Episode 154 - Superman: Red Son (Animated) with DJ Nik - Men of Steel

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Case (00:00):
It's just so bonkers to me that this is so different.
But I understand that, like, if you didn't know that was, like, the way that the comic went, you'd be like, well, yeah, no, it makes sense.
He's got, like, this awesome wife in the form of Lois Lane, and he's accomplished all the things he ever wants to accomplish.
He can retire.
Yeah.

Jmike (00:20):
It's just so weird that we're being kind to Lex Luthor.

DJ Nik (00:25):
That's what I'm saying, is because you have to make him.
You have to make him look good in this thing.
You can't make him look too villainous.
I mean, we talked about the superior Superman, his fate, and then after that, it's kind of forgotten that he actually did some shady.
You know, it's like, oh, he's a good dude.
He loves his wife.
He's helping the country and everything else.
It makes sense.

Jmike (01:01):
Foreign.

Case (01:12):
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast.
I am Case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Jmike Folson.

Jmike (01:20):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.

Case (01:22):
Welcome back indeed.
Because we are tackling a story that goes back to one of our earliest episodes of the podcast.
We are talking about the animated adaptation of Superman, Red Sun.
And to have a conversation about a Superman movie, I could think of someone no better than the host of a superhero podcast, and that is DJ Nik.

DJ Nik (01:42):
Hey, guys.
It's wonderful to be back.
Great to be hanging out with you guys and talking about a movie that I had never seen before.
And I did not really sort of.
I only knew the premise of.
So definitely looking forward to breaking it down with y'.
All.

Case (01:54):
Yeah, the premise is a really strong.
It's a.
It's a really strong elevator pitch, you know, like, talking about, like, yeah, it's Superman, but he landed in Russia like that.
That's.
That's the log line for this.
And that's really cool.
So.
So, okay.
One thing that we got to get better about doing in general, because it's a feature that has been commented on that is really great, is J. Mike, could you please describe for the audience what is Superman?

(02:21):
Red Sun.
People like this.

Jmike (02:25):
People comment and ask about this.

Case (02:27):
Yes.
We've actually gotten feedback about how they appreciate you.
You trying to work your way through it, a synopsis of what we've been doing.

Jmike (02:36):
Like, so I'm just gonna say this.
It's kind of.
You kind of already did it.
It's like, what would happen if Superman's ship was four hours earlier late I think it was.
They say in the book, is it four hours earlier, late, and it landed in Ukraine.
Like the farm.
Yeah, the farm fields of Ukraine.
And he was raised by Russian farmers.

(03:02):
And him growing up in that whole environment over there, like the.
The.
Well, the movie at least has him with his friend svelte Lana, which I thought was hilarious.
Him her being like his best friend growing up, and then him growing up in the Russian environment and learning how to deal with all that goes on over there.

(03:24):
Because I'm not really familiar with Russian stuff and him becoming the premier of Russia and having to deal with Brainiac.
And I think the book called him Batman Cough.

Case (03:35):
Yes.

Jmike (03:36):
And the adventures with Wonder Woman and the fallout from Alex trying to antagonize him because of the fall kind of.
Kind of collapse of.
Of democracy over here in the States.
Like in the book, it goes in a little bit more context about, like, how things are falling apart over here while he was promoting the new version of the War Star pact overseas.

(04:00):
So it's like a battle of minds versus Lex versus Superman about who is going to come out on top.
And at the end, like, Lex kind of wins.
Yeah.

Case (04:12):
That's kind of an interesting part about the Red sun series as a whole.
Like, Lex Luthor does kind of walk away the winner in this whole situation.
Like, Superman doesn't lose, per se, but, like, he.

Jmike (04:24):
Yeah, my Lex definitely comes out on top on this one.

Case (04:26):
Yeah.

Jmike (04:27):
Yeah.
Which is weird for a Superman book.
But, you know, hey, it's a.
It's a different topic.
Like you said, it's an elevator pitch.
Hey, guys, what would you think if, like, Superman landed in Russia and people look at you crazy, but that one guy be like, hey, it's a pretty cool idea.

Case (04:44):
Yeah.
Well, and that's kind of how this.
This started way back when.
So, like, if I remember correctly, this was a, like, imaginary story at one point.
Like, not an El, not the Elseworld, Superman, Red.
But, like, this was a, like, DC published like, one of their myriad, like, you know, one chapter or maybe the full issue of a Superman book back in the 50s and 60s, where, like, what.

(05:04):
Like, doing what ifs.
And in this scenario, what if Superman landed in Russia and Mark Millar, who is the writer on the comic that this is based on.

Jmike (05:13):
Yeah.

Case (05:14):
Took that idea and ran with it for a whole miniseries.
And this is.
This goes to show where you can, like, take an idea that's, like, really good and expand on it and do really cool things with it without necessarily having to be, like, 100% yours.
This is when we have to like, talk about Mark Millar for a minute.
Nick, are you that familiar with like, Mark Millar, the comic writer and creator of things like Kick Ass Wanted.

(05:37):
Are you familiar with some of the controversy about.
Around him in the comics world these days?

DJ Nik (05:42):
Yes, I am.
You know, and it's very sad because these days one has to kind of continue to separate the artists from the arts when it comes up.
Because I was a huge fan of Kick Ass when the comics came out.
And then, you know, you find the controversy surrounding, you know, the creator and it's kind of like, oh man, another person's kind of let me down.
It's kind of lately with Neil Gaiman, who I was a huge fan of, and that was another one which kind of broke my heart.

(06:04):
But yeah, I'm familiar with it and I'm familiar with the comics and of course I love the Kick Ass movies, even though I know Jim Carrey kind of distanced himself from the second one.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the movies and I thoroughly enjoyed the source material as well when it came to Mark's work.

Case (06:18):
Yeah.
So let's also clarify what we're talking about is not as bad as Neil Gaiman.
Yeah.
Like, which is.
It's crazy that Neil Gaiman is now our, like, our example of like, well, yeah, how bad can you go?
And like, in this whole sort of space, Marc Millar has thrown his lot in with a lot of the sort of like Manosphere comics gate crowd.

(06:40):
And that's sort of like the big area.
And it sort of has caused people to re.
Evaluate a lot of his work, which has always had kind of an edge, lordy kind of quality to it.
And you know, I'm not going to lie, when like the Ultimates came out, I was like the prime demograph for it.
But it's the type of situation where we're kind of looking at the artwork that has been created by this writer who has had very public falling out with creators that remain in pretty good graces.

