Why is Superman so hard to write for?

Why is Superman so hard to write for?

He's not.

Because Superman comics can't really don't anything at all to carry then besides quality writing. Nobody cares to see feats of strength, and relationship issues are a non-starter. Batman can fight crime at night and struggle with depression in the day, Superman isn't compelling through all of that. If the writing isn't impeccable, there's nothing to distract from the mistakes.

This is also why people say that the GOOD Superman stories are SO GOOD, because they have to be.

What this guy said

It's harder to write problems that your hero must solve through actual intelligence. For the sake of tension, Superman requires conflict that can't be solved through brute force and most writers just aren't intelligent enough to design those kinds of puzzles.

Because when they try to make him interesting the fans complain no matter what. He is so iconic he's static, he can never evolve.

three problems;

Superman's an idealist's hero. we live in an age that ruthlessly shits on idealism to encourage cynicism and snark (because cynics are easier to control, and idealists are more likely to try and change things)

He also has Aquaman's problem of it doesn't matter how his powers are 'now' people will always assume, treat and punish him as if he's the silver age invincible god he was at one point, and always think he needs to be 'humanized, or 'nerfed' or powered down. I have a friend who just constantly ignores when I point out countless villains who can fight him on equal or higher footing to complain he's too Op because he's not spider-man or batman 'tier'

third is he's not as popular as Batman, so he keeps being forced to around Batman's level, where he has both job down so Batman tier people aren't shut out, and people who are his level can't be used as often because Batman tier people will be way too weak against them

thus he tends to get people who don't 'get' the character writing him trying to write 'meta' commentary on him because they have fucking clue how to do anything else.

Because Morrison can only write so many comics at once.

Ah, so it's the Riddler problem.

Having superman stop petty crime is like be grabbing a 5 year old and punting them like a football

He's too powerful for his own good, it simplifies any ideas and plots you can have for the character. The guy can punch reality, or travel back in time, or see through everything else but lead. Bad plots often make Superman conveniently forget he has these powers to make the plot work and the villain not to just lose instantly. Arguably Flash has the same problem.

So how do you fix that problem? You write about even bigger and bigger galactic threads. Eventually all Superman stories are about him fighting huge space lasers.

>There are always great Batman stories. Superman is impossible.
All-Star Superman
Secret Identity
Birthright

Just to name three.

and American Alien

Ok, you just listed 3 stories written over the past 10 years. People can list dozens of Batman (I use him because he's DC's only character with comparable clout) comics that are all as highly recommended. Hell, when people list the best comics of all time, the big three Bat stories: TKJ, TDKR, and Y1, almost always show up in or around the top 5, with usually a few others like TLH in the top 20. Why isn't Superman like that?

you don´t know what you are talking about. You are the person refers to.

it kinda is honestly. with some of Aquaman's problem where it doesn't matter how the character actually is, a specific 'version' of him is forced to be the outside 'normie' worlds perception of him. Like how Aquaman will always be regarded as the super firends version for sake of normie jokes, Superman is always held at his most broken silver age level, with everyone immediately trying to argue he's 'too' powerful just like they argue Aquaman is 'too weak.'

thus the shitty writer's go to for Superman is always 'power him down or bring him down from godhood'

He's not, King is a moron and I hope he never touches Supes.

Bad news, everyone. Superman is set to show up in an upcoming issue of Batman.

Superman can see through everything else but lead, he can go back in time and punch reality. You need galactic-level threats so it wouldn't be completely one-sided. Flash might be even worse, at one point he prevented a train from falling off a broken bridge by running into a library, reading engineering- and architechture books, then building the bridge under the traveling train as it progressed forward, all in a split-second. Thats retarded powerful, no villain who can't keep up with that speed will ever be able to catch him or retaliate.

>he can go back in time and punch reality
Except Superman can't do any of this shit since before 1985.
>Flash might be even worse, at one point he prevented a train from falling off a broken bridge by running into a library, reading engineering- and architechture books, then building the bridge under the traveling train as it progressed forward, all in a split-second
Oh, I see, you don't read comics, gotcha.

