His reason was that, Superman generally isn't physically challenged. In most cases the only issue he faces is trying to figure out what is going on. After that, Superman wins every time. The only exception is with kryptonite. His literal only weakness.

So all plot lines boil down to a mystery, followed by some flashy scenes of Superman going Superman stuff, the end; with the only real exception being "bad guys have kryptonite". It's boring.

And you know what? He makes a good point.

None of this goes against anything you say, it's just one person's opinion (not even mine). The only reason I'm posting this is to say, it's possible to dislike Superman content, but that doesn't and shouldn't imply someone is anti-Superman.

Food for thought.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's probably the main reason that there are games about pretty much every superhero going, but Superman always gets skipped. Superman 64 is the classic example, due to how dire it was. There's been a few attempts since then, but nothing popular and the last was about 20 years ago.

The only real threat to Superman is to attack the things he cares about.

I kind of like the subversion of Superman type characters, like Dr Manhattan (what if Superman was indifferent?) or Homelander (what if Superman was a cunt?)

[–] Englishgrinn@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I forget the title but there was a Superman game on original Xbox that gave Metropolis a health bar, Not Superman.

Beating up bad guys, stopping disasters and completing missions helped the city survive. Getting hit meant a few seconds where you were inactive and the city might take more damage.

It was a pretty inspired idea honestly. I don't think the game was excellent but good design choice.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

Theater was the Superman Returns movie tie-in. The game wasn't good, but the health system for the city was a neat idea, and the flying was AMAZING.

There's never been a bad game with an element I enjoyed so much as Superman Returns and the flying.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Maybe a decent Superman game could emphasize the D in DC comics; and have you mostly play as Clark Kent trying to solve a mystery, occasionally using X-Ray vision or Super Speed to gather facts. A common challenge might be trying to get past a security desk to find answers without triggering any alarms or causing the guard harm.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Or they could do something like the One Punch Man game, where you can select Saitama and he will destroy anyone else without effort (unless it's a mirror match, in which case it's a normal fight). But, because it's Saitama, he's always running late.

So you pick teams of 3 and if Saitama is on yout team, you have to survive with just 2 until he gets there.

So a game where you play as someone else but superman can show up and stomp everything before going off to do something else could work. You've gotta survive until he gets there and maybe do things to get his attention or help resolve some other issue he's dealing with.

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Death of Superman, Reign of Supermen, Superman Allstar. There are many film/scenarios, where superman has to fight someone actually stronger than he is. Even in Justice League Dark Apokolips, he is captured first, and then injected with Kryptonite.

Your friend needs to watch/read more DC content.

Some more examples with spoilers below.

Tap for spoiler

He even got mind controlled by Poison Ivy once. Hell, in the new game, Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, he is mind controlled by Brainiac, and Wonder Woman having Kryptonite didn't protect her from Superman.

Superman has also done questionable things, even without being mind controlled, like in Batman The Dark Knight Returns Part 2, it is implied that he ripped out one arm of Oliver Queen, aka, Green Arrow, who was also member of Justice League, because the government of USA wanted to stop vigilantes. Then he also almost killed Batman, after being almost killed by Batman.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 days ago

I get what you're saying. The person in question knew more about the original source material than I ever have, and I'm just relaying their opinion.

I'm usually entertained by Superman stories, personally. They might be boring, they might be woke, they might be a million things, but as long as I find them entertaining, then I'll keep watching.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

I think power on that scale gets harder to parse, a little bit like Dragonball Z fights. Many of Goku's adversaries are capable of destroying whole planets, which makes anything else that happens in a season feel insignificant.