(07:12):
Grant Morrison has said that if they were to run into Mark Millar in Ireland or Scotland.
Pardon me, in Scotland, he was hoping that it would be in a car, like implying that he would kill him.
Like, that's.
And, and Morrison is a pacifist.

(07:33):
So like, we're talking about like some fairly extreme distancing of people who so far have remained on the right side of things from Malar, which is kind of sucks because Malar has been a Part of some pretty big projects.
And I feel like Red sun is way less edge.
Lordy than it should be from the premise, you know, Like, I. I think that the comic of Red sun, like the.

(07:59):
The Red Sun Superman has popped up in things like Countdown, which was like the introduction of the DC Multiverse again after.
After Crisis on Internet for Dirt, wherein he was a much more pragmatist kind of Superman and kind of on the edge of being like an evil Superman.
And I don't think that Red Sun Superman in either the comic or the movie is ever evil Superman.

(08:20):
I. I think they do a really good job of having the character remain a really good guy, even though the circumstances push him into a space where he is doing like, on, like when you take the step back, bad things.
But he's really trying to be a good character throughout.
I think that is commendable because that is not necessarily how Millar would write a lot of his characters.

(08:44):
And so in that regard, that's pretty good.

DJ Nik (08:47):
I think he's more misguided than anything else.
Yeah, he doesn't want to do bad things, but the way he goes about it, I think is misguided.

Case (08:57):
Yeah.
And he's certainly susceptible to manipulation, which I think the movie plays up further.

DJ Nik (09:02):
Oh, yes.

Case (09:02):
But I think it's an interesting take on Superman, who is definitively Superman, in fact, in terms of adaptation stuff.
So the animated movie, I think, does a lot of really good things with it all.
So I want to note it's written by JMD Matthias, who we are going to be interviewing soon.

Jmike (09:22):
Spoilers.

Case (09:23):
Spoilers on that one.
So.
So, like, I, like, I want to be clear.
Like, I think that there are things that the comic could do that the movie can't do.
And some of those things are economical tellings of story by way of like thought balloon or not thought balloons, but like the.
The first person narration that happens throughout the entire.

(09:45):
The entire book.
That, that allows for like, a more rapid kind of storytelling in some components or at least like to flesh out details that you would take serious time.
So there are shots in the.
In the comic that I like, regretful that they couldn't put in the movie.
But the only way to really put them in the movie would be to do some kind of like, Zack Snyder kind of slow, like, speed up, slowdown, kind of like spots.

(10:10):
And I'm thinking specifically about the spot where he catches the Daily Planet globe.
And it's like basically the COVID of Superman.
Like, those are moments where I'm like, oh, I Kind of miss those in this.
But I'm like.
And I'm gonna have this issue talking about the movie because I was so familiar with the comic book.
Like I like, I broke it out just like double check the pace of some things.

(10:34):
But in terms of the actual issues, I have a very good recollection of this story and how it beats out because it's really, it's a simple three act structure.
So it plays really well.
And that makes it actually play really well as a screenplay.
Yeah, so it plays really well in terms of my memory of things.
And so there is going to be a lot of times where I'm going to just compare it to the comic because I can't help but compare it to the comic because I'm so familiar with the comic.

(11:02):
Well, and Jamie, I mean you read it for this, did you, had you read that before we did the show?

Jmike (11:06):
Oh yeah, I've read it a couple of times.
A couple of times.
And I watched a movie a couple of times.
Like I was trying to like decide which one I like better, but I'm kind of like they're both have their.
It's not like public enemies where they specifically leave out certain beat points and throw it in the next movie.
And it makes no sense this one.
They kind of streamline the stories to a good degree, in my opinion.

Case (11:33):
Yeah, like there's certainly spots that I find myself saying like, oh, but I like this part from the comic.
But like I think that the movie is doing a really good job.
Yeah, it's really a really good job of like telling the story.
Like Nick, what's your experience with the comic versus the movie?

DJ Nik (11:46):
I would admit I am not familiar with the source material because I kind of wanted to go in completely blind and just go with this without sort of seeing the adaptations.
So that I was not maybe influenced of thinking, you know, they are, they change this, they change that and so on.
So this was my only point of reference.
But I, I, you know, and being the first time I actually sat down to watch this, as I mentioned before, I only knew the premise.

(12:08):
So I was really curious to see also, I guess being European and being familiar with the history of the Soviet Union and what have you, it was really interesting to see, not to mention seeing Superman literally kill Stalin.
I was, I was blown away when that happened.

Case (12:20):
Yeah.

DJ Nik (12:22):
What I thought was curious about this one was that you like you were mentioning earlier case.
I think by and large, even though I think Superman is very susceptible to manipulation and might be Misguided in the way he acts.
By and large, I think it proves the fact that even if Superman had not.
Was not born or had not been found in America, wherever he might have been raised, he ultimately can't escape his.

(12:42):
His ethics and his morals.
And that will always be intrinsic to the character.
And I really appreciated that.
I mean, there are some things which are clearly anti Russian in this film, likely because it was written by Americans.
And that does not surprise me in the slightest because we know of the relationship between now Russia, ex Soviet Union, the States.
So there are some glaring things that go clearly against.

(13:03):
Against Russia.
And the one thing that I was.
That I will say, the one that annoyed me a little bit.
Well, as much as I am a feminist, I kept.
It really annoyed me that Wonder Woman kept going on and on about it's men, it's men.
It's always their fault.
It's always their fault.
And so that kind of annoyed me to a certain exact.
It just seemed too repetitive.
Like, I get what you're doing enough now.

(13:24):
Stop hammering us over the head with this concept.
But other than that, I thought it was great and I.
And I appreciated what.
What was.
What was ultimately given to us on screen.

Case (13:33):
Yeah.
So like, regarding the.
The Wonder Woman issue, it is less so in the comics.
It.
They're like falling out is less well defined in.
In the comics.
I think that the movie does a good job of ultimately having her be suspicious and have like her falling out with Superman is.
Is done better in the movie.
But I think that, yeah, there's a bit more of a drum that she's.

(13:55):
She's beating about being suspicious of the man's world and men in general.

DJ Nik (14:00):
Because she's a lesbian in this version.

