Does Superman even have FLAWS? What are some of his personal flaws? Or is he just a Mary Sue and self-insert power fantasy?
Superman Flaws
Ayden Howard
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Anthony Murphy
>Does Superman even have FLAWS?
None that you would care about, have your (you) and be done with it
Cooper Morris
No seriously. I like him, but I was thinking other day about what his flaws might be, and I could think nothing.
>He cares too much about people and cant save everybody
This isnt a flaw, this is like say to your boss in a job interview that "caring too much about doing a good work" is a flaw.
Cooper Stewart
Well for starters he is a liar.
Connor Fisher
He has weaknesses (well, one weakness anyway), but beyond that he's flawless. That's pretty much the point. He's a perfect being sent from heaven (space) to save mankind and show them the way.
Gavin Edwards
What are YOUR flaws, OP?
Elijah Johnson
Benjamin Davis
He can be a dick
Ethan Allen
I can be headstrong sometimes, and a little bit insecure, it took me sometime to realize that I made some pretty selfish decisions in my life but I think that getting older made me see things in a new more empathic perspective, and I have been trying to fix that
>comicbookresources
Really user? Anyway, according to the link he is arrogant, patronizing, and sexist.
But these are taking in account weird bulshit stuff from Silver Age (like fattening Lois), not modern things.
Also
>He's a hypocrite. He'll stop a group like the Elite because they take lives and hurt bystanders, but Jason Todd gets a free pass despite all the damage he caused when he first returned to life. Not to mention Hal, who has killed tons of aliens since Sinestro Corps War.
Damn.
Jack Nelson
He tends to oversimplify things.
His tendency to tank all hits gets him in trouble.
Depending on the person, he can manipulated emotionally rather easily.
He's not that much of a team player.
Jackson Green
>He doesn't have any strengths or weaknesses, he's become a t-shirt that's been washed so much no one knows what the original color looks like anymore
>Superman has pretty much been sanitized of strengths and weakness in bid for being relateable and not offending anyone.
>It took me a long time to admit to myself that Superman was a bland and stiff character but the good news is that he can be fixed. All we have to do is look into his past.
Michael Gonzalez
He's smart, but he's also very easy to provoke and quick to anger, especially if you hurt his friends or family. This is often exploited by his enemies like Lex Luthor, who pushes Superman's buttons in a way that when he lashes out, it hurts his reputation. He's not nearly as strong willed as other people, making him susceptible to to mind control or manipulation. He's also emotionally suppressed, having to bottle away most of his negative emotions in his Superman role, which is why >He cares too much about people and can't save everybody
Is a legitimate flaw because it weighs him down with guilt and frustration that he could be doing better. Most alternate universes where Superman cracks and becomes a dictator is after someone he loves is killed and he loses control. It also links back up to his easily manipulation, someone like Lex knows that Supes can't lash out or harm him explicitly because it would impact him negatively. So he angers him in the just the right ways to throw him off.
Austin Price
Manic depressive
Runs around in baby blankets
Gets upset when a new hero upstages him (even if the new hero is a smaller version of himself he shoots out of his hands)
Survivors guilt
Fear of abandonment
Doesn't want to grow up
Pushes people away that are basically his friends
Stubborn
Mildly sexist
Racist towards robots
Brody Carter
You ever read the original comics?
Clark Kent isn't just a disguise. He really is a bit socially awkward, snippy and not sufficiently cynical/easy to dupe.
Eli Richardson
I really really fucking hate when people bring up old comics to prove a character is sexist, homophobic, or racist. And then they say le canon xD. Literally almost ALL characters did sexist, racist, homophobic shit because society was fucking different.
Anthony Gomez
Shit OP aside, here's the thing I don't get.
A lot of people seem to have the mentality of "I want to BE Superman" instead of "I want to be LIKE Superman". Always has to be the man instead of being your own man and have Superman as a model. Why always go with the self-insert angle?
Jason Sanders
This
Jordan Cruz
People are dumb.
No seriously.
Ian Sanders
he's just a Mary Sue and self-insert power fantasy
That's why the only stories you can write for him are elseworlds where he's evil or origin stories
Jaxon Ortiz
He can't be everywhere at once, and while that sounds like a something simple that applies to every hero, the difference is Clark has to hear EVERY cry for help on the planet every day. Think about that; having to choose who to save of every second of every day, to decide who needs "Superman", and who should wait for local aid. Don't you think that breaks his heart, and drives him mad?
Daniel Young
This is not a flaw on his moral or character.
Lincoln Reyes
No one is gonna respond to you because they're stupid, but nigga you 100% right.