>Except Superman can't do any of this shit since before 1985.

He's just conveniently forgotten about those powers for no reason. At least he has a simple weakness of Kryptonite but then for any plot to work you basically need to have Kryptonite there somewhere so that he doesn't just crush all of his opponents like a bug. Or those opponents have to be similarly powerful.

you're literally doing the Aquaman problem in reverse. instead of pretending the character permanently sucks because he was a joke in a cartoon from nearly FIFTY years ago, you're using similar outdated material to argue superman is a god.

we don't force Batman to forever need to carry 'bat everything meme' sprays in his belt, but superman 'has' to be punished forever for his stupid silver age shit?

Because you can't write Superman as a boy scout or as a morally challenged hero without offending fans of either camp.

Have King write a good Batman story first.

>He's just conveniently forgotten about those powers for no reason.
Dude, what? Do you know nothing about the history of DC or what specifically happened in 1985?

>you basically need to have Kryptonite there somewhere so that he doesn't just crush all of his opponents like a bug
I like how you solve your own problem in the literal next sentence
>Or those opponents have to be similarly powerful.
But even if you don't go that route, you could always have a conflict that can't be solved solely through violence. If you're still 14 or whatever I can see that as hard to conceive, but there's actually thousands of compelling books about conflict where not a single punch is thrown.

Superman for All Seasons
Superman: Strength
For The Man Who Has Everything

So is King gonna write Superman or what? Even if it's shit, I'm interested in how he'd go about doing it.

>Superman: Strength
I love how this story became a bit of a meme after an user decided to storytime it.

He'd have to drop Batman. DC wouldn't give their two main pillars to the same guy.

Because it's bland and boring

Because are obsessed with portraying Superman's superhuman issues instead of his human issues. All-Star Superman was good because it was primarily about Superman dealing with his own mortality.

Why can't the Superman family not be as well put together as the Batman family?

He could write a miniseries.

I'm confused as to what you're trying to say because of the double negative

A meme? I guess I can see what you mean by that it gave us some 10/10 reaction images but the story is very good.

He means why can't Superman's extended cast of supporting characters be as well fleshed out as batman's I think.

In what way? I thought the general consensus was that it was good.

This is one of the biggest missed opportunities of the DC universe.

>"m-muh Post-Crisis Superman doesn't do godly things anymore!"

He still does. They just add more technobabble to it and make him strain really really hard but he still fucking moves planets around with his arms.

...

I don't feel like anything Batman does is inherently interesting either. A foe that can beat up Batman isn't any more common than a foe that can beat up Superman, which for some reason people don't get. When he fights Metallo or Doomsday he doesn't just effortlessly whoop them and put them in jail, it's still a big fight.

ALL stories live and die by the writing, that's all there is to it. I'll never understand when people say it's hard to come up with credible threats for Superman, because isn't it exactly the same as with Batman? It's not easy to come up with something that Batman hasn't already faced a hundred times.

A story that's just about Batman fighting some gangster is exactly as boring as a story that's just about Superman fighting some big monster or super strong guy. No matter what superhero you're writing, you HAVE to have a creative idea and a good handle on characterization and drama or else it's going to be boring, and neither Batman nor Superman naturally lend themselves to those things more naturally than the other.

It's all a bunch of bullshit made up by people who don't read any comics outside of the handful of graphic novels on every rec list and thus have no clue what your average comic is actually like.

>Posts a picture of Supes, WW, and MM
What did he mean by this?

I would like to see ONE write a Superman story. He's pretty competent at writing OP characters and making their struggles seem compelling or at least entertaining

>I don't feel like anything Batman does is inherently interesting either. A foe that can beat up Batman isn't any more common than a foe that can beat up Superman, which for some reason people don't get. When he fights Metallo or Doomsday he doesn't just effortlessly whoop them and put them in jail, it's still a big fight.

Or its either way smaller fight than it should be given how fucking powerful both Doomsday and Superman are and they just duke it out on the streets of Metropolis even when a single punch from Superman would cause a nuclear explosion. Their fights should look like something out of Asura's Wrath, or both have to be severely weakened to tie them back to the ground.