Case (14:04):
Right.
Which also is not in the comic.

Jmike (14:05):
Yeah, it's not in the comic at all.
I mean, it makes sense in the movie for where she's coming from, but like the comic is not there.
Her mom is also in the comic too.
Hippolyta is like around right.
In Russia in the comic.

Case (14:18):
Now regarding sort of like the.
The perspective of things, it's interesting noting that I think that the movie ends up being more anti Russian pro American than the comic was.
And maybe that is because it's an American writer adapting it versus a Scottish writer writing the comic in the first place.
So yeah, that.

(14:39):
That is a thing that.
That struck me.
I mean, like, how do we want to do this?
Do you want to like, go down like.

DJ Nik (14:44):
Like I Do, however, want to point something out really quickly.
It also seems that since this movie was more recent, current politics may have bled into this one.
Like, for example, I don't.
I know I might be overstepping here or might be getting ahead of myself, but is it just me or does Lex Luthor sound incredibly like Donald Trump?
And his accent, I don't.

Case (15:06):
Think that was because he sounds sort of like.
Because it's Diedrich Bader doing this sort of like fast talking, smartest guy in the room thing.

Jmike (15:16):
I couldn't place his voice and I couldn't decide who he sounded because it.

DJ Nik (15:20):
Was the nasally voice and the way he talked.
I was like, it could just be recency bias on my part having, you know, having, you know, heard, of course, Donald Trump all the time on the news.
It sounded very much like him.
And then of course, you get superior Superman going America first.
I'm like, oh, okay, right.

Case (15:36):
No, that one I do think is straight up that I don't.
I. I didn't take Bader's performance as Lex Luthor as being specifically Trumpian, mainly because the character is very different.
Aside from the fact that he becomes president at the end.
Like, the comic version of this character is dialed down a little bit in the movie, but it has this like, very particular way of Mark Millar writing smart people, which is very tell.

(16:05):
Don't show like all the dialogue.
Like, I'm so smart because I figured out all these like blank variables that like factor into this whole situation.
And we get a little bit of that in the movie.
Like we.

Jmike (16:14):
I figured this out 40 years ago.

Case (16:17):
Stuff like that.
Or like, specifically when he's like, oh, I can prove that he's real.
You just need to like, you know, give me $20 million and, you know, let me like, you know, shoot down the satellite.
Like, that sequence is kind of the sort of dialogue that he does, but it's way toned down from like the excessive kind of writing of the character that we get in, like, in the comic.

(16:40):
And it's if you've ever read the comic version of Wanted with Solomon Seltzer, I want to say the Lex Luthor analog that's in that he's got the same whole situation where it's just like, oh, yeah, no, I wore the exact cologne that, like, was what his, like, father wore.
And I was tapping my finger in a rhythm that like, evoked the nursery rhymes that his mom sang to him as a child.

(17:00):
And that is why he was like, so pliant when I was talking to him.
Like, those are like lines that Mark Millar writes.
And it's very, like I said, very tell.
Don't show about like how smart the character is.
And I just think that they're doing this sort of like posh version of Alex Luthor who is unchallenged by the things in his own world.
Like the whole point for the Lex Luthor character is that with Superman as an enemy of the United States, he is able to shine in a way that he rises in prominence without the villainy kind of component to it because he's able to be focused as sort of a super weapon by the US oh yeah, totally.

DJ Nik (17:37):
I totally agree.
Yeah.

Case (17:38):
But yeah, like the America first stuff from Superior man is super.
And that's.
That is added for the movie.
Yeah, in the comic, the character is the Bizarro.
And I kind of.
Yeah, he's just straight up like, he, at the very end, he's dying.
He like uses like the me kind of speak.
But in the, in the comic, like the whole time he's saying like, goodbye me.

(18:02):
So sad to see you.
Like kind of, you know, reverse like bizarro speech.
Yeah.

DJ Nik (18:07):
Here they made it more of like almost a fascist character with the way he was brought.
He was kind of spouting out the populist.
The populist jargon, of course, you know, of course.
Which was always kind of Superman's thing way back when.
But that's.
I was like, I'm sure this might.
Was likely influenced by recent political events, seeing that the.
The.
The movie is more recent than obviously the source material.

Case (18:30):
Yeah, I would 100% agree that is.
That those are more recent kind of political things like seeping into the world of the character.
Yeah.
Why don't we.
So why don't we just talk about the three major arcs for this?
So.
Because the.
So the comic was broken down into red sun rising, red sun ascendant, and red sun setting, I believe was the.
The three arcs, which basically corresponds to the three ages of the characters in this hall.

(18:54):
So when we've got young Superman and he's basically in the Superman outfit, it just has the colors changed or like the pattern changed.
And we've got Lex Luthor with a full head of hair.
And then there's the second section where Lex Luthor is starting to bald and Superman has adopted gloves.
And then we have his like full on fashy uniform end and, like, the fully bald Lex Luthor.
And those are, like, the three, like, phases that we kind of jump into.

(19:17):
So it's like the 50s into, like, the 70s into, like, the 90s or whatever.
The timeline of the.
Of the.
Of the comic and of the movie.
So the.
This opening with Svetlana is.
Is an original thing.

Jmike (19:33):
Yep.

Case (19:34):
That is not in the comic.
And it's.
I found it interesting because it's not like.
It doesn't have to be like, the Soviet Superman thing, like, aside from.
And it sort of, you know, like, most of the scene sort of just plays out as, like, any bullies, like, picking on Clark.
But the.
It's the ending point where she says you have to give these powers to the state.

(19:57):
And that kicks off the, like, the movie as a whole.
And that sets up this, like, theme of the character being very susceptible to, like, to being influenced by people.
And that becomes a theme later on.
But, like, this.
This version of the movie, one of the running themes of it is that Superman is susceptible to a lot of people's manipulations.

(20:18):
And that happens throughout this movie.
Like, it's.
It is not just like, when we get to the end with Brainiac, even with Stalin himself.

DJ Nik (20:27):
Yep.

Case (20:28):
So then we get to the opening credits, and I think the opening credits look amazing.
They're using the same art style.
They're basing a lot of it on the actual covers from the Red Sudden comics.
It's just like this gorgeous, like, Soviet era, like, iconography, like, propagandist, like, kind of material that they're.
They're cranking out.
And it looks really cool, like the.