Joseph Clark
It's not rocket science. He has a hot as shit, exciting wife, lives in a pristine city of the future, has an amazing job, his man cave is a museum and armory for a lost civilization, he is personal friends with Batman... The list goes on. It's why he's stood the test of time. A NEET alone in an apartment with superpowers not actually the same.
Adam Smith
Since when is having moral flaws a good thing?
Adrian Harris
Since morality became passé
Caleb Rivera
The dawn of storytelling.
Brody Rodriguez
I would not call it a flaw. Considering that is only flaw make him look like a better person.
Charles Wright
>Since when is having moral flaws a good thing?
Sice when your character is meant to be more than cardboard.
Gavin Jackson
It’s hard to make him hold a grudge against you. But if you perform the mammoth task of crossing him, you’re on his shit list until the end of days
Leo Baker
But it is because it causes him the shoulder far more anxiety and pain than he needs to. He tortures himself with letters of people mad at him. He keeps a running tally of people he couldn't save. Flash couldn't believe that Superman confessed to him that he was worried about living up to his legacy in the same issue he wrestled an archangel.
He has such guilt over being the big guy in the room that he LARPs as a mild mannered reporter just to live with himself. That's a pretty poignant flaw. It makes him an outsider whether he's Clark Kent or Kal-El. He's the eternal Strange Visitor.
>A character can only be interesting if they have an overtly immoral flaw
Juror 8, Atticus Finch, Tom Joad, Sam Spade, all shitty characters right?
Connor Rogers
From the Silver to the Bronze age it's that the guy is cripplingly afraid of Earth ending up like Krypton being that the planets were similar (planets full of promise on the cusp of their space age) and had an enormous survivor's guilt. He kept a little museum of his life inside his fortress of solitude.
And this would lead to him being overly protective of Earth like that time he destroyed benevolent robots that took over Earth but actually made it a better place (it was an Otto Binder story) or how he made Kara jump through a shit ton of hoops before letting her go public. It would also lead to him doing stuff like risking his life as Superboy to explore some kryptonian ruins covered in kryptonite radioactivity.
Ryder Cook
>Since when is it a good thing
>It always was
>GUESS NOT HAVING IT MEANS SOMETHING IS SHIT RIGHT FUCK U
You sure like burning strawmen, huh?
Flawed characters tend to be a good thing. That doesn't mean every character has to be flawed. Get over yourself.
Brody Johnson
>flawed characters tend to be good things
No. Well-written characters tend to be good things. Thinking making a character an edge-lord or a repulsive boor is bad writing. It's sophomore creative writing class writing.
Dysfunctional people are as a rule boring. This is one of the things you learn growing up. They are boring because they can neither change themselves nor their surroundings and good characters must always react and emote to whatever conflict they face. Dysfunction people act the same way to the same things like a broken record.
Grow up user. "My character is interesting because he has the personality of a teenager" is sub-paperback level writing.
Isaac Ward
He puts too much pressure on himself. As much as people look up to him, he doesn't see himself as someone doing good, but as someone who didn't do better. There's a few times where characters that thought he was inherently arrogant or self-obsessed found either collected letters he had of people angrily telling him he didn't save someone they loved, or even clippings of tragedies he couldn't prevent. Being that good of a man with so much power is bound to weigh you down for everything you couldn't do.
Dominic Martin
He has such a huge guilt complex that he pretends to be weaker than he is for basic socialization. Think about that.
Bentley Williams
>Thinking making a character an edge-lord or a repulsive boor is bad writing. It's sophomore creative writing class writing.
And thinking that a character to be flawed needs to be a edgelord and repulsive teenager shows that you are immature.
>Dysfunctional people are as a rule boring.
user, treating opinions on literature as fact is a sign of autism. You clearly also cant separate yourself or the author from the character that you are reading.
What you said has exactly 0 basis on facts.
Jason Howard
All good qualities become flaws when the cause conflict.
A character that is flawed for the sake of having flaws is poorly written.
Mason Roberts
I blame Marvel.
They convinced the readers that a good character is a character that is a drunkard, or beats women, or tries to kill their own friends whenever they disagree on a matter. Comic Book readers bought the lie, even though the majority of those "flawed, relatable" characters don't have any good stories.
Henry Carter
>company war faggot
Kill yourself
This is the kind of strawmen argument of these capeshit obssessed faggots.
Hellboy is a better hero than Superman (that leaves Gothan to be shit despite living right next to it, and never does something like curing cancer, despite being almost as smart as Luthor), and at least he has actual flaws.
Jason Butler
And yet, superman biggest story is where he is a flawed character.
