C. J. Charles' Life

What’s wrong with how Superman is portrayed?  Here’s five big problems that have plagued him

1) Wish-fulfillment.  Making him married to a spouse with some big penthouse in Metropolis goes to show that Superman can have it all, and for a lot of Post-Crisis for me, it detracted from his actual adventuring aspect of him, and gave plenty of forced, stupid, and unneccessary drama like the Cir-El Story, Wrath of Magog, etc.  Is it too hard to ask for a Bronze Age Superman, that guy had fun, and despite him hanging out with Lana Lang on occasion?  I didn’t mind what I learned about the Bronze Age, because adventure and the quest for Justice was the main focus.  Like the Superman story called “For the Man Who Has Everything” because the fact that within that story he didn’t “have it all” humanized him, and it humanizes superheroes in general too.

2) He is not a messiah or a God.  In most of my favorite stories, Kingdom Come included, Superman admits fully that he isn’t a God of any sort, putting imagery of him being a savior essentially does disservice, because I am more entertained by him having something to struggle with, some kind of morality, conscience, drive, etc.

3) BS Retcons.  This is the lowest of the low that DC has done to Superman, essentially taking the guy who was Superman for 5 years, and was in the middle of a struggle, then figuring, let’s replace him for a coward who hides out and tries to make the world think that there isn’t two Supermen, for the sake of his family, which is funny because he met a Superman who lost his family and friends from Earth-22, who didn’t care, and would not hide, he just wanted people from this canon Earth to be alright, as if it was his own universe.  Even worse, why should I as someone who likes Superman, root for this guy?  In the end, I don’t care.  Plus why scapegoat Superman for some stupid BS retcons like everything about him was fake all along?  Way to go DC, unless I was a die hard fan of Superman being in a given relationship, I cannot support this move.

4) Too focused on him being Super as opposed to a person.  Superman isn’t a person, and saying that people without powers are his moral foundation doesn’t make him inspiring.

5) Keep replaying the Superman death card.  Sorry people, there’s a reason why people don’t take peril or death that seriously for characters anymore, Superman included, he practically started the Superhero death/resurrection cycle.

No harm will come to the one I love I will catch you if you fall, I will carry you if you can’t move, I will protect you if you are defenseless, I will help you lift your burdens, I walk with you I’m your dark hour, I wait out the storm with you, I fight evil with you, I will stand beside you…

Though at times we, as each other, will think we can overcome these odysseys alone, but it is not a sign of weakness to allow each other to help each other, we do it cause we do not wish to see our love in harms way because of our problems….

But we will not abandon each other cause together we are stronger and fiercer and more compassionate together…

#Superman #WonderWoman 

Bullying is a terrible problem many vulnerable people are still facing. Especially the young, who might not have the strength, confidence and self esteem to stand up to it and or ignore it. This morning I was compelled to do this post because I saw the hurt it could do and we want the person/s being bullied to take heart and be strong.

Now at hellyeah we have and still face our share of trolls who try to ridicule or discourage us. In the early days many of our followers were often attacked if they had an opinion that was not in line with theirs and perhaps they hoped we would just shut down our blog. But our love of the two heroes was stronger and we persevered…a lone blog surrounded by hostile traditional bloggers who thought what we liked was sacrilege. But guess what? It paid off us just doing our thing and suddenly our ship was front and center in comics and our blog keep growing. Because other people expressed liking the same thing and suddenly realized they too were not alone. So being yourself pays off. And  end of the day we won’t allow ourselves to be dragged into stupid shipping wars. These characters are not real and they for entertainment etc. We older seasoned fans might be able to say, why so serious? to those angry fans that try to make a daily stink out of the fact Clark and  Diana are together.

