Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #13 April 2015 | Page 60

you, Batman Begins).
Now, with that said, let me address the two big sticking points that a lot of Superman fans have with this
film: One, the “killing” scene: The original “comics
code” adopted by both D.C. and Marvel way back
when was, from the get-go, a ham-handed, ill-conceived, arbitrary way of enforcing a presumptuous
morality on comic book characters; it had nothing
to do with creating good, believable, interesting, or
memorable heroes and villains, and was not so much
a product of artistic restraint as it was one of economic reality; i.e., it had everything to do with appeasing
angry parents and an out-of-control moralistic, prohibitionist society. Superman’s (and Batman’s) “no
killing” rule is a leftover of that code. It’s a fine ideal,
I guess, but it’s just not believable or realistic to think
that the most powerful hero on Earth, when faced with
the moral dilemma of either a) letting innocent people
die horrible deaths or b) killing the murderous asshole who’s threatening them — and who is offered no
choice other than killing him — would opt to choose
a nonviolent solution to the problem. I’m sorry, but if
I were Superman, I would’ve killed the bastard, too!
(I guess it’s a good thing I have neither the strength
nor other powers that the Man of Steel has; otherwise,
there’d be a lot of neck-broke dudes out there.) Secondly, a lot of Superman fans have complained that
the film doesn’t seem as “fun” or “joyful” as the original Christopher Reeve films. And you know what?
That’s entirely understandable. It’s not. The reason
is because those films were a product of the 1980’s
mentality, and we, as a society, were much more innocent and naïve back then. We’re not, now. We want
heroes that are dark and complex because our lives
are now more dark and complex; we want heroes with
extra dimensions and moral demons because our lives
today have so many of both. Superman, at his best, is
a reflection of the best in us, of everything we can and
should strive to be; in light of that, his killing of Zod
is well-nigh unforgivable . . . until you look at it from
the standpoint of logic and believability, and in light
of the fact that although Superman embodies much
of what we ought to strive for, he is, in the end, not
human, and thus is not bound by conventional human
morality. That’s the way I see it, at least. Anyway.
This is a great film, one that I highly recommend

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every fan of comic-book movies — and every fan of
great action and sci-fi period — see.
I, for one, really enjoyed this film. Having been alive
when the original Superman film featuring Zod was
released, I actually think that if you compare the two
films objectively — the “two” in this case being this
film with the Richard Donner cut of Superman — that
this one ends up being the superior (and more believable) of the two, both from a visual standpoint as well
as a storytelling standpoint. You are of course entitled
to your opinion; any given person’s mileage with any
given movie I like may vary — a lot. I thought Henry
Cavill’s performance was great, better than Routh’s
for sure, maybe even almost the equal of Reeve’s.
(I know, sacrilege; but, this is how I see things.) I
especially enjoyed Michael Shannon’s Zod; and here,
I will go on record to that yes, he does indeed outdo
Terrance Stamp, both in terms of nuance and general scene-chewing as well. Insofar as “joy” goes, I
don’t tend to rate movies on how “joyful” they are; to
me, that’s all caught up in how well a film entertains
me. Mainly, I tend to rate films on how well they
accomplished their individual artistic goals, whether
those goals were stated outright by the filmmakers
beforehand or implied as the film progressed . . . and
on that score, Snyder and co. delivered — big time.
They created a modern-day reimagining of the Superman mythos — or a part of it — that addresses
contemporary moral quandaries, with a flamboyant but
well-articulated visual styling. As crude as it might
be to say it, I think that Snyder is the Artisan’s answer
to Michael Bay; he is visually striking — and knows
damn well how to film an action sequence. Insofar as
the violence is concerned, well, here is where I — as
an author and storyteller — simply shrug my shoulders and say that when you create a fantasy universe,
you can’t — you can’t, can’t, can’t — impose artificial
boundaries (especially moral ones) on where your
characters can and can’t go and where the rules of that
universe will and will not lead you. The rules for this
story were simple: “Feuding aliens with vastly superior strength and firepower land on Earth. They fight.”
Okay, the rules were more nuanced than that, but you
get the idea: It may have been violent, it may have not
been pretty, and it may have even been unsettling from
a moral standpoint . . . but folks, this is exactly how