Thursday, June 20, 2013

Who Is The Best Superman?


A few days ago I watched the latest Superman film Man Of Steel and enjoyed it. It got me to thinking of all the guys that have played Superman in a live action movie and who was the best one? There are a few things that have to happen for it to be considered Superman and for some reason it doesn't always happen. He has to come from Krypton, fly, be hurt by Kryptonite, and look the part. Superman has a certain look that is mostly in the guy in the costume more than the costume itself.

You don't count!

Pictured is Tom Welling from the Smallville series. I'm not including him in this list for a lot of different reasons. He doesn't wear the costume until the very last episode of ten seasons of horseshit and even then it isn't a clear image of him. Plus he looks like he cries into pillows at night. Superman cant have that image, damn it! This is just the movies and one of the series because it actually featured a costumed Superman.

George Reeves as Clark Kent


When I was younger I would come across episodes of this and think that he looked like someone's dad. I didn't really watch it all the time so I decided to watch some clips from the show. He wasn't really all that cowardly or a chicken as Kent. He was pretty damn stern and didn't take no guff from no one. He looks more like Dick Tracy than anyone else.

George Reeves as Superman


He looks like the old fashioned Superman. He is sucking in his gut and like most men from that time period I assume he has slapped a few women and smells of whisky. On Wikipedia his superpowers are listed as "...he separated his molecules to walk through walls, traveled over telephone lines, became invisible, and split in two while retaining his traditional powers of X-ray vision, microscopic vision, super-typing, super-hearing, super-breath, super-strength, flying, and a mastery of foreign languages."

"You jelly?"

Wow. That is a giant load of bullshit. Hahaha! And I thought "date rape kiss" was bad! Either way this guy was a good Superman. Not bullet proof though...

Christopher Reeves as Clark Kent


Nerd!!! Sorry. Reflex. This guy looks like what every Clark Kent should look like. He doesn't look tough or imposing whatsoever. But that also works against him because if there was a dangerous situation he is the last guy in the newsroom I would send to go cover the story. I'd have him handling the stuff with dogs being found or cake baking contests. He had a knack for running when danger arose to go change into Superman but his friends didn't know that. They were more like "A car backfired. There goes Clark running away again..."

Christopher Reeves as Superman


This guy is the one that all Supermen after are based off of. Its like if he doesn't look a bit like Christopher Reeves than you can get that bullshit out of here! As a kid the best parts of the movie were watching him flying around, lifting shit, saving idiots, and throwing entire lakes on fires. Fuck the environment! There's fires to be put out!


His powers were all over the place in these films. Shit was made up to fit whatever happened to him. There is "...X-ray and heat vision, vast strength, speed and invulnerability, super-intelligence, flight and the hitherto unknown ability to throw the 'S' symbol from his costume as a plastic trapping device of some description." And let us not forget "date rape kiss" and going around the globe so quickly that time reversed! I mean, fuck the fact that he had never tried this before. Trying to save one woman could've ended in the destruction of our entire globe. Time travel doesn't work that way except to maybe a 5 year old. Anyhoot, he looks like Superman and had a smile that would make me put it on his shoulder. You know what I'm talking about.

Dean Cain as Clark Kent


Yawn! I was actually excited about this show when I was younger and obviously dyslexic because I would get mad that the show focused so much on Lois Lane and Clark Kent. He wasn't a chicken like Christopher Reeves version. He was just...normal. And out of all the Kent's he looked the most similar between being in and out of costume. If you saw him you would've been like "Why the fuck is Kent wearing a Superman costu--sweet baby Jesus! Kent is Superman!" 

Dean Cain as Superman


Double yawn!!! He was dull. This show was dull. I think I stopped watching after the first season because there was other shit to watch. His Superman wasn't exciting. I didn't get that sense of "Cool! Superman is gonna do something Supermannish!" It was like an 80's cartoon where all the action happened in the last few minutes and it wasn't worth the wait.

Brandon Routh as Clark Kent


Dull. Miserable. Boring. Creepy. That is how Routh's portrayal of Kent came across because I forgot that I was supposed to pretend that Christopher Reeve's third and fourth Superman films didn't exist. So I kept wondering why he was acting like such a weirdo around Lois. Oh, I guess he thought it was fine to fly into space for five years looking for his planet that was blown up and figured she'd wait for him and everything would be fine. Jackass. I mean, you knocked her up and left. You're not a hero. You're a segment on Maury.

Brandon Routh as Superman


Everything I just mentioned about Kent but with tights. He does look very Reeve-ish which wins him points but he didn't have the same charisma. He had super speed, flight, can stop bullets with his eyeballs, and the power to get stabbed by a Kryptonite knife, kinda die, and then pick up a mountain of the shit and fly it into space.

Derp!

This movie didn't have to be as bad as it was. It was supposed to be an homage and throwback to the previous films but it came across as a limpdicked attempt at rebooting a franchise that wasn't all that worth rebooting. I wonder what would have been produced if they had taken the same crew and cast and started from scratch.

Henry Cavill as Clark Kent


Hero! Before he even gets to the point where he decides to become an intern at the Daily Planet he is a heroic son of a bitch that travels around trying to live a normal life until something happens that blows his cover. He seems like such a nice guy that its like "Oh, let him lift things, gosh darn it!" 

The Deadliest Catch...without the crabs.

And he is buff as fuck. You wouldn't mess with this guy unless you were drunk or tired of eating solid foods. He isn't bumbling or cowardly in any sense, he just knows that if he wanted to he could punch someone into a beautiful mist of pinks and browns. He comes across as almost shy a lot of the time. But seriously. Pinks and browns.

Henry Cavill as Superman


Super speed, jumping which leads to flight, strength, laser fucking vision. Its all there. The costume is the biggest deviation from all others in film and based off the latest comic book version with similarities. They explain why it looks the way it does in the film and it makes perfect sense. If he wore regular tights like the other versions the Kryptonians would have laughed him off the planet...before it exploded. This guy looks like a superhero that could wreck shit and he does. Like cartoon Superman he seems to have no regard for public damage. Smallville does not exist or Metropolis after he is done.

Click here for previous Who Is The Best?

2 comments:

Hoozle said...

Christopher Reeve really is the defining Superman. I saw the movie again last weekend for the first time in years and as I was saying to you, I was surprised at how ponderous and long it takes for everything to happen, but my memory of Christopher Reeve is thankfully unsullied. The scene where Clark turns up to Lois's apartment just after she goes flying with Superman and he practices confessing to her when she's out of the room is awesome. Slipping from one persona to the other in a moment, fan-bloody-tastic.

His powers always change depending on the era. I think the George Reeves Superman is unrecognisable to younger generations (ie us). And older generations than us might find Christopher Reeve unrecognisable as Superman. Funny how that works.

Dante said...

When I was looking for images to use for Christopher Reeves Superman when I look at him I just think "Wow. This guy was born to play this part." I'm sure it sucked to be typecast for the rest of his career but I'll be damned if he wasn't the perfect look for it.