DJ Nik (20:46):
Opening Gregorian chant that you get, which is very much sort of associated with Soviet.
Yeah, you get that there.
And I recall, you know, there were also moments of that even in, you know, to go into the Marvel world.
When they did Black Widow, they did the same kind of thing.
Because that is very much associated with Soviet.
The Soviet Union.

Case (21:04):
Right.

DJ Nik (21:04):
Of these almost Gregorian chants.

Case (21:07):
What is that?
Is that because of the Russian Orthodox Church?

DJ Nik (21:09):
Yep, you nailed it.
It's because it was.
Yeah.
And then they still use that kind of that style when it comes to prayers and what have you.
So, yeah, that's.
That's heavily embedded in Soviet Union culture and also Russian.
Today's Russian culture.

Case (21:23):
But, yeah, then we get this.
This, like, newsreel footage, and that is very similar to the way that the comic opens, where the world is made aware of Superman by way of, like, footage that has leaked about the.
About the appearance of a.
Of a Superman.
And some of the question comes from the American side of, like, is this real?
Now, this is when we get to Lois and Lex, and I just need to note that they are such a better couple in the movie than they are in the comic.

(21:47):
In the comic, like, in the comic, they are the most awkward estranged couple.
Like, they are together for the first issue.
And at the end of the first issue, Lex is like, we're having.
I have to put our relationship on pause because I have to kill Superman.
And he's, like, clearly going crazy.
And she's like, wait, marriage is over because of, like, Because Superman beat your monster that you created?

(22:09):
I don't care about the fight.
I care about him beating me in chess.
Yeah, sorry, I just went way too deep on that scene.

DJ Nik (22:17):
But can we also point out the fact that, I mean, Lois, when they're in bed, Lois is telling him, you're getting a little bit round around, you know, your chest.
I'm like, the dude is jacked.
What are you talking about?

Case (22:29):
Yeah.
No, I mean, like, they.
This seems like a really, like, vivacious couple.
Like, they have the whole point when.
When Jimmy Olsen, or rather, pardon me, Agent Olsen, says, like, basically, like, why do you.
Why are you with him?
And she gives rattles off, and she's like.

(22:49):
And she's like, number two, he's.
The sex is great.
And it's like, what?
Wow.
That.

Jmike (22:54):
We didn't ask for that, ma'.

Case (22:55):
Am.
Yeah.
Like, do you know how good the sex has to be?
That.
That's number list.

DJ Nik (23:03):
Exactly.

Case (23:04):
Like, I think the whole time, we've got a Los Lane that is way more committed to this Lex than the one in the.
In the comic.
In.
In the comic, there.
There's always a sort of, like, vibe that, like, man, if only Superman was American, like, they would have found each other.

Jmike (23:21):
Well, yeah, because he says it in his little speech bubbles in the.

Case (23:24):
Yeah, yeah.

Jmike (23:25):
Like, he was like, yeah, you know, maybe, you know, I hadn't seen the wedding ring, and I didn't know who she was and she was married.
Maybe it could have happened.
He's like, maybe in, like, a thousand years, whatever.
Somebody's going to write something about another universe where it actually happened, but not today.

DJ Nik (23:42):
Yeah, she's very much a devoted wife to him.
I think we see this throughout the whole course of the movie, even by the time he becomes president.

Case (23:47):
Yeah.
The only real arc that she has in relation to her relationship with Lex is that she goes from insisting on going as Lois Lane, even though this is, like, the 50s.
So that's like, supposed to be like a really progressive detail for the character that by the time he's.
He's president, she's going by Lois Luthor.
And that, I think, is her sort of like throwing herself in with Lex and being a part of his plans.

(24:11):
And like, part of that is being the face of the, you know, being the first lady, like that has like a political role to it.
And like, so she has to sort of like give up the.
Her extremely successful journalism career where she became the editor in chief of the Daily Planet, but like, and become First Lady.
It's so like, there's that.

(24:34):
I mean, she just seems much more like part of the same team with Lex the whole time.
So we get the damn scene.
And I think that's a pretty good establishing scene for Superman being this like, idealistic, like unbesmirched by politics kind of phase for the character.
Oh, then we get the satellite collapse or like crash landing on Metropolis.
And like I said, I kind of miss the hyper on the nose imagery that the comic book had.

(24:58):
But I think it works just fine in terms of him saving them.
And he gives like a little speech to everyone.
And that's.
That's all good.
But this gets to an interesting detail, which is that after the satellite scene, we actually get an interview between Lois and Superman or at least a confrontation between them.
And this sort of continues this whole theme of Superman just being extremely easy to manipulate.

(25:23):
Because for one thing, Lois Lane suggests that Eisenhower is right in this whole situation.
That like, the.
The satellite was just the Russian government creating a propaganda situation.
Lois Lane knows for a fact that it's not.
She was in the room when Lex requisitioned shooting down the satellite.
So.
So there is no part of her that's buying into that like this.

(25:45):
Like, oh, it's just Russian propaganda.
She actually knows it's American propaganda.
So she knows just how biased the situation is.
And she gives paperwork over that was given to her by Lex Luthor.
And so this starts off the whole sequence of Lex Luthor is manipulated.
Like Lex Luthor is playing chess.
But I don't think Superman is really playing against him.
I think Superman is a chess piece.

(26:05):
And ultimately I think that we get to the point where it's Brainiac playing chess against Luthor.
It's like you've got a rogue queen on the board in the form of Superman.
It to really kind of like take the chess metaphor like, further.
And so like, Luthor has to contend with this factor.

(26:26):
But it's only Part of his, like, bigger play, which is a little bit of a bummer because I do feel that, like, the.
The comics version is slightly more active up until he starts becoming manipulated by Brainiac.
But at the same time, it.
It does allow for him to remain kind of the good guy in the situation.

Jmike (26:46):
I. I will say that I prefer.
In this instance, I prefer the movie better here because this gives Lana.
Lana way more to do than what she actually has in the book.

Case (26:59):
Yes, yes.
So, yeah, so then we get this gulag scene and, like, yeah, that is a very dramatic inclusion in the movie that's not in the comic.
There's no equivalent scene.
Or the closest equivalent is when Superman finds Svetlana in, like, the food line.
Yeah, but.
But so he.
He goes to this gulag.

