Superhero Media: Man of Steel

Ok, I just need to re-watch Wonder Woman and I'm finally caught up with the DCU (as of the moment of writing, Justice League is still about a month away, yeah, that's how big the backlog is). This film is bad. I know it has it's fans, and I tried, but I just found nothing to enjoy in this grim, dour, uninspired and uninspiring take on the Man of Tomorrow. Ok, so Superman Returns proved that remaking Superman The Movie won't really work anymore in the current blockbuster climate, but throwing out everything that worked for Richard Donner and trying something completely new still seems like too much of a risk for the most recognisable superhero in the world. For an example of how this functioned in public media, just take a look at how many versions of Man of Steel clips plus John Williams Superman score are on YouTube. Superman The Movie remains as iconic as it does, several decades on, for more reasons than simple nostalgia; the design, ascetics and themes are, essentially, timeless. 

Think about the designs of Kryton between Superman The Movie and Man of Steel. The most recent Superman comics I've read still represent Kryton like the Donner films, instead of "sepia-tone Pandora" from the DCEU. That's probably what gets me the most about Man of Steel, why is this, lackluster, film the jumping off point for the entire DCU in the medium of film? In practical terms, WB and DC really couldn't wait too much longer to try and play catch-up to Marvel Studios, but was it really worth the gamble on this turd? I'm not so naive as to think that there ever could have been a film featuring the Brandon Routh version of Superman and the Christian Bale version of Batman, or, gods forbid, a film with Christopher Reeve, Lynda Carter and Adam West lining up as the "World's Finest". But, why go with Henry Cavill when he had failed to truly impress? I'm more-or-less over comparing the DC/WB films to the Marvel Studios ones, but if Iron Man had flopped, would we really have the MCU? No. Iron Man was an experiment that returned unseen dividends, Man of Steel was a deliberate attempt to kick-start an "expanded universe" that, let's face it, took four films to get watchable.  

As I've mentioned before, I really want to see the DCEU produce good films and be successful. I want a good Captain Marvel, The Question, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, JLU and countless other film[s] in my lifetime. But if this is the version of Superman that its all building from, where will it end up? Yes, I haven't really covered the specifics of Man of Steel here; I don't need to. There are more than enough reviews, dissections and lambasting of this film out there on the internet that I'm under no illusions of ego that anyone is coming here for a definitive word. If you're reading this, you probably want to know if Man of Steel is worth watching for Supers gaming inspiration; not really. Zod's plan makes no sense, the design of the Krytonians would not look good on the table-top and there are many better versions of Superman to model your miniatures after.