Daniel Phillips
>ALL of Marvel heroes live in New York
>Some of them have reality-warping powers
>Marvel's NY is still such a shithole that the Punisher is free to kill almost 50,000 thugs in a few years of continuity and the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four see nothing wrong with it.
>-BUT MUH GOTHAM"
Kil yourself.
Ethan Hughes
>He insists
I just insulted both Marvel and DC, and you faggot has the need to bring Marvel up, like the little company war dog that you are.
Your husbando is shit user.
Ayden Harris
>Hellboy is a better hero than Superman (that leaves Gothan to be shit despite living right next to it, and never does something like curing cancer, despite being almost as smart as Luthor), and at least he has actual flaws.
>I just insulted both Marvel and DC
You sure did.
Carson Anderson
user
> capeshit obssessed faggots
This goes for Marvel and DC.
Also, Hellboy is not Marvel, idiot.
Tyler Thompson
Hellboy is just hell flavored Ben Grimm.
Oliver Nelson
Kryptonite
Liam Cooper
Heh, Hellboy goes across some worse shit. Like, his uncle showing up at his birthdays and telling him that he needs to kill everyone that he knows.
I dont remember he caring for his appereance since he was a kid. Even so, he and Ben only have in common their more "blue colar" aproach and nice guyness.
Benjamin Gutierrez
>leaves Gotham to be shit despite living right next to it
He literally can't do anything about it without going ultra-authoritarian which he doesn't want to do. Batman's super-autistic about Gotham being his territory. Every time Superman or really any flying brick tries to get involved there, Batman shits a cinderblock and starts doing everything he can to remove them.
Christian Barnes
So he is basicaly enabling Batmans autism to endanger people.
Because Superman could take most of his rogues in minutes without letting them kill anybody.
He is more at fault than Batman not killing the Joker, because he has no execuse of crossing the line - he could just easily capture them.
Brayden Hill
>Superman dedicates half of his life to help people in the whole world
>"Yeah, but this one city here is violent, so he is a shitty person".
Meanwhile, Marvel's NY is almost as shitty as Gotham even though all Marvel heroes live there. How much worse than Superman are Marvel heroes?
Isaac Taylor
>Superman lets people die because of one madman autism
>Lets he keep murderers and other criminals like Red Hood around
>Lets Zatana and all kind of unethical faggots do as they please with civilians and still join the JL
>Doesnt cure cancer or bring any other scietiphic advancement to the world, despite being closer in intelect to Luthor, and always saying that HE should do these things
>But muh Marvel
I already said, they are both shit, and your taste is garbage, both universes make no fucking sense and the world building is an ilogical bad written mess.
Isaac Sanchez
He cares more about his morals than doing the right thing.
Aiden Cook
Flaws is a buzzword don't @ me. "Flaws" do not automatically make a character better. What people really mean when they talk about flaws is conflict. Conflict can arise through external problems, or due to a characters own actions and feelings.
Sometimes a character has a negative trait about them that causes conflict, and to avoid that conflict from occurring again, they try to shed that trait. Kids today don't understand that, and think it's fine for a character to maintain a negative quality forever because it makes them "flawed".
Some characters have intrinsic qualities about them that can be manipulated to create conflict. IE, a characters trustworthiness has gained them many allies, but it is thrown into question when someone betrays his trust. A character wants to save everyone they can, but then someone they saved goes on to do even more harm than what they were saved from.
No character needs flaws. Character traits can be positive or negative depending on how they affect the character's situation.
Henry Gutierrez
Damn user, this might be true, but you didn't need to throw it in his face like that. Poor bastard...actualy, scratch that, he was a companywar fag.
Connor Edwards
user, sapient beings HAVE flaws. You can't avoid that.
Ryder Smith
>And yet, superman biggest story is where he is a flawed character.
Which story is that?
Between Ant-Man and Superman, Ant-Man surely is more flawed. Why doesn't Ant-Man have any memorable story? Or Iron Man? Or Wonder Man? Or Quicksilver?
Jose Morales
Salient beings have qualities about them that separate them from other beings. How negatively or positively they affect you is based on how you manage them.
Dylan Nguyen
Not him, buuut...
user, you are making an strawman. Nobody said that flaws makes the character have automaticaly memorable stories. Hell, a shitload of people on the thread also provided good arguments that Superman is a flawed man due to plenty of factors.
And no fucking body is arguing that Marvel heroes are shit as DC heroes.
What I DID say was that having flaws (and the proper world building) makes Hellboy a way better character and hero than Superman.
I could also argue that Pym is at the very least more interesting than Clark in his struggle and self destructive tendencies....but to be honest I fucking hate the cyclical nature of Big 2 shit that makes it all useless.