(27:19):
He is forced to, like, face.
And this is one of the spots where it's just like, look how.
Look how awful the Soviet state was.
Or that the movie is trying to be that the.
The comic doesn't really get into, because the comic sort of interprets it as being just two sides of similar coins between the Russian and the.

(27:40):
The United States or the USSR in the United States, where it's just whoever was the one who was economically prospering was the one that was doing better and the other side was doing bad.
This is.
Is really forcing us to contend with some of the.
The true atrocities.
And these are true things.
I'm not trying to, like, downplay, like, the complicity of Stalin like, that.

(28:07):
That.
That this.
This is not inaccurate.
I'm just noting that it is.
It's interesting that we're, like, kind of being like.
Yeah, it's.
There's just.
It's.
Yeah.
Anyway, no, I mean, what I thought.

DJ Nik (28:22):
Was interesting, though, about that moment was one, Lois was necessarily not expecting Superman to show up when she gave him, you know, those classified files which were showing all the atrocities that were going on in the Soviet Union.
She just happened to have them on her.

Case (28:37):
Right.

DJ Nik (28:37):
Okay, fine.
I guess this works because she was just out having a smoke.
She wasn't expecting Superman to show up.
It's like, oh, I just happen to have this.
Take this and have a look and see how wonderful your Soviet Union is.
And that you were mentioning case.
Throughout the course of this movie, we see how many times Superman is manipulated.
But also he has these very high ideals which are ultimately taken down by somebody because he's, like.

(29:02):
Invests so much into a certain set of beliefs.
But then somebody comes around going, oh, sorry, that's not exactly the case.
And I Think, you know, we get that great line, I think, from Stalin who says, you know, you're a blind kitten, because that is literally what he is.
Because he's fed any kind of knowledge and he will take it as writ.
And I.
And I appreciated in that moment where Lois is like, you know, you think the Soviet Union is so great and they're doing such a great job giving people freedom, power to the people and all.

(29:27):
And then suddenly he is.
He had no idea that there was this whole situation going on when it came to the.
The gulags.
And then of course, we get that great confrontation between started and Superman, which I did not see coming.

Case (29:40):
Yeah, neither did I, frankly.
When.
Because it's not in the comic.
And so before we move on to the confrontation between Solomon and Superman, because we're going to talk about this one, there is the setup of Batman also, or Batman cough.
Yeah, yeah.

DJ Nik (29:55):
He's dead parents this time.
Not gunned down, but in a gulag.

Case (29:59):
Yes, yeah.
And that creates a.
A direct reason for him to hate Superman.
At the very least because he says Superman.
You know, like, it's.
It's likely that there was some sort of connection between his parents and Superman vaguely, because that seems to be the purpose of this gulag.
Or at the very least, it seems that, like, people in this gulag were like, hoping Superman would free them and he didn't.

(30:21):
At the very least, he had set up in his head that Superman should have known and should have freed him in this whole situation.
And that at least creates a personal stake.
Because what's one thing that's interesting is that this movie has a much reduced supporting cast compared to the comics.
The comic actually, like, has some.
Has some panels of the Daily Planet.
So we actually see Perry White.

(30:42):
We actually, you know, we see like other reporters of the Daily Planet.
And there's the character of Pyotr Roslav, who is sort of Clark or rather Superman's political rival in the Russian government at like, as a.
Separately aspiring.
He's a bastard son of Stalin.
And he's the character in the comic who kills the Batman's parents.

(31:03):
Yeah.
And then he shoots the Batman in the shoulder on his way out.
And so it's interesting that they do a much better job here of establishing a reason for this Batman to hate this Superman as opposed to the Batman in the comic just kind of hates the state, which is fair.
There's a lot of reasons to hate the state.

(31:25):
Even after the reform Superman makes.
And Superman in the movie jumps to much more hardcore reforms.
Much faster.
Yeah.
Anyway, long story short, we get the introduction of Batman, who's going to be a big part of Act 2 of this movie, and that's important.
Anyway, so the confrontation with Stalin.
So, yeah, that's not in the fucking comic.

(31:46):
And that's where it's interesting, because this movie moves stuff around in terms of the placing of things.
And so Stalin just dies in the comic.
Like, he.
Whatever fucking reason he died from.
In the.
In the real world, you know, combination of alcoholism and old age.

Jmike (32:04):
I thought it was Cat.
He had Petra poisoned him.

Case (32:07):
Well, yeah, it's implied that he was poisoned in the.
In the comic, but, like.

DJ Nik (32:12):
But in the real world, I guess he just died of old age is what it is.

Case (32:16):
Supreme.
Alcoholism was, like, a very big thing for him.
So, like, old age is, like, in quotes, but, like, liver failure was probably, like, the honest answer on this one.
Check out behind the Bastards, by the way, as a podcast about terrible people.
A very early episode was like their Stalin episode, because, of course, Stalin was an early episode.
And it's a really good breakdown of, like, just how terrible a person this was, who I believe was, interestingly, a poet.

(32:43):
So, like, you know, weird.
Weird shit for these characters or for these people in.
In history.
But.
But, yeah, so we get the cathartic moment of Superman fucking gunning down with his eyes.
Joseph Stalin in this, which is made to be seen as the right choice after seeing this gulag, seeing all this terrible suffering.

(33:05):
And Svetlana dies, Right.
Yep.

Jmike (33:08):
Yeah, she dies.
Also, we're forgetting a huge point about the gulags that he would never have, like, known on his own is that they're all covered in lead.
So they went out of the way.
Yes.

DJ Nik (33:19):
You couldn't see below what was going on.

Jmike (33:21):
Yeah.

Case (33:22):
Yeah.
So it's not just a horrible thing being done.
It's a horrible thing being done kind of in his name and away from his knowledge.

Jmike (33:29):
Yeah.

Case (33:30):
Intentionally.
And.
And Stalin admits it like, that.
That was just the thing that he was doing.

Jmike (33:38):
It's like that scene in Prince of Egypt where Pharaoh is like, my son.
There are only slaves.
We had to die.

Case (33:44):
You know, so, yeah, that's a.
That's a big kind of shift right there.
And then, like, you know, when Superman takes out Stalin, everyone just kind of bows down.

Jmike (33:55):
Yeah.
Everyone kind of goes along with it.
You're like, oh, that was quick.

