned from the Cadmus-tweaked DNA of director Paul Westfield, who was kind of a douche. Clark did not appear happy.
Still, they DID glamorize it way too much in that scene above. Thank God the 90's are over.
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