Man Of Steel 2: 10 Ways To Make The Perfect Superman Sequel
Because surely they'll make a critically beloved film eventually...
It's strange to think that the critically polarising Man Of Steel is now the most solid output so far from the DCEU. Not exactly met with plaudits and applause, Snyder's film is not without its supporters but the film is clearly a flawed effort, even before you start to look at its weaknesses at representing the title character.
Man Of Steel acts as an origin story, using flashbacks to tell the story of a young Clark Kent coming to terms with his powers whilst being taught questionable lessons about responsibility and power by his adoptive father. After receiving even more lessons from his alien birth-father, Clark decides to adorn a cape to stop an alien warlord from destroying the world by instead completely destroying a major city (or two).
The film kick-started the current DCEU, though there isn't much evidence that this was their initial plan, and though not a terrible film Man of Steel is full of warning signs hinting at the bad things to come.
With the announcement that a sequel is of 'tantamount importance' over at Warner Bros., here are 10 things needed to make Man of Steel 2: Blue Steel a success...
10. Stop Making Him Batman
In his simplest form, Batman is not a very difficult character to write. He's brooding, cynical and filled right up to his bat-ears with vengeance and anger. The mistake made so far with Superman is trying to make him as similar to Batman as possible in an attempt to make him Snyder's idea of 'interesting'. Superman can be plenty interesting without making him miserable if he's written by someone who understands the character better than David S. Goyer, who it seems can only write Batman over and over.
Superman is the light side to Batman's dark side, one uses fear and the other hope and that's what makes them such an enjoyably confrontational pair. Their ideologies need to clash and though they tried to get this across in Batman V Superman, ultimately everyone wondered why they didn't just work together since they both share the same disregard for human life and frightening the sh*t out of people. Not to mention the body count they both rack up...
Part way through BVS Superman utters the words 'No one stays good in this world'. This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of the character that it goes beyond updating him for the modern world to merely sticking one of Batman's lines in Superman's mouth because you didn't know what else to have him say.
The Man Of Steel sequel can have angst as that appears to be the fashionable thing for the DCEU, but it should not be at the expense of what makes Superman the beacon he is supposed to be.