Ask Lemmy

Tony Stark - oligarchic propagandist for normalizing the myth of exceptionalism

Superman. He just does everything and wins. Unless you show him a green rock.

It's stupid. I don't understand how it ever interested anyone.

Jane Foster when she was the wielder of Mjolnir. Not for anything about her personally, but the fact that Thor was treated as a codename. It's the dude's actual name, it'd be like if Sam Wilson went around introducing himself as Steve Rogers when he took the Captain America mantle. It's happened a few other times like with Eric Masterson, but at least he had the excuse that for most of the time he used the name he and the actual Thor were sharing a body.

The Flash.

Not because I don't like the character but because he honestly should be one of the strongest characters in DC but they constantly nerf him in the writing because they realized just like superman he could literally just show up and fix everything before anyone else even realized there was a problem

Don't hate spiderman. Hate the writers roughly since 2000 that only let him have a break from misery when he's in an alternate universe where he never became spider man.

Batman, tries to solve the cities problems by getting himself a load of expensive toys.

I have to assume you've only seen the Spider-Man movies of recent years and not the comics, the original live action show, or the 90's animated series.

All of those go well into Peter Parker's adult years and he's a much more likeable character. I don't particularly like what they have done to him in the modern stuff (outside of Spiderverse since Miles is a totally different person anyway). It doesn't help that it's been rebooted 3 times so all they've shown is his origin story a bunch of times. I can't stand modern Spidey, either. And it's extra infuriating because Spider-Man is my favorite.

Superman.

He's just a dude that was made of perfection. Nothing can go too wrong for him. Perfectly strong. Perfectly sound. Perfectly everything.

Yes I know and am aware of the arcs he's been in where writers have tried to give Superman internal challenges and struggles about who he is as a superhero. But it's like he's going to bounce back from it all anyways because he's walking perfection.

And a lot of over-compensating guys idolize that.

Batman. He's a billionaire playboy living in a city full of poverty. He may not kill but he has no problem crippling someone for life. And the fact he apparently learns nothing about the joker over the decades has resulted in so so many people dying to the joker's schemes.

And the reality is that he's still that same child in that alley but in an adult's body. He takes on different child robins because he never grew past that. He has trauma that was never treated and one of the main symptoms of trauma is being stuck in the time period that the trauma happened. He doesn't really have a personality beyond the trauma.

The Flash. No list of reasons. Just never appealed to me at all.

I really can't stand Damian Wayne I just find him annoying and bratty.

If anyone has any good story recommendations with him I would like to hear about it.

Cyclops. What a toolbox.

And in the X-Men ‘97 reboot, WOW! have they ramped up the toolbox factor.

All of them. Can't stand the superhero-dominated media market.

Deadpool. He's not funny, he's just obnoxious.

I can't think of the name, but that one superhero that wears the funny outfit.

She-Hulk, read a few of the comics, saw another version, I don't get the appeal. So she's a lawyer, so is Daredevil, it's a job that doesn't lend itself well to perilous adventures. Filing a brief....at the edge of madness! She forgot that the county clerk's office is closed on Memorial Day (US observed)!!! Dun dun duuuunnn

Hulk. He's an angry green guy with muscles, created with gamma radiation, nothing special. After a while, he feels less like a super hero and more like a Super Smash Bros fighter.

Did you ever watch the Spiderverse movies? I feel like you’d appreciate Peter B Parker a lot.

Personally I don’t really hate any superheroes. I never fell in love with Wolverine like most people did though. My first experiences with X Men were the first two live action movies, however.

All of them.Deadpool was kinda funny.

Robin from the batman franchise, his character seems so extra and forced.

I'm kind of annoyed by most superheroes as characters because of the costume thing.

The spandex thing that's a pretty-common convention was because the Comic Code Authority disallowed nudity. Solution? Skintight outfits.

Now, I've got no problem with nudity, or salaciousness, or outright adult comics for that matter.

But we've got all that historical baggage of just about everyone running around in skintight outfits. So a lot of the genre winds up with having to come up with elaborate explanations as to why they're wearing the things.

The CCA is long dead. You can have nudity or salaciousness in comic books if you want. But the convention is still with us because of designs that date to that era, and it's just senseless. I feel like it kinda restricts the genre and doesn't help the immersion.

There are comic characters who don't do the spandex thing. John Constantine or Dick Tracy wear trenchcoats. Dream in Sandman doesn't have fixed garb, but doesn't do spandex.

The Parahumans series -- Worm and Ward web serials, not comic books but certainly superheroes -- are what I'd call some examples of modern superheroes that don't have a design dating from an era where there were CCA constraints. Granted, they aren't graphic novels or comic books, so there are different incentives, but even so.

Pretty much all of them.

Modern Batman and Modern Superman.

I won't go on my 2 hour rant off everything wrong. But a short version is the writing for them is lazy and undeveloped. Both of them represent the most uninteresting form of a power fantasy. The modern Batman of 'having a plan for everything' and being this overburden angsty character is just awful. If Batman was a d&d character, he has loaded dice and is throwing that 20s on intimidation. And for Superman he's just not interesting, because with the amount of power he's been given and the amount of abilities he has the fact that lex luthor is somehow a villain of his is laughable.

Batman used to be the world's greatest detective. And for me the last time I saw Batman be Batman was the '90s animated series. And frankly the most recent movie The Batman also did a very good job I thought in that regard.

Superman used to have limits. He was fast but not infinite speed fast. He was strong but not infinite strength.

In both cases it feels like the people who write for these characters use one simple rule... This my favorite character so he win. Neither character feels like their struggles are earned, because the writing is forced. Like it used to be if Superman needed to save somebody you weren't 100% sure he'd be able to get there in time, stop the bad guy save the people! Modern Superman is like, a being a hundred light years away, tripped and their falling! They need your help before they get a boo-boo and I have no doubt Superman would get there somehow and then save a hundred worlds along the way. (An over-exaggeration I know but I want to get the point across at how lazy I feel the writing is). Or the fact that anybody fears Batman when most of his villains barely fear him. You have members like Green lantern, Martian manhunter, Superman, and Wonder woman who act like in any way Batman is a threat to them.

I'll stop ranting cuz I can honestly go on. But I will say with the massive decline for me personally with these two, I've been far more receptive of some of the other DC characters that I used to overlook when I was younger. I can't believe I 100% slept on the flash like that dude is straight boss. Or plastic man! So at least some good came of it.

A superhero who can't stand? The Christopher Reeves Superman.

I'll see myself out.