Case (33:59):
Right now.
So here is the spot that is, like, kind of.
I am missing a thing from the comic, which.
In the comic, after Stalin dies, everyone wants Superman to take over.
And he refuses for a while.
And there's no way for him to do.
To, like, actively refuse them at this point after he just killed Stalin.
Like, there's no way that story plays out that way.
But what I do kind of wish is that we had gotten some more vibes of him being, like, people wanting him to be in charge.

Jmike (34:26):
Yeah.

Case (34:26):
Because this is, like, really early in the movie, too.

Jmike (34:29):
Yeah.

Case (34:31):
So, you know, I don't.
I. I don't know if there's a way, but it was kind of nice having the character, like, doing the whole.
Like, I rejected it three times and before I finally accepted the responsibility.
And in that, it's because in the comics, Fitlana, like, that's where he meets.

Jmike (34:47):
Svetlana for the first time in a long time.

Case (34:49):
Right.
And she's like, oh, well, the situation is terrible, and it's only gonna get worse now that Stalin is dead.
And he's like, no, it doesn't have to be.
I can fix this.

Jmike (34:57):
I can save everyone.

Case (34:59):
And that's the end of the first issue.
Anyway.
So then we get the.

Jmike (35:07):
Wonder Woman.

Case (35:08):
Well, we get the Wonder Woman scene.
Yeah, this.
It's stripped down, but I think works fine.
We also get the introduction of Superior Man.
The introduction of Superior man happens first, and then we get the actual Wonder Woman scene because that leads directly into the fight.
So I do have a question about the Superior man scene.
So when they pull down the cloth that they're covering Superior man with, at first it's like, oh, that's really fucking big for just a dude.

(35:34):
And then they cut back to it.
You can see, oh, he's in some kind of box.
But then the soldiers appear to be outside of the box.
So is it actually just like.

Jmike (35:42):
Like.

Case (35:43):
Like a shed that is.
It's like, two sides and a.
And a roof, and the soldiers, like, are exposed because, like, otherwise, they're just shooting the box.
They're not actually shooting Superior man, which would make more sense if he was really a publicity stunt.
But, like, isn't.
Anyway, it's just a silly detail I. I had while watching.
While watching this thing.
Yeah.
So Superior Man.

(36:03):
I. I kind of miss the powers being, like, kind of up in the comics.
They have, like.
I. I don't need all of it.
Although, like, it might be a lot to add in this detail in.
In the comics, when they get into this fight, Superior Man, I don't think they call him Superior Man.
I think they just call him, like, warped copy or something like that.

(36:24):
But anyway, Superman 2 or something.
Yeah, whatever they call him in the comic.
Like they have a couple of good spots where they do like bizarro versions of his powers.
And so they have like telescopic X ray vision where he like accidentally fraught, like, causes like seizures, causes radiation poisoning for all these people inside a nuclear sub that's like trailing him.

Jmike (36:44):
Yeah.

Case (36:45):
And that causes them to launch a rocket.
And in response to the rocket, the comic version of Superior man frees Superman with his freezing, his ice vision because he's got the bizarro warped version of powers and then sacrifices himself and takes the rocket like off and like blows up.

(37:05):
I do kind of miss that this decision to say, you know, to sacrifice himself.
Like, I, I kind of love biz sorrows that are self sacrificing.
And I wish that there was a moment of this character sort of having that same bit of redemption.

Jmike (37:22):
Well, I mean, I don't think it would have worked in this movie though.

DJ Nik (37:24):
No, I agree with J Mike.
I don't think it would have worked.

Case (37:27):
Like, I don't think they have time.

DJ Nik (37:31):
And a half long if that.

Jmike (37:33):
Yeah.
But he does have that moment of realization, like right before he melts.
Or he's like, oh, me and hurt.
And like Superman's like, oh, you're gonna be okay.
What's going on?
Me hurt.
But I feel like the fight works better here with like how they've rearranged everything.

(37:53):
Like, it blends better.

DJ Nik (37:55):
I agree.

Jmike (37:56):
And yeah, and you get like more of Lex being almost a Reed Richards type of a character here where he's like, oh, whatever, cool.
This is part of the equation.
We're moving forward.
This doesn't really matter.
In the end.

Case (38:09):
I, I feel like that's a flanderized interpretation of Reed Richards.
But I understand what you're talking about.

Jmike (38:17):
Yeah.
Like, and justify the means.
This is just one part of the equation type thing with Lex going on for this movie.
Yeah.

DJ Nik (38:24):
But also when you seem like kind of keep telling his team to like, jack up the power.
Jack up the power and something I think it was starting to show you a little bit of the Lex that we know and his obsession with Superman to where he's prepared to, you know, push.
He has, you know, total disregard for anything outside of himself.
To where he's literally saying, even if this kills the creature, you know, I don't care as long as it gets the job done.

(38:47):
But then of course, when it fails, you know, Lex will never admit to being Wrong.
So he's like, yeah, I expected that to happen.
I think it also shows you know, some of the sides of Lexways more callous when it comes to whatever assets he has.
And heck, even it's one of the few times we actually see Lois not particularly happy with Lex at that point.
You killed this creature.
It's like, it's an it.
It's not a he and so on.

(39:07):
So he very much dehumanizes superior man, whereas Lois is, like, really upset.

Case (39:13):
It certainly is a pain point in the relationship between Lex and Lois, which is, like I said in this movie, much stronger than it is in the comics.
And so it is good to have some drama between them.
Although it ultimately, I don't think really goes anywhere.

DJ Nik (39:28):
Not really, no, because it's kind of forgotten, like, the next day.

Case (39:33):
But it's still good to.
To have like, a little bit of like, the, like, Lex, like, how could you do this kind of thing?
Because, like, the.
The Bizarro sacrificing himself because of an unreal.
Not an unrelated, but like a.
A accidental missile being fired off.
It is not villainous for Lex necessarily.

(39:53):
In fact, like, it kind of would have been doing the right thing.
And so, like, that's kind of a good thing.
So it.
We need to have some of this drama here.
Like this.
This is a much more morally good Lex, like, rereading the comics.
Like, oh, right.
Lex and Brainiac have, like, a deal at the beginning of issue two.
Like, they're teamed up with each other.
Like, and that kind of is phased out just so that Lex can sort of remain like a fairly straightforward American antagonist who is.

(40:21):
Is perhaps a little too bright for his own good, but, like, seems to be.
And, like, a little cold about stuff, but, like, is at least like, on the American side of history in this all.

