The Red Cape Diaries

Or, a comparative study in pacifism, moral dilemmas, and heroic agency in Man of Steel and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A disclaimer: Yes, I am aware that one of these things is a cartoon made for kids and the other is a movie made for older audiences that’s only based on a cartoon character for kids. I’m not saying one should have been more like the other in any general sort of way. Aang is a twelve year old kid and having him explicitly kill someone was probably not something Nickelodeon would have ever allowed. Nor should they. I’m not saying the writers of Avatar should have had Aang kill Ozai. But, there are some interesting similarities between the two stories that I think are illustrative of a major issue writers often end up facing in any medium, and comparing how each set of writers handled that issue is worthwhile.

Similarity #1: Our hero, a gentle soul who is reluctant to use violence:

I disagree, they were always going to have similar plots because they’re both versions of the same origin story. All supermans get compared to Reeve because people still have it in their heads that he is the one true perfect embodiment of Superman, not just a version, but the one and only version. MoS gets hate because 1) It’s been seen by a lot more people, the two superman tv shows that aired in between the two franchises never came close to being seen by as many people as a Hollywood blockbuster. So for a lot of people who weren’t already fanatics this was the first time they’d seen a Superman who wasn’t Reeve or Reeve-lite. 

2) It’s a much bigger departure than any previous post-Reeve adaptation in terms of tone and depth. MoS very pointedly refuses to indulge in camp, so Jonathan and Martha don’t look like they walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting, Lois doesn’t talk like she walked out of a screwball comedy, Clark doesn’t saw “swell” “golly” or “lickety split” and there’s no exaggerated shtick when he’s in civilian clothes. Snyder deliberately avoids cliche or “essential” Superman images, like we’ve never even gotten a shot of Cavil ripping open his shirt. This back-to-basics approach rests on treating Superman as an actual three dimensional character whose psyche is worth diving into to a degree that’s never been done outside of comics before, but it’s a big departure from people’s image of Superman. Because people’s image of Superman is pretty much just that-a flat image, a symbol of superheroes and goodness, but nothing deeper. 

When people talk about what they love about Reeve’s Superman they always talk about stunts–lifting the helicopter, spinning the Earth backwards, taking Lois flying–but they pointedly do not talk about Superman’s arc or character development. Partially because there isn’t really an arc, and what little there is doesn’t interest the movie’s defenders, they don’t want a character they just want a symbol of heroism. This is why critics, and even actual Superman fans, unironically proclaim The Iron Giant the best Superman movie ever made despite the fact that Superman isn’t a character in it, because to them that movie’s use of “Superman” as a symbol representing goodness and heroism is exactly what they want from him. No character, just a symbol. The irony is Zack even calls them out on this in BvS, the entire montage of news commentators playing over works as a commentary on how critics and fans think of him. The images are of the sort of Super-stunts that would be central scenes in the Donner films, the things fans would remember years later. But the commentators are questioning this and whether it’s right to view him as a savior or a symbol, we the audience are supposed to recognize that it’s not and that beneath his powers Clark is just a man (”maybe he’s just a guy trying to do the right thing”). Critics don’t get this though, they have it so ingrained in their heads that Superman is just an uncomplicated symbol of goodness that they think the scene is cynical, that it’s proof that Zack doesn’t understand Superman.

and then we got that version of bruce wayne on screen, and people said it wasn’t really batman, batman would never act like that. it’s all i’ve EVER read batman as, and people who have never picked up a comic want to take away what makes him intensely precious to me? they don’t want to see him struggle with weighty moral problems and his own mental labyrinth? they don’t want that?

You can’t have a power fantasy with emotional weaknesses, because we’re trained to think that the perfect person is a flawless person. But that’s not true. To be a perfect human is to be flawed. If you’re not flawed you’re essentially a god, and that separates you from humanity.

Arguably what makes Superman perfect is that he has all of the emotional strain that we do and still manages to save the world. He has godlike powers, but he isn’t a god, he doesn’t want to be a god either, he just wants to help people.