Gavin Young
Superman has never even been at a party. What a fucking loser. Is that flawed enough for you?
Cooper Roberts
Superman red sun
Kingdom come
Superman last son
Ryder James
>I could also argue that Pym is at the very least more interesting than Clark in his struggle and self destructive tendencies.
Well, why such an interesting, complex character doesn't have any good story, then?
Nolan Perry
Because he is a Big 2 character, as shit as Superman, and both are inferior to Krauss, Abe and Hellboy in every aspect
Zachary Green
But Superman has a nice catalog of good stories, in spite of not being as "interesting and complex" as... Ant-Man (LOL). He is also part of the same Big 2 that Ant-Man is.
Why is that? How can a character that doesn't even beat women have good stories?
Austin King
Superman had beaten women before, he even kill one too.
Brandon Howard
>Talking shit about based Pym
Mason James
>This is an example of a "good" Pym story
The guy is truly a waste of paper.
Ian Murphy
user, Superman:
Lets he keep murderers and other criminals like Red Hood around
>Lets Zatana and all kind of unethical faggots do as they please with civilians and still join the JL
>Doesnt cure cancer or bring any other scietiphic advancement to the world, despite being closer in intelect to Luthor, and always saying that HE should do these things
He is pretty flawed, hell, he is worst than a wife beater is thats the case.
And as I said, Hellboy is still a better character than him, with better stories, BECAUSE he is flawed.
Christopher Gonzalez
Also there is a difference of having actual flaws (like Hellboy and Superman ACTUAL flaws like people discussed here ), the infered flaws (like the ones that I mentioned, that are born out of Big 2 shitty world building) and your stupid argument that he is not flawed.
At this point I do believe that he is flawed for being arrogant, overconfident and kind of self righteous person that sometimes he doesnt do what it has to be done. And this is fine.
You on the other side keeps defending how he is flawless, and that having flaws make you a worse character, which is stupid.
And Hellboy is still a better character than Superman, in part for having more interesting flaws.
You are having to bring Marvel character for god knows what reason to try to justify your shit taste....while I already said that you are a faggot for being a Big 2 dog.
Jack Thompson
Ops, this post goes for
Adam Ross
>shilling this hard
Look I know Hellboy is sacred around here and I love him too, but you're kidding yourself if you think he alone is what makes his comics great. Hellboy as a character isn't much beyond "grizzled warrior with heart of gold" and "has tragic fate". His traits all stem from that trope and they've been done before and in some instances better. His stories are great because they are creatively told in a world rich with intrigue and other interesting character. It's greater than the sum of its parts, not carried entirely by one character.
Christian Barnes
SUPERMAN CAN'T DANCE.
PROVE ME WRONG.
FIND ME ONE. FFUCKING. INSTANCE. WHERE THAT MOTHERFUCKER'S DANCING. AND I DON'T MEAN DANCING LIKE YOU'RE AT SOMEONE'S FUCKING WEDDING, I MEAN DANCE-DANCE LIKE MICHEAL FUCKING JACKSON.
PROVE ME WRONG.
SUPERMAN CAN'T DANCE.
Matthew Lee
That didn't take long
Liam Long
user, we all know that the Mignolaverse is better written and more interesting than Marvel/DC shit, this isnt the point.
Also Superman is still responsable for all the people that die of cancer and shit happening in Hub city and Gothan, he is indeed a worse person than Hellboy and not much better than Marvel characters
Dominic Sanchez
FUCK HE'S PERFECT
Joseph Brown
By that logic, every doctor trying to cure cancer is responsible for cancer deaths, and every police officer is responsible for the deaths caused by criminals.
Also how can you say Hellboys flaws make him better than Superman, but Superman's flaws make him worse? Do flaws make a character better or don't they?
You wanna know Clark's biggest issue? He tries to be there for everyone, the world's savior, and people start to believe he can be. Then when he can't deliver, because he is only one man afterall, they come bitch about him on Sup Forums.
Eli Lewis
wait, why is companywar faggotry only limited to the big 2 even if someone else just doing the same shit with a third company?
Jose Brooks
He becoming more like Peter Parker minus the jokes in modern times.
Dominic Ward
It's the infinite arrogance of indiefags.
Nathaniel Reyes
my guess is that his rationale is if a company produces something he likes, that company and thing he likes (hellboy in this case) is somehow exempt from having contempt heaped upon it and makes his moral posturing valid.
Thomas Gomez
>I blame Marvel.
You should blame the Greeks instead.
