Ever see Darkseid with the Infinity Gauntlet? Whoa

[thecreech]

Now, now. While I tend to agree that comic book characters these days aren't all that well written a lot of the time (I should know, I'm one of them) writing a character that a) is practically invincible, and b) has been around for freaking forever isn't exactly easy. Besides, I fail to see how Clark is any more inconsistent than, say, Thor, the Hulk, or any amount of Marvel heroses.
And isn't this moving into FAN territory?

Listen, again. Who's fault is it for making him invincible. Why would anyone want to make a character that strong...its dumb. You bring up age, again why can't someone revamp him correctly. Now again, i am not going to argue that thor, the hulk, or any of marvel is not as bad. They probably are. You guys seem to think that this is a marvel vs dc thing that i am doing here but I haven't mentioned anything of the sort, you guys keep bringing it up. IMO superman is the worst written character of all time. I base that off of all the Superman comics that i have read and that is that. Wolverine would be second

[GuppyShark]

I always love how people get upset that Superman is 'too strong'.

Sure, Superman isn't in danger of being taken out by a dime-store hoodlum. But this is hero fiction.

Superman triumphs no more or less than any other hero.

EDIT: Hell, a lot of the message of the Superman books is that not every problem can be solved with a super-powered punch, and how he tries to inspire people to be better and do good.

They give us problems he can solve with super-powered pummeling for fun, though.

[Batman]

Listen, again. Who's fault is it for making him invincible. Why would anyone want to make a character that strong...its dumb

Urm-why? You want a hero capable of deflecting universe-shattering events, he's got to be of a certain power level. There's nothing inherently 'dumb' in having a Superman-level character. I'll heartily agree that Clark is badly written a lot of the time but that's because writers can't or won't handle his powers correctly, not because it's impossible to do so.

You bring up age, again why can't someone revamp him correctly.

Because fans are aware of the history and expect it to be adhered to.You can't just redesign a character with 70 years worth of history on a whim and expect people to accept it. Oh, and Clark has been revamped. Byrne, anybody? Didn't hold all that long.

[The Grim Squeaker]

There's nothing inherently 'dumb' in having a Superman-level character

Hell yeah, Marvel has many, many characters who could anally rape Superman or Sun-dip OWAW Superman without breaking up a sweat [ Silver Surfer if smart, Thanos, Galactus, Skyfathers [Odin, Zeus] etc').

The problem with modern Superman is that many of his modern writers have had most of his foes that were above him [Darkseid, Doomsday etc'] reduced to being constantly being beaten by Superman [ even pre crisis Superman when scouring the galaxy had foes that could easily punk him], making it hard to find a decent rogues gallery for him.

DC as a whole has this problem, too many of it's upper top tiers have a rogues gallery comprised mainly of characters that are far weaker than them [The Flash and the (very cool) Rogues, Superman and the various mid level Metropolis rogues, Wonder Woman and classic Cheetah [post revamp and with various godly foes she's actually in excellent shape], while Marvel has villains capable of trashing whole teams easily [although Marvel goes overboard with this since Magneto or Graviton losing to the X-men/Thunderbolts is massive consistant jobbing].

[18-Till-I-Die]

Every comic universe with superheroes need those kind of superman achetype characters (also batman, GL and WW archetypes) to create the upper tier for the heroes.

The trick is, indeed, creating villains powerfule nough to fight them. OR and this is far more tricky and impressive when done well, creating a logical reason (i.e kryptonite) for a sudden weakness. That second one is hard and if used too often, like kryptonite, it can become silly and cliche. But sometimes its done well.

[thecreech]

Urm-why? You want a hero capable of deflecting universe-shattering events, he's got to be of a certain power level. There's nothing inherently 'dumb' in having a Superman-level character. I'll heartily agree that Clark is badly written a lot of the time but that's because writers can't or won't handle his powers correctly, not because it's impossible to do so.

of course it is dumb, it makes it hard for the writers to fine problems for him that will be a problem for him. Most of the time they have to make him stupid in order to compensate for his power or they just have to straight up depower him. The death of superman is a perfect example of that, hence the whole reason why he is hard to write for. I never said it was impossible to do. I think it is very possible but someone (DC) has to have the balls to put their foot down and lay down the law on what superman is capable of and what he isn't.

