On Sun, 22 Dec 2013 04:08:53 -0500, Warp wrote:

> In comics the bad guy basically never dies. It makes sense: The heros
> are not murderers.

[Spoiler warning:  If you haven't watched Man of Steel and don't want to 
know how it ends, don't read any further]

That was one of the things about Man of Steel that was disappointing.  
Overall, I thought it was a good reimagining of the Superman / General Zod 
story, but Superman basically was completely unaware of the scale of his 
destruction both in Smallville and in Metropolis.

Which I can accept to a point - he was still figuring out who he was and 
what he stood for in that version of the story.  But he didn't find a way 
to let Zod live.

As an American hero, Superman is supposed to represent the so-called 
"American Exceptionalism" - but in this particular telling, the bar for 
such exceptionalism has been lowered, rather than holding it to a high 
standard with the character.  So while I actually really liked the way 
the story was told, with a focus on Clark's difficulties as a child, and 
perhaps the violence of his defense of the planet being the product of 30
+ years of bottled-up-rage that he could never let out because if he did, 
bad things would happen to his target - that was one part that was 
disappointing.

But at the same time, it introduces some of that moral ambiguity, too, 
which I like.

Jim

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