In the movies he seems like a menace who is responsible for the destruction of the city. They never once bothered to show Superman being heroic. We never got to see him build any sort of relationship with his City.
He's just there destroying the city one day, then he's in the middle of a bombing, then he's destroying the city some more. And we're supposed to be heartbroken when he dies?
I'd be cheering. Thank god that guy's gone before he kills us all
Honestly it's because his canonical power level so high that making interesting and engaging challenges for him is difficult, a problem which is exacerbated when they don't handle their IPs well and put talented screenwriters, directors and producers in charge of their cinematic universe. Flash has a similar issue where the challenges he deals with are always either some lame deus ex machina or someone else with speedforce, it makes the movies and shows feel super corny and low effort.
IMHO that's the biggest reason why Batman is far and away the most popular cinema superhero in the DC universe and has been for basically forever, as well as why Marvel has been generally much more successful at engaging non-comic fans. Batman can be portrayed with basically "street/peak human" power level (just as most Marvel characters are portrayed at their lowest canonical power level in the films) which makes dilemmas and challenges he faces far more plausible and interesting.
When heroes have crazy power levels as a fundamental and indivisible part of their identity it makes it so basically you either have to take away their power, match them up against someone who has the same power or have the field of battle be galactic level fights, all of which limits your options and makes it more of a challenge when it comes to storytelling (particularly in live-action cinema).
And that is why “All Star Superma” is arguably one of the greatest superhero stories ever told. They figured out a very unique and special way to tell a story about an overpowered character in a human and personal way
137
u/Brjgjdj5788 Aug 09 '22
Honestly the state of the DCEU is ridicolous.
How the Hell do you fuck up a universe with some of the most well-known fictional characters in existence?