Because fans are aware of the history and expect it to be adhered to.You can't just redesign a character with 70 years worth of history on a whim and expect people to accept it. Oh, and Clark has been revamped. Byrne, anybody? Didn't hold all that long.[/quote]

Why? because you say so? Age has nothing to do with what i am asking for. All i am asking for is consistency. To revamp his powers not this character. (To revamp supermans character is a dumb idea) Maybe i should of made that clearer. I mean if they are going to leave him powerful than leave him powerful all the time.

[thecreech]

Urm-why? You want a hero capable of deflecting universe-shattering events, he's got to be of a certain power level. There's nothing inherently 'dumb' in having a Superman-level character. I'll heartily agree that Clark is badly written a lot of the time but that's because writers can't or won't handle his powers correctly, not because it's impossible to do so.

of course it is dumb, it makes it hard for the writers to fine problems for him that will be a problem for him. Most of the time they have to make him stupid in order to compensate for his power or they just have to straight up depower him. The death of superman is a perfect example of that, hence the whole reason why he is hard to write for. I never said it was impossible to do. I think it is very possible but someone (DC) has to have the balls to put their foot down and lay down the law on what superman is capable of and what he isn't.

Because fans are aware of the history and expect it to be adhered to.You can't just redesign a character with 70 years worth of history on a whim and expect people to accept it. Oh, and Clark has been revamped. Byrne, anybody? Didn't hold all that long.

Why? because you say so? Age has nothing to do with what i am asking for. All i am asking for is consistency. To revamp his powers not this character. (To revamp supermans character is a dumb idea) Maybe i should of made that clearer. I mean if they are going to leave him powerful than leave him powerful all the time.

[Batman]

Urm-why? You want a hero capable of deflecting universe-shattering events, he's got to be of a certain power level. There's nothing inherently 'dumb' in having a Superman-level character. I'll heartily agree that Clark is badly written a lot of the time but that's because writers can't or won't handle his powers correctly, not because it's impossible to do so.

of course it is dumb, it makes it hard for the writers to fine problems for him that will be a problem for him. Most of the time they have to make him stupid in order to compensate for his power or they just have to straight up depower him.

In that case it's the writers that are dumb, not the idea. Somebody who has to dumb down or arbitrarily depower a character to be able to handle him/her has quite simply no business writing that character. There's lots of well to excellently written Superman- and Superman-level character stories that don't dumb down or depower the characters. That a lot of writers can't or can't be arsed to handle Clark and his ilk properly is a problem with the writers, not the character design.
If writing less powerful characters is so much easier why are stories about me or Daredevil for example NOT inherently better than Superman or Thor stories?

The death of superman is a perfect example of that, hence the whole reason why he is hard to write for. I never said it was impossible to do. I think it is very possible but someone (DC) has to have the balls to put their foot down and lay down the law on what superman is capable of and what he isn't.

Like that is ever going to happen.
Besides, by your own reasoning that wouldn't help - a hyper-powerful Superman with clearly defined hyped powers is just as hard to challenge
as one vith vague hyped powers. I happen to agree it helps to have some consistency in a character's abilities, but if a powerful character were inherently harder to write than a less powerful one it wouldn't make any difference. Clark is still insanely powerful, you just have a better grasp of the degree of insanity.
Mind you, Superman propably IS somewhat harder to write than a less powerful figure, because you do have to find a way to either neuter or counter his powers, but nowhere near to the point where it is 'dumb' to have him in the first place.

Because fans are aware of the history and expect it to be adhered to.You can't just redesign a character with 70 years worth of history on a whim and expect people to accept it. Oh, and Clark has been revamped. Byrne, anybody? Didn't hold all that long.

Why? because you say so? Age has nothing to do with what i am asking for. All i am asking for is consistency.

Quite the contrary. There being consistency (sort of) over such a long time is what makes it so hard to change a character in the first place. Supes has been the last son of Krypton for over half a century, I've been an angry orphan trying to avenge his dead parents for just as long, people expect us to stay that way. As a writer you have to take those expectations into account or your sales may suffer.

