Heroes don't achieve their goal because the CB business model demands the story keeps going, not because the heroes can't achieve their goals. Hell Heroes achieve their goals in self contained stories. Superman Achieves his goal by quitting and letting Lex unite earth in Red Son. Batman wins in the TDK.
I don't think it's just the business model, but the nature of stories. Stories can't keep going once the hero runs out of conflict. That's part of why people have trouble writing Superman because they don't know where his conflict is, and since it's not at all in beating up normal people, they presume he has none.
I guess then we can extend it further that it's unusual to have a character who has such an international presence to be bogged down to something so inconsequential. He becomes only ever relevant when the world is in danger.
In the same extent, comes the ironic intrigue of a superhero with so many convenient powers needing to show restraint because relatable adversaries are just that meager. He then becomes stuck in maintaining a caricature.
Right, which is my point, like in a boxing movie, a street fight is a chance to show that the boxer is in another class than the average joe, this can be played for comedy as suggested by another poster, subverted for theming if being able to dispatch people with ease makes things worse, or something else. I'm not sure what you mean by relatable adversaries, nor do I agree that they are meager, they simply aren't working for the Joker. There is no shorthand of taking unrelatable things and saying they're relatable just because they have human durability with Superman, you have to actually connect things for the audience. It makes writing Superman harder, because you can't pull any action movie shorthands, but that's all, you just can't use existing shorthands, you're not 'stuck' or 'meager' or relegated to only being relevant when punching is the answer, in fact, in a great Superman story, the punching is perhaps the least relevant part, see All-Star, Earth One, American Alien and etc...
Right, it's not like anyone is ever concerned that Batman isn't going to make it out alive in a fight against a group of faceless henchmen. We all know he's going to dispatch them with ease.
Superman's chances of survival against a gang of 'mooks' are exactly the same as every other superhero... which is 100%.
Exactly. But if you tell people that a bullet could theoretically kill him, they have a very familiar suspension of disbelief to go to. After all, the same is true of John McClaine, and every action hero, but people are used to feeling like normal super talented guy can die, and so it's easy to do that for Batman too, even if Batman makes it essentially impossible.
That's what makes writing Superman harder, the audience isn't used to people like him getting hurt, and so they can't imagine it for you, you have to spell it out.
If its played for laughs, Superman versus a group of normal criminals could be very effective. SG did it perfectly.
IKR! Superman Returns tried it, but with so little creativity and so brief, it didn't do much for the movie as a whole.
^ Good for him.
A young kid who grew up with awesome parents and had unique talents?
Sounds like my life story :P
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think a lot of times when we talk about these characters we miss how their premise connects with people. Most people aren't parented well, as far as I've observed. Very rarely do I hear stories about how parents created an awesome environment for their kids to grow, I often hear "they did their best" or "loved me in their own way." Even growing up in the country is 'rare' in a way. I think when people latch onto "oh Superman's too strong to get hurt" even when he's fighting people that hurt him, I think part of what the subtext is is that they don't connect with Superman's most basic experience - carrying his parents' values into a changing world. Much of
This also helps explain *part* of why the same value system works so much better for the audience in Captain America films. Cap is an orphan. Like Batman. He never had the Norman Rockwell painting life, all his goodness he essentially made himself, from what we can tell. He's carrying values from old time, but because he chose them and clung to them, that's something that everyone can relate to, but at the end of the day, there's a TON of people who simply *can't* relate to having awesome parents, at all. They may not be able to relate to being a billionaire, either, but everyone in a capitalist society has dreamed of it, and so we are all at least acquainted with what we would do if we had tons of money, and as such, are able to relate to *fictional* billionaires. This is why Bruce Wayne never does actual billionaire stuff, but fantasy billionaire stuff.
In short, it's much easier to imagine being abandoned by our parents, than them being outstanding at parenting, and that, more than anything, is what makes Superman unrelatable to most.