Well there are a couple reasons: first is that Batman largely pioneered the idea of sidekicks in comics, as well as an extended "family." Superman had a supporting cast but they were rarely part of the action aside from being damsels in distress.

Secondly, Batman's gimmick inherently lends itself really well to having a bunch of side characters. For every new Superperson you add, you have to come up with a reason why the last son of Krypton wasn't really the last one, but if you want a new bat character all you need is some youth stricken by tragedy (really hard to find in a place like Gotham) and have Batman decide he can teach them.

>this kryptonite leg propels me
-Tom King

Hey, that was me!
But don't give me credit, some other user gave me the idea by posting that panel of Superman telling Luthor "some people prefer not to live like dogs at all"

I think you're grasping here

You Superfags always get so butthurt when people rightly tell you Batman is a much better character. There's nothing inherently wrong with Superman other than he's the big blue boy scout and he always has been.

Honestly? The stupid "Batman has everything planned up already" hand wave of a real issue is the most ridiculous part of that picture.

Tom King gave Kite Man a pointless tragic backstory and totally compromised Batman's moral code. Fuck his opinion.

Good point, Batman occasionally goes to retarded levels of "intelligence" as well.

I think a big part of it is that Supes has always been the same as a character

while Bats was once a happy dude socking thugs with his pal Robin, then turned Lord of grimdark in the 80s creating new story opportunities
Supes has always been ideal superhero with defined morals, constant personality, and unflinching hope.
You can't change that without disrupting what the character stands for, and people get passed if you try.
Soo while other characters can change, have bad moods, be excessive sometimes. Supes has to stay a symbol of what a hero should be.

but that makes him rather flat, stories are usually about someone else, and there aren't dramatically shocking changes like Joker going from laughing trickster to smashing Robin's skull in, or WW executing villains.
still has good stories, they just don't jump in your face like others do

...I respectfully disagree.

Saitama has never struggled in an actual fight, ever.Which is, of course, the gag. But it's a gag that's run WAY too long

I'm not debating who's a "better" character, I'm saying that the idea that it's just easier to come up with Batman stories is retarded. If you just want to make an uncreative story it's easy for either character.

You Batfags always get so butthurt when people rightly tell you Superman is a much better character. There's nothing inherently wrong with Batman other than he's the caped crusader and he always has been.

That's why I'd like to see him tackling Superman. He'd be able to write a contained fun story that puts Superman in a situation that can't be solved with his powers. Saitama has encountered several situations he couldn't work out by punching them, and when he did he just ended them too soon and too poorly.

Saitamas struggle is to get the recognition he deserves (which he will never get).

He doesn't want recognition. That's a key aspect of his character. He's a hero for funsies. The Hero Association gig is mainly for the money.

could you give me an example?

Not true.

In the Golden Age, Superman was a lot edgier. In the post-war through the 60's he was similar to Batman. The 70's was when he became the champion of hope, and like with Batman that's the version that stuck till today.

Also post-Crisis up to the mid-00's they experimented a lot with his character and how far he can stray from it, just like they did with Batman.

He is. He has tons of stories retard. Saying he doesn't have as many as Batman is fucking stupid because who does? And you still get some shitty stories that people think are good like Hush

Lex Luthor: Man of Steel

>He's just conveniently forgotten about those powers for no reason.
I hope you're baiting otherwise you're fucking retarded and need to kill yourself asap

That time he had to work in a team, but he got tired of people not putting up with his carelessness and ended up punching the monster they were supposed to capture alive to oblivion.
So the group fails the mission they were assigned and Saitama doesn't learn the value in teamwork. Also King gets mad at him for insulting a show he likes.

Everyone calm down. Atleast we aren't Wally/Barryfags

>Or its either way smaller fight than it should be given how fucking powerful both Doomsday and Superman are and they just duke it out on the streets of Metropolis even when a single punch from Superman would cause a nuclear explosion.
On the other hand Batman has the problem of Gotham getting destroyed every other issue and dying every three years to build up "suspense"

At first he wanted recognition because he thought that might fill his inner emptiness. Then he lost interest when he realized people would just not take him seriously, plus the fact that he was making the other heroes look bad.

