Quite possibly the worst take on Superman I've ever seen

Okay. I'm not usually in the habit of calling out people for saying things that are woefully stupid. But honestly, this one just about made my jaw drop, and one part in particular.

For context, out of pure boredom I started looking up reviews for Superman: Earth One, and on one particular review, this was how it opened up.

I am still searching for a story about Superman that will make me like him, that will make his acceptance into society make sense. Based on the fact that several origin stories, along with two questionable movies, have popped up over the past decade or so that find alternate ways to give me this, I suspect that DC and its writers are still trying to figure that out as well.

You see, the reason why I don’t like him is because my thinking falls in line with Lex Luthor and Batman: he is an alien among us, superior to us in every way. No matter how much nurturing Ma and Pa Kent have given him, nothing removes the fact that he is not one of us, and as Clark Kent, he is attempting to suppress what makes him different. While I do agree that he is the danger that Lex and Batman believe he can be if turned against us, I have a far easier time in believing a Superman that, in his benevolence, chooses to rule over our lesser species in order to protect us. Which is a far more deadly version of Superman than one who simply wants to destroy us, and has been depicted well in alternate universe stories like Superman: Red Son and the Injustice: Gods Among Us game and comics.

...

I kid you not, my jaw just about hit the floor when the OP wrote that they actually side with Batman and Lex flippin' Luthor of all people.

Now I actually checked to see if this was published around the time of Batman v. Superman, and it actually wasn't. It was dated from 2014, so I can't imagine the OP was referring to the killing, Frank Miller-esque Batman seen in that film. Maybe. I don't know how much info was revealed about the film back then.

But there's still the Lex Luthor thing, and maybe the OP isn't very well educated on this sort of thing (and I assume everyone else is far more so than me, so this ramble is kind of redundant), so let me spell out the problem with that.

Lex Luthor does indeed say that...but it's all a bold-faced lie. His real problem with Superman is that he's jealous of him. He can do things he can't, he has all of the people's love and adoration...he basically stole Luthor's thunder, and the man literally cannot live with that. Everything else is just lying, plain and simple.

I believe All-Star Superman summed it up the best (skip all the way to the end to see it).

(Minor side note; it may not be shown in this clip, which is unfortunate, but Luthor admitting that Superman is right with complete sincerity may just be the most profound thing the man has ever said in any continuity)

Some further proof. I recently took a look at the Up, Up and Away storyline, where Superman slowly regains his powers a year after the whole debacle with Superboy Prime. He's been gone for a year, and what does Mr. Luthor do in all that time? Make good on his promises to better the world? Cure cancer? Anything like that? Nope! He spends his time gathering a butt-ton of kryptonite and digging up an ancient Kryptonian warship so he could destroy Metropolis for "turning its back on him". And Superman himself verbally rakes him over the coals with that during their final battle (Another side note; seeing a human-level Superman slugging it out with a gaget-less Luthor, with nothing but their own strength and words, was nothing short of pure awesome)

That is Lex Luthor. He's a scheming, corporate dirtbag and mad scientist who's only interests are his own.

Superman, meanwhile, is the polar opposite. His very existence is a defiance of "absolute power corrupts absolutely". At the end of the day, he's just a person–and it doesn't matter if he came from Krypton or any other planet, he's still a person–who wanted to use his powers to help people.

I sincerely hope the OP was just clueless about the deeper bits of Luthor's manifesto outside of what he says. I shudder to think that anyone might seriously consider him to be in the right.

And never mind that this whole thing was a review of Earth One, an alternate origin tale that makes some odd twists to the story and supporting cast and features a Superman so scowley that he makes Henry Cavill's look cheery at times. This alone just really threw me in for a loop.

Sorry for the ramble–I don't usually like to do these sorts of things–but I just had to get this out somewhere.

Comments

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Like I said before, man, you get nutters in every crowd.

I'm related to someone who thinks that Superman has no personality, to give you one example.