"Out of character for what Superman traditionally is". That basically sums up all the problems people have with this movie. I don't know if they aren't aware or just don't care about how much the character has evolved over the last 75 years. How the Superman in the comic books today is much closer to the one in Man of…

OK guy

I mean seriously, how did the baby not punch through her womb whenever she was in the sun?

It's one part. How does he beat the villains he faces? Sometimes heat vision, sometimes fighting. The Death of Superman…it was just a multi-state MMA bout and every punch landed created shockwaves. It was the first time in comics that I remember that concept being addressed, punching Superman or getting punched by him…

I totally disagree. Kent is a different character than we've seen in some respects, but in others he is basically the same. He knows his son is destined for greatness and he hopes that it's the good kind of greatness (if I could borrow from Harry Potter a little).

Superman is an action hero! He's not fucking Hamlet! He's a comic book character. And while I agree that the comic book movie has truly become something great and meaningful in the last decade, you still need action to go along with the emotional payoff. The stakes need to be higher than an asthmatic kid and another…

Of course Superman Returns wouldn't have had that scene with Jonathan…because a.) it had no balls and b.) it wouldn't have fit in the Donner fetish remake Singer spewed onto the screen.

Most of your ideas here are dead on, but I personally believe there is still a place for Superman post-9/11 and that's what they were trying to do with Man of Steel. I personally believe they accomplished but the AV Club seems to have a real hard-on about this movie. I hope they put this much thought into how movies…

I think Man of Steel might have ran over the AV Club's dog while it was in Chicago for production.

I wasn't necessarily there since I was 1 when the first one came out, but those were the only Superman movies I knew growing up and I am a huge Superman fan. And the movies are fine although the second one really has a lot to dislike, but that's more on the studio replacing Donner with Richard Lester, who took the…

The plane scene was also pretty great in terms of Things I've Always Wanted to See in a Superman movie. Superman saving a crashing plane or space shuttle (in this case both) is something that has happened frequently in the comics, usually when they are rebooting the character or launching a new monthly book or…

Jesus…not only will you guys at the AV Club not let Man of Steel drop but now you're praising Superman Returns? Here's what Superman Returns got wrong:

I too hate this song…but I also hate that his last name is Vanderslice. Is that made up?

Are you saying the comments are from fanboys or the article?

Marvel characters were always, at the start at least, a response to what DC had already done. DC had become stodgy and set in their ways and Marvel came along, thankfully, and reinvented everything about comic books and those character types. I feel like it took DC a long time to catch up to what Marvel was doing in…

The movies haven't been done to death. There have been 5 before this and 2 of them were pure garbage. There have also been a ton of cartoons and movie shorts and serials and comic books and cartoon movies and a TV show. But the same goes for Batman. Somehow they were able to reinvent Batman by digging a little deeper…

Audiences have liked it though. I'm not just saying that because of the box office because the opening weekend is just a reflection of marketing. But the user feedback on IMBD and Rotten Tomatoes indicates that people like it much more than critics. An A- on Cinema Score is also an indication of that.

That's a deleted scene so neither in the Lester or Donner cuts. Wait I'm mistaken, it's from an ABC TV version of the movie

The glut of positive user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB (over the 70K for each last I checked) plus the Cinema Score of an A-. People liked this movie and we'll see what happens this weekend with the box office.

Apparently you've never seen any other movie that has a dog and a natural/unnatural disaster. There's always a fucking dog. Focus groups!