DJ Nik (40:33):
And I think also you wanted to retain Lois's humanity as well as in she's not accepting everything her husband is doing.

Case (40:39):
Yes.
And he's not doing.

DJ Nik (40:40):
I think that might have caused reactions from people like, why is Lois suddenly this evil?
Lois who's like, completely cool about.
About what.
What her husband is doing.
So I think they wanted to do that was to retain, you know, not maybe piss people off that this might be.
It's like, this is not Lois Lane.
What are you doing?
You know, so I think it kind of makes sense that she would be outraged.

Case (41:00):
Right.
And she'd be outraged about a thing that is, like, in the grand scheme of things, of, like, what Lex could.
Could be doing isn't that bad.
Like, he's got a.
He created, like, we don't know that much about, like, the creation process of this by.
By virtue of it not being like a full on bizarro.
I'm not entirely convinced that it clone, like it's a lab experiment.

(41:20):
But, like, what's going on with it?
It looks like pretty good at first.

DJ Nik (41:26):
Yeah.

Case (41:27):
And then it kind of breaks down.
So, like, it.
So what.
What are we dealing with here?
But he refers to it as an it.
And if you don't think of it as a human being that.
That sort of broke down.
But if you think of it as like a robot that.
That kind of broke down, then it's less, you know, less.
Less bad versus, like the Lex in the comics who very much like, murder scientists that he works with because he's frustrated with their notes.

Jmike (41:53):
Yep.

Case (41:53):
So, like, so we want a character, Alois, who is less complicit in, like, the straight up war crimes of her husband.
And her husband has less bad war crimes in this, I guess, is what I'm getting.
But then we get a time jump.
And so we get a very on the nose.
I tear down this wall.

Jmike (42:10):
Why?

Case (42:12):
Which, speaking as someone whose parents have like a piece of the Berlin Wall signed by Ronald Reagan at their house, like, because, you know, Reaganite parents, I was tickled by the.
I tear down this wall and then we get the Superman museum scene.
And this is where my brain broke for a minute there, because.

(42:34):
So in the comic that is explicitly Svetlana, and it looks like Svetlana in this scene.

Jmike (42:39):
Yeah, like, I was very confused.

DJ Nik (42:43):
Yes.
Random Russian curator, I guess.

Case (42:46):
Random Russian curator who is a redhead.
But like I said, in the comic itself, the character.
The character who's in the equivalent scene is actually Svetlana.
Like, and they is, like, canonically set Lana.
So what confused me here is like, wait, is that just Fetlana?
Like, did she survive?
Like, I thought she died and then they just blow her up and they don't say anything about it.
And like, so it's like, probably not.

DJ Nik (43:07):
Svetlana, but I guess Superman has a type.
Possibly, maybe.

Case (43:13):
And that's actually creepier.
It's like Liberace, his boyfriends that he would make do plastic surgery until they all kind of looked the same.

DJ Nik (43:21):
Exactly.

Case (43:22):
Yeah.
So it just was a weird moment there because.
And again, would it have been so rough if I hadn't read the comics?
I don't know.
But it certainly looked like a Lana Lang type.

DJ Nik (43:34):
Yes, I agree.

Jmike (43:35):
I didn't want to go there.

DJ Nik (43:38):
I actually have to ask you guys, you know, I know we're.
We're pedaling back here a little bit, but in the comics, do they show Superman's adoptive.
Russian adoptive parents at all?
Because here we don't get anything.

Case (43:48):
No, it's even less in the comics.

DJ Nik (43:50):
Okay.

Case (43:51):
Like, we don't get that scene of him, like, with Svetlana as a kid.
Like, it just starts with him, like, on the scene all of a sudden after being.
You know, like, it starts with the newsreels.
The.
The newsreel stuff about, like, reports are coming in from that.
From Russia that they have a Superman.
Yeah, it's Eisenhower, but it's like intercut with, like, other news.

(44:13):
News sources and people responding.
Like, there's like, shots of the Daily Planet as they react to it all.

Jmike (44:18):
Like I said, I prefer this intro better.
This intro is much better than it is in the comics.

Case (44:24):
Yes.
In my opinion, I don't think the comics one would have worked in the movie and vice versa.
Like, I don't know, like, if you would have the page space for that, the child intro.
But I think it works really well.
And like I said, it establishes theme of Superman being manipulative or.
Pardon me, manipulative.
Manipulatable.

(44:45):
Yes.
Right.
Manipulatable.

DJ Nik (44:47):
And it gave Tara strong reason to be in the movie.

Case (44:50):
Yes.
Gotta have terrorist strong in literally everything.
Yep, exactly.
Yeah.
So we get.
So we get the blowing up of the.
The Superman museum scene here, and we get a Batman who is very okay with the loss of life.
And that makes his cause, like, way less like, yay.

(45:10):
We're all.
We're all rah about this.
Right?
Like, this is a Batman that's way more compromised.

Jmike (45:16):
Oh, yeah.
He goes from like, oh, you guys have, like, 10 minutes to leave, and then boom.
Oops.
I really meant 10 seconds.
Darn.

Case (45:26):
Like, it's that moment.
It's not just that he blew up a thing and there were civilians inside, but that he deliberately, like, fucked with them.
Like, is the part where, like, that doesn't quite feel like a Batman.

DJ Nik (45:36):
Yeah, I was like, is Batman the Unabomber now?
What's going on?

Jmike (45:41):
He doesn't care about it too.
He's like, oh, whatever, my work's done.

Case (45:45):
And then we get.
So we're reminded of where Wonder Woman is, and she is clearly allied with Superman at this point because she's wearing, like, a USSR themed version of her outfit.
But she is still being a little bit more removed than the comics one.
The comics one is, like, very explicitly an ally.
They go on adventures together.
And in.

(46:06):
In the comics, she's not like.
Or at least like, the way I read it is that she has, like, a bit of a crush on Superman.
Yeah.

DJ Nik (46:13):
Oh, so she's not openly gay in the comics?

Jmike (46:15):
No, no.

Case (46:16):
Because, like, the.
The moment of, like, someone hitting on.
On an Amazon and then pulling away is actually Stalin hitting on Hippolyta.

Jmike (46:23):
Yeah.

DJ Nik (46:25):
Wow.

Case (46:26):
And she pulls away because he's not old enough.

