Batman is better than Superman

Unless you're a die-hard fanboy (ahem), it is very hard to read a Superman comic or watch a Superman film and feel connected with the big blue boy scout. It's taken me three awesome Batman films, all of the films leading up to The Avengers and the recent reboot of the DC comics universe for me to realise this - but it's become almost impossible to write a compelling Superman story. 

Batman stole his chips

Let me start by backtracking my blasphemy just a little. Superman has been many times referred to as the superhero - the first, the most righteous, and arguably the most powerful. He is the moral compass of the DC universe and the light which many other superheroes follow. He is invulnerable as well as being (pretty much) infallible in his morals.

But it's for precisely these reasons that the Superman franchise has become stale.

This becomes particularly clear when you examine the last two Christopher Nolan Batman films What made The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises so compelling was that the Joker and Bane bested Batman - intellectually, physically and spiritually. One of the core elements that made Nolan's films so compelling was that you really did not know if Bruce Wayne could pull through. The grit and reality with which he portrayed that struggle was what we wanted to see.

This 'come at me bro' ends badly for the Bat.

The first problem with Superman is there is never much of a contest (in any believable context). In Superman Returns, despite the plot having to fall back to the anti-deus ex machina that is Kryptonite, he still pulls through and lifts an entire island of Kryptonite and throws it into space. And the Death of Superman comic story arc was supposed to present the Doomsday monster as his final match - culminating in a violent and bloody death. But this was all completely undone when a) he came back to life and b) subsequently defeated an entire army of Doomsday clones in a later Superman/Batman story arc. 

What films like the recent Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises have is a true sense of heroic struggle. Peter Parker has to grow as a person and become stronger physically in order to actually get to a point where he can save the day. Bruce Wayne not only gets his back broken, but has to confront human indignity at almost every turn before he manages to beat Bane. In both of these movies we see the kind of conflict that makes us slump back in our seats and say 'crap, he might actually not make it out of this one'.

Andrew Garfield gets curb-stomped rather alot

And this is the second and essential reason why people don't connect with Superman - no conflict means no growth. In the first Superman movie, he looses and like a petulant child, disobeys his father's dictum to 'not mess with humanity' and decides to turn back time. With Doomsday, as with Superman Returns, the writers decide to take advantage of how ambiguous Superman's powers are and pull an extra can of whoop-ass out of the bag at a convenient plot point. 

None of these instances in Superman's history have inspired us to really feel for the guy. We connect with losers. And strangely enough the problem isn't that he never looses (nor do any of the other superheroes). The problem is we don't know how he could loose. No one has done a good job of defining the limit to his powers and put him in a context where he really has to struggle to break those limits. And no, Kryptonite doesn't count because it is an overused deus ex machina and its speculative effectiveness was nullified in Superman Returns.

In fairness - Superman II and Superman Returns show him getting curb stomped in a much similar fashion to other successful superhero movies, but neither really show how any personal realisation helps him overcome the conflict. This inner journey is what we crave from superhero movies. Ultimately we've grown to a point where we don't just want big effects, seeing superhero beings destroy the cityscapes. If we just wanted that we'd just go and see The Avengers again. There's a deep philosophy behind being a superhero and the idea of power being inherently tied to social responsibility. We're aware of this, and we get disappointed when we don't see it in a Superhero story.

So what would make a good Superman story? I have some ideas - but my not being a professional writer basically shafts all my ideas into the realm of fan-fiction (let us never open that box of despair). But the essential crux is that one would not only need to put Superman into some sort of dire situation, but one that takes a hell of a personal journey to fight back from. And given the stigma that already exists with how uninteresting he is, Zack Snyder is going to have to pull one hell of a cat out of his bag for Man of Steel.

Don't get me wrong - I still love Superman. Despite the fact that he's a wildly imaginary character, I look up to him. There's something in his infallibility and his bravery and his strength that gives you something simple and grand to aspire to. But I'm a particular type of romantic that way. I realise that the rest of the world has a tendancy for not being giddy at the thought of having a big red S emblazoned on their chest.