>Saying he doesn't have as many as Batman is fucking stupid because who does?
But thats my point; Superman *should* have all the popularity as Batman given their histories, but he doesn't.

>Saying he doesn't have as many as Batman is fucking stupid because who does?

Probably Donald Duck.

>Supes has always been ideal superhero with defined morals, constant personality, and unflinching hope.
How fucking casual is Sup Forums these days? Seriously how fucking dumb can you get? Golden Age Supes fucking killed people, he was a bully who bullied bullies. He wasn't idealistic at all, nor was he anything like the angelic persona Supes has now. He was a blue collar hero, a working class guy.
Silver Age Supes was an alien pretending to be human. Superman was the real persona and Clark was the mask. He had a very dim view of humans and just did wacky shit for fun.
Post-Crisis Supes is the "classic" Superman. Clark is the real person and Superman is the mask. He got nerfed heavily, and was pretty hotheaded and suspicious. His first meeting with Batman had him try to dump Bats in jail. Then New 52 Supes was a Golden Age throwback that made the casuals shit their pants.

>But thats my point; Superman *should* have all the popularity as Batman given their histories, but he doesn't.
He did. Tastes change and Batman is the most popular character now. But before Batman it was Spider-Man, and before him it was Superman or Captain Marvel. There's also tons of good stories that the casual hordes on plebbit or even here don't know about because it was before their time.

It's simply because Superman's peak of popularity was in the 70's before the direct market and OGNs/prestige were a thing, and Batman's peak of popularity was in '89 right in the dawn of that format.

I honestly think Superman would be as popular as Batman is now if they had ever gotten their shit together and gotten a great Superman movie in the vein of Byrne's Man of Steel in the years after Batman '89, but they jerked around and we didn't get another Superman movie until a shitty throwback over a decade later and by the time MoS finally came out people were so desensitized to special effects that people instantly forgot about it.

Why should I? Batman's the number one DC character and has been for decades. Nobody shoehorns Superman into a book/movie/cartoon because they want to increase the sales.

>and by the time MoS finally came out people were so desensitized to special effects that people instantly forgot about it.
>desensitized
You spelled "Shitty Superman" wrong.

>There are always great Batman stories
Too bad none of them are written by King.

>by the time MoS finally came out people were so desensitized to special effects that people instantly forgot about it.
MoS was a piece of shit but I wouldn't say it was forgotten. It kicked off the entire DCEU.

Speaking of Waid, Moore, and Morrison
Kingdom Come
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow
Morrison's AC run (not as good as Birthright but fuck you I liked it)

Man of Steel was crap for plenty of other reasons too, than just special effects.

Please. If you want a character who is almost impossible to write, try Wolverine. Seriously, after all the shit that he has done, been through and fucked up it is nearly difficult/impossible to write Wolverine without turning him into a complete and utter mary sue. Seriously, all the fans have now wanked him off as this perfect, impossible guy who is Xavier's true successor (Even though he butchers a lot of his foes), an Avenger (Despite them once having a no kill policy) and one of the greatest heroes who ever lived (Who just happens to be an awful human being 90% of the time).

The only time he was anywhere close to decent recently has been in Uncanny X-Force. Even then, there were some issues. See, Wolverine is not like Superman. Superman is an ideal which can be translated to any era. Meanwhile Wolverine is just a ascended fans going absolutely ballistic with in their attempts to wank him off.

God I hate the "he's too powerful" argument.

From a storytelling perspective he's no more unstoppable than any other popular hero.

Yeah, he always wins. That's just being a protagonist in popular fiction.
Batman is a master of every physical and mental discipline imaginable, but because he broods he's seen as inherently more interesting and complex.