To revamp his powers not this character. (To revamp supermans character is a dumb idea) Maybe i should of made that clearer.

Except you can't do a powers revamp, or at least not a radical powers revamp, for the reasons stated above.The fandom expects a character to have a certain extend of powers (within limitations). Superman no longer being able to fly or me suddenly having superstrength thanks to the bite of a radioactive bat would propably not sit well with the fans.

I mean if they are going to leave him powerful than leave him powerful all the time.

I agree. That's rather the opposite of a revamp, though.

[thecreech]

In that case it's the writers that are dumb, not the idea. Somebody who has to dumb down or arbitrarily depower a character to be able to handle him/her has quite simply no business writing that character. There's lots of well to excellently written Superman- and Superman-level character stories that don't dumb down or depower the characters. That a lot of writers can't or can't be arsed to handle Clark and his ilk properly is a problem with the writers, not the character design.
If writing less powerful characters is so much easier why are stories about me or Daredevil for example NOT inherently better than Superman or Thor stories?

I think that they are inherently better than superman or thor stories. They are easier to write and tend to have more consistancey overall than the "More powerful" superhero stories. That is not to say that they are not without their problems also but from what i read they do tend to be inherently "better" because of the above mentioned IMO.

Like that is ever going to happen.
Besides, by your own reasoning that wouldn't help - a hyper-powerful Superman with clearly defined hyped powers is just as hard to challenge
as one vith vague hyped powers.

What? of course it would help. It gives the writter some kind of level to work with. Do you write at all? I would rather write a character with a set of rules that i can follow than be given a vague idea of what he can do in terms of comic characters anyway.

I happen to agree it helps to have some consistency in a character's abilities

oh good i am glad you think so you sound like B&B

but if a powerful character were inherently harder to write than a less powerful one it wouldn't make any difference. Clark is still insanely powerful, you just have a better grasp of the degree of insanity.

And having a better grasp is not better for the writting in what way? It can only help the writters

Mind you, Superman propably IS somewhat harder to write than a less powerful figure, because you do have to find a way to either neuter or counter his powers, but nowhere near to the point where it is 'dumb' to have him in the first place.

it wasn't dumb to have him in the first place but the level they took him to is dumb and the way the leave him is dumb. But i concede because it didn't clarify that

Except you can't do a powers revamp, or at least not a radical powers revamp, for the reasons stated above.The fandom expects a character to have a certain extend of powers (within limitations). Superman no longer being able to fly or me suddenly having superstrength thanks to the bite of a radioactive bat would propably not sit well with the fans.

revamp was the wrong word to use... point conceded.

I mean if they are going to leave him powerful than leave him powerful all the time.

I agree. That's rather the opposite of a revamp, though.

see above. But no matter was excuses you make he is still a poorly written character no matter how you try to slice it.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well i think a Superman type character is no harder to write than any other myself, having created one for some of my own stories. But that being said, Creech is absolutely correct about creating a set of rules for what they can and cant do.

For example, i think up this guy Icon (yeah i stole the name from Milestone, i couldnt think of anything else) and i wrote a 'character study' of all my characters in the 'comic books' i wrote. In his, there are about six pages disecting his powers. One important, i think, part is that while practically invulnerable he has a precise limit to how invulnerable...a Death Star blast wouldnt kill him say, but he could only resist it for a few seconds before his powers were overloaded. Also he can still feel pain just like us, so such a blast would probably knock Icon into a coma from the sheer agony of it. He can move planets, but only when he absorbs like an entire star worth of energy (this is an important plot point) so he only does it really once, and never again in the comics because absorbing that much energy hurt him terribly and made him 'sick', like if a human ate a whole turkey in one sitting their stomach would be distended and bloated.

Anyway my point is, Superman type characters are perfectly fine to write and i think can be extremely cool if done right, but that is the WRITERS not the character's fault. However it is vital to create a defined upper and lower limit for each character and work within it, unless otherwise stated that they have more power when (insert circumstances).