Tag Archives: Superman

Five coolest superhero movie moments

Maybe it was Superman besting Lex Luthor’s nuclear missiles by turning the world backward on its axis. Maybe it was Spider-Man swinging over the NYC skyline for the first time. Heck, maybe it was a Robert Downey Jr. quip.

We all know them when we see them: Those moments in big-screen adaptations of superhero comics that made you get goosebumps, that made you pump your fist and shout “Yes!” right there in the theater.

Here’s a personal, subjective list of my five favorite superhero movie moments. And yes, this short list is heavy on “Iron Man” and Marvel movies. Maybe a follow-up installment will spread the love around a bit.

Superman’s first flight. The 1978 “Superman” reaches a several-minute-long high point during the sequence when Superman takes on bad guys and even rescues a kitten from a tree on his first night in Metropolis. But the single coolest moment? When, at the end of years of training, Christopher Reeve, in the classic Superman suit for the first time, flies from a distant point in the Fortress of Solitude toward the camera.

The suitcase suit. “Iron Man 2” was lacking in a lot of ways, but the appearance of the suitcase suit – a staple of the classic “Iron Man” comics – was a highlight.

Iron Man vs. thugs. When Tony Stark finds out his weapons are being used by marauding terrorists in “Iron Man,” he suits up and engages in some wish fulfillment fantasy. Who hasn’t wanted to fly over to a foreign country and take out some oppressors?

The tracking shot in “The Avengers.” There’s no denying the power of the moment in “The Avengers” when the team assembles, backs to each other, in a circle, ready to face the menace of Loki’s army. That’s the single most powerful visual shot in the movie. But for my fanboy money, the coolest sequence in the movie is Joss Whedon’s long tracking shot as his camera follows Iron Man through the concrete canyons, capturing one Avenger after another battling the Chitauri.

Nick Fury. Nick Fury! The modern age of comic book movies began at the end of 2008’s “Iron Man” when Tony Stark comes home to find Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, in his house. Fury says he’s there to talk to him about … the Avengers Initiative!

Woo-hoo!

Superman’s ‘S’ shield through the decades

Here’s a cool graphic, from Steve Younis and the people at the Superman Homepage, recalling the dozens of variations on Superman’s “S” shield over the decades.

From the original one, interpreted by Superman’s creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, as a kind of crest, to later movie and TV versions to more sophisticated interpretations of recent years, there’s a lot of Super here.

The … different version from this summer’s “Man of Steel” movie is here too.

Clark Kent quits? Give me a break

The comic book world – heck, the world in general – noticed something interesting in 1992. That was the year that DC Comics decided to kill off Superman, who died in an epic fight with the bizarre creature Doomsday in the streets of Metropolis.

Now, Superman had died before. Just a few short years earlier, in 1986, the Superman that fans had known since his debut in Action Comics in June 1938 died – in a manner of speaking – when DC decided to reboot the character and jettison a lot of Superman history.

Over the decades, Superman and his alter ego, Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, had gone through a lot of changes. Kryptonite had come and gone and come again. Clark and Lois married. Heck, Clark even – in the early 1970s – had gone to work in TV, for a Metropolis station owned by the conglomerate that owned the Planet.

But the death of Superman in 1992 drew attention from the world’s news media. I was sitting in a journalism awards ceremony a few months later and heard a clever real life newspaper headline – “Superman rests in crypt tonight” – recognized.

So the world at large paid attention to that development and many others since, including the more recent death of Captain America, the “coming out” of the original Green Lantern and other happenings.

Of course, these comic book developments are common and are frequently undone. Captain America’s sidekick Bucky stayed dead only for so many decades.

So when news broke the other day that Clark Kent had quit his job at the Daily Planet, I rolled my eyes.

Not just because it was another case of the media paying attention to the latest deviation in the quickly-approaching-a-century history of comic books.

But because it seemed like just another cheap stunt to shake things up in comics, an entertainment that does pretty well at movie theaters but struggles in its original print medium sometimes.

But I was also shaking my head because this wasn’t the Clark who had covered every major event since the dawn of World War II, the guy who wore a fedora and raced to the scene of a catastrophe – with a layover to quickly change into red-and-blue tights and take care of the problem.

This wasn’t even the “groovy” Clark who reported on the air for TV in the 1970s.

No, this was the recently rebooted Clark, just 27 years old and a veteran of five whole years in journalism.

This Clark was frustrated by the focus of the Planet and girlfriend-no-more Lois Lane on the trivial: Entertainment and celebrities and fringe players looking to be famous for no good reason.

So that Clark decided, rather than write stories so meaningful that Perry White couldn’t NOT put them on 1-A, to call it quits.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this change lasts – I predict a year, tops – before he goes back to the Planet.

Or maybe DC will do something truly surprising and truly reboot Superman, totally reinventing the character.

I somehow doubt that’ll happen, though.

After all, there’s a reason Superman adopted the identity of Clark Kent. It’s because Clark and other reporters are where the action is. They quickly recognize problems that need to be addressed – particularly in Superman’s early career as a social crusader – and define them as a job for Superman or fodder for a well-written news article.

Want to surprise us, truly surprise us, DC? Either kill Clark Kent – more effectively than you killed Superman two decades ago – and truly shake up the Super status quo or get Clark the hell back to work.

And get off my lawn while you’re at it.