But there are younger fans out there. Young ones just discovering comics and heroes. Who find inspiration and comfort in the heroes. Superheroes and comics can make one’s day that much brighter. Offer hope. Teach lessons. Make one feel warm and fuzzy inside. Make one laugh. Empower one. No one know what kids are facing in their daily lives. If they have problems at school , at home, if they are being abused or ostracized. When they find something they feel passionate about or care for something different or are different…why must they be ridiculed for it? They can express themselves as they want. They can use whatever tags they want. Other bloggers don’t need to stalk them and reprimand them for it and create tags around their names and encourage their cliques to attack them on mass. That is unacceptable behavior especially by older fans who call themselves true fans.

Today we achieved another milestone since starting on tumblr in April , 2011. We crossed over 12,000 followers. To everyone we want to say a sincere and grateful thank you. We wouldn’t be here nor be having such a great time on tumblr were it not for your support and your own enthusiasm and generosity. 

Hellyeahsupermanandwonderwoman prides itself on being a blog that not only celebrates our two favorite heroes as a pairing but we really feel everyone has a right to freely enjoy, share and be creative re what interests them. We hope to keep trying to encourage a love for comics/superheroes. 

We’re proud to be Superman/Wonder Woman fans.

11,040 followers as of 3rd Feb 2015. It’s been quite a journey since April 2011. We started off when our couple was only a dream to us and mostly paired up in Elseworlds. Then 2012 came and we got much more than we imagined. We are grateful to everyone we reblog, and those who follow us. Our goal  is not only to enjoy our favorite fictional pairing but support other blogs as well. We are all DC and general superhero fans together. I feel fans still need to be kinder to each other though. It’s not about cutting others down if they like something different to you. We can disagree about content but those who make personal attacks on Superman/Wonder Woman fans ( yes we see it all the time online from certain quarters still deriding us as people based on what we ship) …I don’t think they get it. That’s not what our heroes are about. We are here to spread the SM/WW love one blog, one pic, one pin,  one tweet, one story, one comic, one movie, one cosplay, one fan art etc at a time. And we won’t stop.

So thank you, everyone, and let’s hope 2015 is a superwonderful one. Thank you again. 

Superman/Wonder Woman “Gods and Monsters” Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony Daniel

Gone is the fun timey wimey stuff, replaced with the need to deal with more pressing matters. Doomsday is a big deal, he did kill Superman the one time long ago in a universe far far away. As straight forward “Gods and Monsters” is, Soule and crew make it an enjoyable read.

When it comes to discussing the art of a given book, I tend to think that it’s not my strongest suit. I have been racking my brain and looking at adjectives, but keep coming back around to “big” and “flowing”. With comic books being so regimented in terms of page count the use of space really matters. Starting with a pair of splash pages, “Gods and Monsters” takes up a fair chunk of its space at the very start with several just large images.  And you could argue that this takes up too much space, but there is such nice motion in these large images, mostly comprised of Superman/Wonder Woman flying across the frame. It denotes a scale fitting for two characters of this stature.  

As grand a scale, Tony Daniels draws their flying bodies against, it is the little sly expressions Superman and Wonder Woman with really make this issue. The little asides and reactions one another have to each other’s actions add a depth of humanity to these literal and quasi-Gods. From Supes apology to throwing Apollo out of Mt. Etna, because he knew Wonder Woman could take care of herself to Wonder Woman’s smirking response. These little moments ground what is an issue filled with sound and fury.

I guess there is that matter of Doomsday to discuss. Only there isn’t really that much to discuss. As Wonder Woman describes it he was “flickering like a flame in the wind”. His presence allows for some clarification that Death of Superman technically didn’t happen, but Supes knows about him. Soule replaces one Superman Big Bad for another though, ending on a splash page of Zod coming through the Phantom Zone. Daniels design for Zod is a nice amalgam of Man of Steel and Superman 2, he looks like a younger Terence Stamp but in armor remincent of Man of Steel. Zod (possibly) inadvertently killing 12 random passersby was pretty brutal.

Cat Grant’s continuous presence as the ‘C’ plot of this book is actually pretty enjoyable. She exists as a nice break from the ‘A’/’B’ plot to create some dramatic tension, what happened to Superman after Apollo slapped him away.  This avenue also allows for the second arc length plot to get a little development. 

Other Thoughts