Anthony Torres
>By that logic, every doctor trying to cure cancer is responsible for cancer deaths
The difference, is that he can actualy do that, its not beyond his reach. Hell, he did that in some elseworlds.
>and every police officer is responsible for the deaths caused by criminals.
Again, the difference is that he stay away from those cities just for arbitrary dumb reasons. Its like a police officer refusing to help in x city because its not "his" city, while people die in front of him and he has nothing to lose and a 100% chance of victory against the criminal.
>Also how can you say Hellboys flaws make him better than Superman, but Superman's flaws make him worse?
Hellboy has flaws like alchohol adiction induced by traumas and horrible events, which makes him end up in shit situations. Hellboy is limited on what he can do, he cant save the world with his limited scope and usual powers, he cant cure cancer, he cant stop crime in a city. But you can bet that if he could cure cancer, or throw Batman aside if he could.
Unlike Superman. There is also the issue of Superman being very selective with what he lets his JL friends do, including get away with murder, crimes, brainwashing and all sort of immoral stuff.
The closest thing that he did was refusing to be King of England, fearing that he would go crazy with the power.
Basicaly, the way that DC is written, makes Superman end up like a hypocrite and self righteous with arbitrary rules, while Hellboy is consistent.
Connor Mitchell
He's like batman, he's stubbornly self entitled in his position in the world and has a god complex as a result. He truly believes hes the best and mightiest in a world of demi gods which makes him insecure about his reputation.
Again Lex Luthor is right.
Adrian Watson
The greeks never said that "only morally corrupted characters are good and relatable characters", they just wrote some of them that way (and they always ended up being fucked anyway).
The Greeks gave us Odyssey and Illyad. Marvel gave us Ant-Man.
Anthony Wright
Or maybe I just hate the way that company owned characters like the Big 2 work, and that its a breeding ground for bad storytelling and low standarts
Ryder Lopez
Geez, you are really obssessed with Marvel. Both companies are shit.
Landon Peterson
Or maybe you are just an indiefag that thinks to highly of himself.
Hudson Powell
>Everyone who is not completely flawless is morally corrupt
That's a pretty fucked up world view.
Easton Wright
Heroes that legitimately try to kill each other every year because they disagree on something are morally corrupted.
Wyatt Powell
I am just a normal person.
You are also a normal person too with shit taste in comics
Nobody but you are talking about Marvel.
Isaac Hill
>caring too much about doing a good work
This is called being a perfectionist, and it's such a huge flaw, I don't know that I'd hire someone who admitted to it, since it means they'll rarely get work done without being led by the nose.
Cooper Kelly
>I am just a normal person.
>he says with a straight face while shitposting on Sup Forums
Leo Sanchez
Sup Forums is mainstream as fuck.
Kevin Williams
>Sup Forums is mainstream as fuck.
Facebook is mainstream. Reddit is mainstream. Instagram is mainstream. Sup Forums is a weird relic from the older part of the internet that hasn't died out because the userbase hasn't decided to abandon ship yet.
Nicholas Reed
Reddit and Sup Forums are populated by almost entirely the same people. If one is mainstream, they both are.
Jackson Long
He can be the jealous type, particularly in regards to Lois. Tends to keep things from other people, I mean he literally has a fortress of solitude. But I think his biggest flaw is that he is a bit naive simply because he can solve his problems easier then most. Feeling groggy in the morning? Fly towards the sun for a couple minutes that always works. Late for work and your boss is giving you shit? Fly around the world so fast time goes backwards and your early instead, or put em though a wall, doesn't matter. He does his best to relate but he doesn't really 'get it'. It's what Luthor hates about him, he's a big dumb boy scout/liberal arts major that keeps interfering in things he doesn't fully understand because he thinks he knows better because JUSTICE! or some shit.
Ian Thomas
Being populated by the same group of people does not make both mainstream, just in the same way that one man fucking two women does not make them both his wives. If Reddit is the trophy wife, then Sup Forums is the "open-secret" mistress on the side. Both sites are not the same in purpose or design and both don't carry the same reputation. Thinking that sharing the same userbase is enough to make both mainstream is just false equivalence. You might as well say that there's no difference between Hellboy and Superman because they're both American comic book characters who solve their problems with super-powered fisticuffs.
Ian Young
I thought he's the equivalent to god. Who will save us in our greatest time of need? Superman.
His flaw is that he's not human. He's a god. He will never know what it's like to be human, no matter how many writers try tackling this issue.
William Evans
You are talking about Thor, not Superman.
Brayden Rogers
well I guess it depends on what you mean user
character wise is pretty much it
but because of a boatload of stories are things people can bring up
Benjamin Mitchell
Ant-Man is great though.