And what makes Batman such a compelling character is that he is so broken, and could be the most powerful villain ever, but he is still compelled to do good. Even when he loses his way, it’s still for the greater good, in his mind. And of course, that’s why he really was the main villain of BvS. Because villains always think what they’re doing is right, and can always justify their wrongs. What the audience struggled with is reconciling the ideas that a hero can be wrong. And he was wrong. People complaining that his actions aren’t true to the character are missing what his character is. Because this was Batman finally going off the edge that he’s balanced so precariously on. The edge that he looks down from and knows how easy and comforting the fall could be. But when he hits the ground, he realises that it’s ugly, painful and messy down there. So he has a choice, stay down there, a broken, ugly creature, or climb back up and get a clear perspective again.

Being shown this in a superhero movie is unprecedented. And to be shown it with arguably the most well known and well loved characters in superhero history is unfathomably brave and bold.

And people struggled to understand that if they had a problem with the way the character was behaving, it’s because they were supposed to.

Something that I thought was an amazing storytelling choice in BvS is the specific way they tried to show how broken Batman was via shifting his age.

I feel like a lot of people’s ideas of Batman is influenced by the pair-up comics and animated episodes between Batman and Superman, where it’s easier to see their similarities and differences. But the thing is, that Batman is Vengeance that exists with Hope.

DCEU’s Batman has spent 20 years without Superman hanging around being a peer and a confidant and a counterbalance.

And I think that’s a very hard thing to look at, and recognize, that you can spend twenty years doing something, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine.  And the machine is bleeding to death.

The sun has fallen down, and the billboards are all leering.  And the flags are all dead at the tops of their poles.

It went like this: the buildings tumbled in on themselves.  Mothers clutching babies, picked through the rubble, and pulled out their hair.  The skyline was beautiful on fire, all twisted metal stretching upwards, everything washed in a thin orange haze.

I said “Kiss me, you are beautiful.  These are truly the last days.”  You took my hand and we fell into it.  Like a daydream.  Or a fever.

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down, for sure this is the valley of death.

I open up my wallet, and it is full of blood.

Secondly, I don’t believe BvS and TLJ use deconstruction to the same effect.  BvS was about cracking a pair of timeless characters open and exposing them to a harsher and more critical world than they typically inhabit, then ultimately putting them back together better than they were before.  Clark starts the movie rudderless and unsure of himself, but finds his foundation and is willing to sacrifice himself for the woman he loves.  Bruce starts off consumed by his rage and anguish, but is shown there’s still a good person underneath all that and begins to become himself again.  It’s not the reverent kid-gloves treatment that many expect or demand, but IMO it still comes from a place of respect for the characters, in that they trusted the core of the characters would be strong enough to withstand a supreme stress-test and still come out on top.

TLJ, on the other hand, breaks Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Order down really just for the sake of breaking them down.  After watching him grow up from a wide-eyed farmboy to a principled adult, seeing him meet failure by running away and throwing out everything he ever learned comes off less as an attempt to flesh out his character and add more emotional depth to him, but rather an attempt to make him less likable and worthy of admiration in order to get him out of the way for Rey and company (much like how the Disney-owned Marvel Comics have spent the past four or five years making classic characters like Peter Parker and Steve Rogers more unrelatable and unlikable to more easily replace them with Miles Morales and the rest).  BvS puts Bruce and Clark through the shit in order to make you appreciate Bruce and Clark more.  TLJ puts Luke through the shit in order to make you appreciate Rey more.

And this may not matter to a lot of people, but I find it at least somewhat important that there’s a massive difference in how the actors playing these characters responded to the interpretations.  While audiences and critics may not have liked Snyder’s takes on Superman and Batman, both Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck (at least initially) have been extremely positive when talking about the director’s vision and his intent for exploring their characters.  Mark Hamill, on the other hand, has openly stated on multiple occasions how strongly he opposes Rian Johnson’s interpretation of Luke, and comes off as increasingly bitter and disillusioned about working for a studio that doesn’t value his input as a performer and a director that assumes he knows better than him.