The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer at Comic Book Movie took a look at the costumes featured in the trailer for the upcoming Superman movie overseen by the pretentious James Gunn, and is unimpressed:

If you’ve read my articles before, you’ll probably know I’m not the biggest fan of James Gunn. I know I’m very much in the minority here, but I don’t love any of his superhero projects. I like some of them, but I don’t love any of them. For the most part, I dislike them. I prefer movies and shows with a more serious tone, and that is definitely not what Gunn is known for. Regardless of my feelings towards Gunn, I want DC to succeed in building a cinematic universe. I’ve loved DC characters since I was a small child watching Batman: The Animated Series. For decades, I’ve wanted to see all my heroes on the screen together. Ultimately, that’s what I want. So, while I don’t like Gunn, I love DC and, of course, Superman. I don’t want to bash DC, but I want to give honest opinions more.

My honest opinion is that these costumes do not look good.

In the trailer, we see many characters: Superman, Clark Kent, Krypto, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific are all present. Some of their costumes are better than others, but almost none of them are great.

Already, I see people criticizing Guy Gardner’s haircut. Yes, it’s goofy and awkward looking, but that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. Gunn certainly didn’t have to make it that goofy and awkward, but I like it. However, Green Lantern’s costume has a lot of white for a Green Lantern. Guy Gardner’s comic book appearance has a little bit of white in it, usually in the collar or gloves, but this costume is more white than anything else. I was hoping we’d see the costume that has a huge collar, but it seems like they went with a leather jacket that isn’t made of leather kind of look.

Hawkgirl’s costume looks significantly better than Green Lantern’s, but there’s still a lot of white where you don’t expect it to be. I very much like that there’s lots of gold, but it seems like the green in her usual comic book costume has been replaced by black. She looks more like a wannabe biker than a superhero, similar to Green Lantern.

[...] Clark Kent’s new haircut resembles a certain internet personality from 2019 that I can’t fully type out called the f*** boy haircut. Short on the sides, enormously poofy in the front. I am certainly not a fan of the haircut, but everything else we’ve seen about Kent looks great. He’s very tall, moves awkwardly, and seems to be unsure of every step. Lois looks great too, but her costume is fairly easy to design. The same goes for Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor. He looks perfect as the villain. Thank heaven he’s bald and we didn’t get another weird Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor.

Finally, we’re on to Superman. I still feel conflicted about his outfit. I love the collar, I love the trunks, and I love the symbol, but the whole thing looks like it doesn’t fit him. I think the problem I have with it is the same I have with the other heroes: it looks like the CW. Maybe it looks so much like it’s made out of plain fabric because it is made out of plain fabric in the movie. Maybe Clark makes it himself or Martha Kent makes it, but that would take the opportunity to have it be part of his Kryptonian heritage.

Personally, I just hope that, if Guy Gardner's in this film, they didn't draw from Gerard Jones' take for a wellspring. Jones' writing is a stain on anything Green Lantern-related, plain and simple. As for Hawkgirl, if this is the Kendra Saunders edition, I'm decidedly not interested at this point, because her premise, co-written as it was by James Robinson and David Goyer, built on what happened with Sheira Sanders in 1994 during Zero Hour, and putting Shiera into the body of her niece is no substitute. Besides, like countless other storylines since the turn of the century, it ultimately led nowhere.

But if this is supposed to be a stand-alone film, wouldn't the superhero guest characters conflict with the focus one would expect to be heaped upon the Man of Steel? I think the only thing that's impressed me of what I may have seen so far was a screencap showing Superman making love to Lois Lane while hugging her in the air. The kind of scenes that have occurred in past comics, but if Gunn's going to inject anything overly leftist into the film, it only sours the milk.

And on that note, Fox News reports Gunn is politicizing the upcoming Superman movie - hardly a surprise at this point - with an announcement to accompany its release:

Filmmaker James Gunn says the battered-looking version of Superman seen in the trailer for his highly anticipated "Superman" film represents America.

During a recent Q&A session at the trailer’s premiere, the director acknowledged the political implications present in the film, saying there is a theme of a bruised and bloodied America running through it.

"We do have a battered Superman in the beginning. That is our country," Gunn said at the event.

[...] In addition to reintroducing audiences to the classic Superman characters, the roughly two-minute trailer featured the titular character in dire straits, lying bloodied and bruised in an Arctic wasteland.

[...] Gunn said the shocking images of the broken hero are a reference to an America that still stands for goodness despite what he called its current bloodied and beat-up state.

"I believe in the goodness of human beings, and I believe that most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs, their politics, are doing their best to get by and be good people — despite what it may seem like to the other side," he said.

But the beleaguered state of Gunn's Superman represents America when corrupted by "darker voices," he said.

"This movie is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings, and that it can be seen as uncool and under siege [by] some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices."

Elsewhere during the Q&A, Gunn reiterated the idea that the movie is about human goodness overcoming these "darker" influences.

He said, "It’s about the basic kindness of human beings. It’s a noble premise, and one that seems designed to appeal across the political spectrum. It’s a moral call to embrace decency and optimism."

Gunn, who steered clear of political specifics, has long been a critic of President-elect Donald Trump, calling him in a 2017 post "an incompetent President forging a full-blown attack on facts and journalism in the style of Hitler and Putin."

Unfortunately, chances are very high the "darker influences" he speaks of allude to - surprise, surprise - right-wing/conservative politics. In Gunn's world-view, there's no way leftist/liberal politics could possibly be bad. And that's the problem. The UK Independent notes:

Expanding on the idea, the 58-year-old added: “I believe in the goodness of human beings, and I believe that most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs, their politics, are doing their best to get by and be good people — despite what it may seem like to the other side, no matter what that other side might be. This movie is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings, and that it can be seen as uncool and under siege [by] some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices.”

“I’m excited for people to get to see the essence of what we’re doing because it really has been like this private secret that we’ve all been hoarding,” Gunn later told Variety.

“We felt really good about it, like from a moral place, even from the beginning. We all felt like we were doing something good, both in terms of quality and in terms of actually something that’s not a fascistic power fantasy.

But couldn't the addition of The Authority to the screenplay conflict with that claim? This article also notes:

Others weren’t as enthusiastic about the comments. “A children’s comic book character from 1938 that shoots lasers from his eyes is not a useful lens for modern day politics,” noted one person.

A second joked: “Definitely something a man with conservative friends would say.”

On this, I'd argue the problem is conservative/right-wing views being shut out of Hollywood, and if a conservative viewpoint's not allowed to be applied to Superman, then that's but one problem right there. The gatekeepers retaining ownership of Batman won't allow conservatives to write the Masked Manhunter or apply their views to him anymore either. Even with Wolverine at Marvel, this wouldn't be allowed. And it makes no difference that even right-wingers don't think the Man of Steel has to be a killing machine in all instances either, though a point should be made that, if killing a murderous criminal is what it takes to prevent an innocent and defenseless victim of crime from being murdered and even raped, then is it wrong for the hero to choose saving the life of an innocent, and should such a story premise remain throughly unexplored? Food for thought that anybody who's studying to be a writer might want to consider.

All that said, I won't be surprised if this latest take on the Man of Steel does make quite a bit of bank when it premieres, even though the people who oversaw its production are hardly deserving of an audience. And it's unlikely to reverse the dwindling fortunes of the comics proper, which have long lost direction to wokeness. Seriously, what's to celebrate, especially if the fans spoken of only care about the movies, but not the coherency of the comics?

Labels: dc comics, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, history, moonbat writers, Superman, violence