Negative Space: Superman
- The Complete Superman Collection
- The Fleischer studios released seventeen “Superman” animated shorts during the forties. While the storylines are lacking, the animation is very interesting: shadowy, with art-deco backgrounds and ‘props’.
- Superman II
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A respectable enough sequel, although it threw away character development in favor of big fights. The big fights were pretty cool. Superman II took the weird science at the ending of Superman: The Movie and really went wild. Superman gives up his powers so that he can have sex with Lois Lane. And then gets beat up by a trucker (with a payback that is in retrospect eerily reminiscent of Superman III, a movie best avoided).
- Superman Returns is a great movie
- In the annals of “what might have been” Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns series would have been an amazing series.
- Superman vs. the X-Men
- Superman Returns wasn’t as good as I’d been hoping for, but it was very good, and much better than X-Men 3.
- Superman: An American Myth in the Movies
- Superman is an embodiment of classic American myths. He is the small town boy who comes to the big city to make a place for himself, yet never forgets his roots. He is the self-made man who can rise to become the best at his job, yet does not become corrupted. He is the man who gives up everything for the woman he loves. He is the legendary champion of Democracy: the mythic hero fighting a “never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.”
- Superman: Last Son of Krypton
- “Last Son of Krypton” explores the responsibility of power and the side-effects of universal good deeds through the super-powered adventures of Superman.
- Superman: The Movie
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One of the most incredible movies of my youth, I watched it on VHS for a decade—it was one of the handful of movies I was willing to buy on VHS—and when my VHS copy died, I got the DVD version. The DVD version unfortunately adds some extraneous scenes that hurt Stuart Baird’s editing of the movie, but it’s still great.
If you can justify it, I recommend spending a little extra to get one of the collections that contain the theatrical version; but one way or another, get this movie.
- The Third Face of V: The Freedom to Starve
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Are V and Veidt heroes? What do they really do that’s different from what Norsefire did, or from what the Tales of the Black Freighter protagonist did?
- With great power comes great responsibility
- Are superheroes jettisoning exceptionalism? Can they?
More Information
- Superman Returns Special Edition• (DVD)
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The two-disc special edition adds some interesting deleted scenes among about three hours of documentaries and other special features. There’s an amazing scene where he reads through all of the disasters that happened while he was gone—train crashes, climate problems, epidemics, massacres, burning buildings, even locusts—but no mention of September 11. Lois’s “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman” is juxtaposed with “Train crash kills 127”. (Bryan Singer)
- Tom Mankiewicz on Superman II: The Donner Cut
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Tom Mankiewicz describes the amazing back-room schemes going on with the production and refilming of Superman II.