>it is nearly difficult/impossible to write Wolverine without turning him into a complete and utter mary sue
Who would have thought a guy with an indestructible metal skeleton and a healing factor would be a Gary Stu?

because most writters can't seem to leave th planet earth and not-new york

I never watched the animu, but the One Punch Man online manga was pretty great, and it's because it isn't supposed to be a consistent storyline. The only real links are other heroes and Saitama dealing with depression.

It's not his powerset that's the problem, as has been said many times in the thread you can always have plots that can't be solved by punching. The problem is his "psssh... nothing personnel kid" attitude

Keep in mind this is the guy that thinks Superman is boring and Mister Miracle is not a superhero.

>From a storytelling perspective he's no more unstoppable than any other popular hero.

Problem is when the story involves a threat that he could easily brush off with stunts he's done before. Oh a robot army is threatening Metropolis? Throw a mountain on them like you did before! Oh, Superman proceeds to try and punch them one by one instead, suddenly the story is fucking stupid because the superhero conveniently forgets he has superpowers. Thats the fucking problem with "he's too powerful"-argument. If he can lift a fucking planet in his arms, some crime syndicate or a couple of robots should be non-issues to him.

My impression as an outsider to all things DC is that he is a shit concept.
He's really a big hunk of teflon and wholesomeness with nothing that's by itself compelling.
And he's the wrong kind of iconic in that he isn't popular because he is so agreeable, but because he is such a canvas to project yourself onto. Which really hampers innovation because you always "do it wrong" no matter what.
There is a clear spectrum of Batman, a clear spectrum of Spider-Man, both defined by a few check boxes and ideas you can spin either way.
But Supes has this stupid idea attached to him that he's just doing the right thing and he has to be absolutely good.
That's why he worked when you could just go do that shit and it's getting harder when audiences are not hardly educated children but massively media-savvy adults.
Self-righteous vigilantes stopped working and you can only do so many stories of taking the boyscout off his high horse.
And beyond that there's always a hero better suited for the story because they are more specialised in some way.

But he's not. Literally all you have to understand is that Superman is just a regular guy who has amazing powers and wants to help people. I guess some people find it hard to write for a character that isn't born of tragedy.

The problem is so many people don't get that. They think he's some forever alone loner who can never fit it. Or that he has to struggle to understand the world etc. Which just isn't Superman.

Superman's fans would put me off from writing the hero because god forbid if you want to try anything new with the character.

>My impression as an outsider to all things DC
Thanks for prefacing your post with this, made it much easier to disregard every piece of casual bullshit you just said.

I know, but if something like it had come out in the early 00's, it would have been enjoyed because general audiences like flashy effects and cool fight scenes.

The problems fans/critics have with the movie are not the same as what audiences have with it, the people who went out in droves to see the Transformers movies.

Sure, moviefags and people on Sup Forums remember it, but are people out there really itching to rewatch MoS like they do The Dark Knight, or Burton's Batman, or the original Superman movie? At the end of the day, even to the non-fans who DID enjoy MoS, to them it was really just another big sci-fi action fest.

Very different from other characters.

They just want Superman to remain in character. You can do anything else.

Heaven forfend the demigod in his fortress of solitude would be characterised as a loner...

I see your struggle. But really, if you are gonna write a comic, write about a compelling character with defined features instead. And one that doesn’t have impossible levels of headcanon attached.

>I have no idea what I'm talking about
>but here is my strong opinion

That would be lazy, clichéd characterization.

>Why is Superman so hard to write for?

Because what makes him Superman is never his powers, but the fact that he is a good man who wants to help others. He is also a boy scout.

People have been fucked over for so long by the establishment that it is impossible to think that someone would actually want to help others for the good of his heart. There always must be an angle. But there isn't. He's just an incredibly cool guy, and that's about it.

>Kingdom Come
>Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow
These stories both suck.

Well, Superman works really well because he's predictable. It allows you to create really interesting characters around him, and you don't have to worry about Superman's character getting in the way of another character's development or story. This means conflict has to be created by opposing forces, and comic book writers tend to fuck up stories that rely heavily on supporting casts.

Check out Morrison's All-Star Superman. It explains, very well, that great Superman stories are about great supporting characters.