So the rest of Supergirl through the nearly last episodes of its six season run has pretty much failed to add any new "best of" candidates to the mythology of the Family of Steel. That's not so much a knock on the show as a testament to just how good some of what came before it has been. Sure, they brought out some big gun villains like Parasite but not much of what they did was beyond what has come before OR just didn't really make the cut of "best of".
When I finished Supergirl, I moved on to the two 10 episode seasons of Krypton. As I stated earlier, the Krypton version of Brainiac was superb and their Lobo was super. There wasn't a lot of other direct takes from the Superman mythology other than another very good take on Zod. They did do one other thing better than anyone has done it before.
The Superman killer himself, first created and unleashed back when DC Comics decided to actually kill the Man of Steel.
Doomsday.
The character has had multiple appearances both animated and "live action" (almost always a pure cgi creation, so "live action" is kinda relative) in television and movies. In my opinion, the Krypton version is the superior one. Brutal, gory, relentless and looking just awesome.
Speaking of the time DC Comics killed Superman, one other related tidbit. When they killed the Man of Steel, the storyline that followed had 4 replacement "Supermen" show up and fill his big red boots until he was inevitably resurrected. There was a Cyborg-Superman, a Kryptionian Artificial Intelligence, a Superboy and Steel. Steel was John Irons, an African American weapons engineer who Superman had once saved and who decided to go all Iron Man in an effort to pay homage to the fallen hero.
Steel is one of my favourite characters of the modern DC age. Most of my love goes to characters created back in the golden age of comics but every once in a while a new creation hits it out of the park and Steel is one of those characters. In the comics, he's one of those infallibly moral characters that holds the moral center when all around is compromise and uncertainty.
Sadly, for most people, the only "Steel" they're aware of is this mess:
While there is a certain genius in casting all 7' 1" of Shaquille O'Neal as a superhero, giving the film a slightly larger budget than the average rock video and filling the script with cheese just killed any chance this had of being at all good. It sits at 2.9/10 over at IMDB.com and while that might be a bit low, it's not a lot low. Not getting the character to in any way (except a tattoo) reference his Superman roots, removing his flight ability and that sweet cape were also big missteps. I will say that Shaq may not be the best Steel ever but it's obvious he really is trying in this. Not really succeeding, but really trying.
For the best version of Steel we've seen, this year's Superman and Lois series over at the CW did a superb job of a fresh take on the character. He looks amazing and has one of the best backstories of any supporting character on any of the CW shows. The helmet they use looks a little too "video game" to me but when he isn't wearing it...
He may not be 7' 1" but Wole Parks still manages to make Tyler Hoechlin's Superman look small...
While we lose one member of the Superman Family when Supergirl folds up shop on November 9, Superman and Lois is renewed for season 2 and easily the strongest of the CW shows at the moment. There's a television Superman project in the works from Michael B. Jordan focusing on the Val-Zod version of Superman (that's a Black Superman, folks) and another Black Superman project for the big screen that seems to be moving forward. There's a new Superman animated series due to hit in 2022 that is going to follow a young Clark Kent in his early days in Metropolis. As mentioned in a previous post, there's my favourite Supergirl still in play on the Super Hero Girls series and I'm sure a few things as yet under my radar.
The Best of Superman may yet need another update one day...
No comments:
Post a Comment