ITT: Characters that are plot devices

Superman vs the Elite was probably one of the worst strawman stories ever shat out into a bowl and smeared on the screen.
It's literally everything that's wrong with Superman as a character and a masturbatory god-figure designed to whore out one particular childlike viewpoint of morality as the eternal truth, distilled to its most rancid.

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>>85849965
Would that summarily mean that Joe Kellys story that its adapted from is also shit?

The movie did a poor job of portraying the utter irredeemable dickheads the Elite were at the end of the movie as the natural progression of their philosophy. It felt like they just kind of flipped a switch and went 'they have to be the bad guys now'.

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Jake's dad only served to be the obligatory "nobody can know our secret" character + bumbling dad in the first season of Jake Long, really. He only came out as his own when he finally DID find out about magical bullshit and went out of his way to protect his family, despite the fact THEY had superpowers and he had jack shit.
Kinda like Jake's best friends, actually.

>Comic shows the danger of the Elite's philosophy and the natural dickish progression
>Movie Elite never stop being right and Superman acts like a triggered retard the whole movie
How could they fuck it up so bad

>>85850150
Didn't he defeat a gang of vampire and army of shadow demons by himself?

>>85849965
This. I never read the comic, but I knew the movie was going to be a simple strawman right when they needlessly killed the dog. Killing animals for no good reason is one of the most blatant, unimaginative ways of telling the audience, "LOOK, THESE ARE THE VILLAINS!"

>>85850033
I never watched the movie and onyl read the comic, but what >>85849965 said describes my feelings about the comic perfectly.

>>85849965
Superman arrested Skull. It's the city's fucking fault that they decided to use him as a battery instead of legalizing the death penalty on him.

Would Superman be against the State killing super villains after a legal trial declared them guilty?

I hope they do The Elite in Man of Steel 2. It's the perfect kind of story to showcase what Superman stands for and get people to stop bitching about how Cavill doesn't smile enough or whatever.

>>85852086
>"No! Killing is wrong!"
>Kills Manchester Black by tossing him through a train, killing hundreds of passengers in the process

>>85851343
I get it easy to hate the adaptation but the comic really is not much better

>>85852131
But is he smiling when he throws him? This is important.

>>85852244
No, serious moments need serious faces anon!

The thing I hated about the story is that presents a ethical question "should super heroes use lethal force when they believe it is necessary?" and then make the people arguing the case for yes increasingly look bad to avoid actually addressing the question.

>>85852311
This, by Superman's morals the police had no right to kill that nigger sniper with a robot suicide bomber and should have spent police lives trying to bring him in alive.

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>>85849832

>>85852311
It's not hard to imagine that someone who wants to kill is morally inferior to someone who doesn't want to kill.

>>85852311
It's literally Joe Kelly's autistic rant against the Authority he's not saying that there's a moral issue he's saying that Superhero stories shouldn't be like that, that the Authority shouldn't be more popular than Superman

>>85852413
Kelly changed what the story was about halfway through though.

>>85852038
Yeah probably, we have to rehabilitate those monsters and living weapons so they may become functional members of society

>>85852311
>>85852346
No; the question was never about a situation where it was 'kill or be killed', it was about kill someone without even attempting to take him in custody.

>>85852086
What's the point? DC already owns the rights to the actual Authority.

>>85852573
that was what I said when they believe it is necessary

>>85852346
There actually are pretty big philosophical and ethical considerations to the police strapping a bomb to a robot and using it to kill a suspect that had barricaded himself in a room.

>>85852311
The problem with that is from a legal and ethical standpoint the answer is no unless the superhero in question is entirely reactive and already present at the scene prior to the arrival of authorities.

>>85852697
They had been shooting at each other for some time and negotiations had failed.

How is this any different from a SWAT sniper taking the perp down? Or is that not allowed in this situation either?

>>85852697
I don't actually disagree with you on the moral side I just thought the way he demonized people who disagreed with him as to the role of a hero was bad form.

>>85852601
Brand impact. While they probably don't care about the Authority itself, the characters within represent potential lines of development.

Okay, Midnighter, Jack Hawksmoor, and maybe Engineer are probably about the only ones who wouldn't be redundant with other properties.

>>85852740
The issue isn't an argument of lethal force, it's an argument of the threshold of lethal force when police aren't at risk. Also the fact that the guy was holed in a room with the only exits covered by police and could easily have been waited out due to not having access to any food or water. Then there is the issue with using a bomb, by nature an indiscriminate weapon, rather than mounted gun.

>>85852776
the doctor is cool what makes him redundant?

>>85852872
He'd be competing with another "do-anything" magician and a sexually deviant heroin addict or failed Palestinian suicide bomber don't really have the same draw as a hot chick in fishnets and a tophat. Then there would be the inevitable issues with Doctor Who.

>>85852932
Zatanna doesn't have the shamanistic spiritual angle that the doctor does I could easily see him interacting with swamp thing or Constantine. As for the confusion with DW fuck em the doctor is a cool name if dc can have a character named ultraman then they can have a character named the doctor.

>>85853034
How often does the shamanistic, spiritual stuff really come up in stories? Most of the time he's basically just a reality warper.

I think the Century Baby stuff would be a pretty good concept to develop.