You do realize this is the central crux of pretty much every issue of Superman ever right?
Overcoming that challenge is pretty much what a Superman story is.
In most superman stories he saves the day and over comes his opponent. The misconception is that he wins in every thing, every time and to the utmost(see doomsday to see this not happen), has actually hurt the brand and the irony here is that in order to fix such perceptions, the producers have to contend with a large audience of fans that actually want that which has been turning them and more importantly the rest of the audience off of the character for so long.
Almost like a paradox.
In what world is a protagonist that always and in the in the utmost wins, better? When it's superman? Hello boring brand.
In spiderman/batman his girl friends have been killed and he's failed. In superman he reverses time and saves everyone(no consequence). Then we ask why the audience can relate to some of these guys more than others. Seems like a simple solution, make him less perfect and more relatable.
I do judge films for what they are. But when I find them severely lacking I question why that is. Which is where comparisons to other films, books, stories and personal experience come in. Being a good critic/reviewer doesn't mean you go into a movie pretending it's the first movie you've ever seen, quite the opposite. The more films you watch, books you read and educated people you discuss pop culture with the better suited you are to point out flaws in entertainment projects.
The more specifically you do this, the more specific the audience your reviews are geared to. It tends to beg the question of just who your reviews are for. The people that read the first five issues of such and such or the millions of people that want to know if they are going to like this movie outright.
Maybe every critic should come with a mast head:
my reviews for for people born before the 70's and have seen all of coppola's films, also the people that have read Twain for this will add a varied perspective on the second act. I just feel it does the practice a huge service to try and measure their reviews for 'everyone' including the tons of 17year olds heading to cinema on friday.
But I digress. To paraphrase the great Ian Malcolm 'they're too worried wondering if they could that they didn't stop to ask if they should.' That's pretty much how I feel about the storytelling flaws presented in MOS because the filmmakers tried to be too original for originality's sake and forgot that making a Superman movie comes with expectations rooted in the origin of the character and almost every one of his translations.
1. Not everyone in the audience has those same expectations( some cinema fans that like fallibility or loss)
2. Not everyone in the audience likes those expectations(see people that finally want to see a different superman or have avoided him for the past 40 years)
3. Not everyone in the audience even knows of such expectations(see kids or new fans)
I like your analogy however with superman in particular it's far more complicated than just, maybe if they made superman as fanboys wanted WB would have found greater success. I don't think so. Not after 2006. I also think the fact that film made about as much as IM1/ASM is a testament to that.
And to bring it all back to the topic, it's something dc faces that marvel doesn't at this point. Not only battling 'preconceived/conditioned expectation' but battling such things as they might not be conducive to the modern cinematic audience.
If you take that wonderful cinematic moment where batman loses rachel and replace it with superman losing lois in the same way. The reviews go from, great cinema to............superman is the embodiment of overcoming his challenge....ergo no beuno.