Jmike (46:31):
She's like, maybe from, like, 5,000 years older or something like that.

Case (46:36):
So there's like, this, like, vibe, this, like, puppy dog kind of vibe of Wonder Woman with Superman in the comics and that she's been like his, like, regular ally throughout this whole thing.
The relationship is still like, we're.
We're definitely working together, and she has a closer relationship with the USSR than she does the usa, but it's.
She's still trying to be more of a mediator, like.

(46:59):
And I appreciate that, like, the Wonder Woman as ambassador kind of approach is, I think, the right tact for.
For the character.
And that's kind of awkward in the.
In the comics where she kind of, like, after.
Like, after the events with their confrontation with Batman, she just becomes an enemy of Superman and is, like, part of the enemy crew that he dispatches pretty quickly.

Jmike (47:20):
Yeah, that was weird.
But I do like her turn more.

Case (47:26):
Yes, yes.

Jmike (47:27):
It gives it much more legs or.
Yeah.
Better legs to run on.

Case (47:31):
Yeah.
So, like, my next note after Wonder Woman's appearance is that we get to the actual, like, Batman, like, ambush of Superman.
And I'm sure there's stuff that I'm skipping over.
I think we skip over the.
The.
The meeting with the guy from the People's Republic of China, I think happens.

DJ Nik (47:48):
In this, like, happens later on.
That happens later.

Case (47:50):
Is that later?
Okay.
Yeah.
But either way, so we.
We have the confrontation between Batman and Superman with, like, the red sun lamps which are provided by Luthor, which they establish here.

Jmike (48:02):
Did they establish it here?

Case (48:03):
They do establish it here.
They said a mutual friend of ours from America, which I.

Jmike (48:09):
Because I was wondering how they knew about the red sun stuff in the.
In the movie.

Case (48:15):
So that is the thing that I miss from the comics, which is there's a very good speech that Batman gives in the comics where he says, strange visitor from another world.
Everything we needed to defeat you was right there in that expression.
All we needed to do was figure out the conditions of the world that you came from.
And they have that from.
From Superior Man.
And they.
They explain that in.

(48:35):
In the comic.
And they don't explain it enough here because he just.

Jmike (48:39):
He just somehow has the tech.

DJ Nik (48:41):
Like somehow he just figured it out.

Case (48:43):
Right.
I understand that Lex can figure that out.
He's been able to grow a Superman, like, so I. I figure that he's able to figure that part of it out.
I do have a problem because this gets into the whole goddamn photovoltaic versus photosynthetic argument about Superman's power.
Like, immediately having his powers turn off when exposed to red sun.
I find annoying.

(49:04):
Yeah, I, I think that it should be like in the Animated series where it takes a little while for his powers to fully drain.
Mm.

Jmike (49:12):
I get, I get it.
In the context of a.
Of a 90 minute movie, you gotta things that we gotta go.

Case (49:19):
And this is the problem in both the comic and the movie.
Like, like they both have this issue, which is that they go off of the pre crisis version where all it takes is being immediately exposed and his powers just turn off and he's a regular dude.

Jmike (49:31):
Like I said, I understand it for the movie.
For the comic, it doesn't make any sense, but for the movie it works.
And we're like, all right, cool.
It's movie magic happening here.
We understand where they're coming from, but the scene's got to keep moving.

DJ Nik (49:45):
It was more for expediency than anything else.
But I share your gripe there, Case, when it comes to that, because it's like, yeah, you, like, switch the light off and boom.
He's just a regular dude.
I'm like, that really isn't how it works.

Case (49:58):
Well, and it would work better with like, Birdman, who is like, oh, show.
That's fair, you know, like, who.
It's like, oh, we turn the lights off and all of a sudden his powers fade.
Faded.
Like, who has to have, like, constant light exposure for his powers to work.
Or like Apollo, who is like Superman, but his battery is very small and like, runs out of power very quickly when he's been fighting in dark spaces.

(50:21):
Like, those areas where it makes more sense because, like, then all of a sudden his energy is like, burned out very quickly and he doesn't have any way to recharge.
Yada, yada.
But, like, all they had to do was turn off the lights and all of a sudden his powers came back on without being exposed to sunlight.

DJ Nik (50:37):
Yeah, Just as quickly as they're gone, his powers come back.

Case (50:40):
Right.
Okay, so this was acting more as a suppressor to his abilities than necessary.
Like, it again, it's in the com.
This is.

Jmike (50:48):
This is.

Case (50:49):
Is not me, like, having a debate about, like, this is me going into a pedantic detail.
Because I need to go into this pedantic detail.
Like, I understand.
I understand that this is not like the point.

DJ Nik (51:02):
Oh, no, it's fair.

Case (51:04):
It's a fair point.

DJ Nik (51:05):
You know, I can see why it's.
It can.
It can be frustrating.

Case (51:08):
It.
It just drives me goddamn crazy.
Especially like.
Especially with this version of Superman that we.
I mean, we're well into spoiler territory here.
And people like.
So, Nick, do you know the twist from the comics that was not included in this movie?

DJ Nik (51:23):
No, I do not.
But feel free to share it.

Case (51:25):
Okay.
So at the very end of the comic, we follow the Earth from the perspective of Superman, who is living in, like, living in, you know, plain clothes.
Plain clothes?
Yeah.
He's living as a normal person.
Obscurity.
And he sees the generations go on.

(51:46):
And eventually it gets to the point where Lex Luthor's children and grandchildren, great grandchildren, the Luth's and their great children, Power 50.
Yeah.
And their great children and so forth.
The elves become like prominent scientists who now that the Earth is.
Is old and the sun has become old and red, goes to the council saying that.

(52:06):
That their world is doomed.
And so Jor El, you know, great descendant of Lex Luthor, to the power of 50, sends his child into the past, hoping to like break the cycle of the world becoming old and decrepit and whatnot.
And that crash lands in the Ukraine in the like 1930s and is supposed to be Superman.

(52:26):
And so this plays on this original idea that Superman is like a human, like evolved, you know, a million folders, but it.
It does it directly.
And that's like one of the fun twists of the comic that has nothing to do with Superman Red.
So.

DJ Nik (52:42):
But it gives you, I guess, the cyclical nature of the what.
What we're seeing.
I suppose that.
Yes, cycle, I guess.

Case (52:48):
And.
And there is no way they could do that in this movie.

DJ Nik (52:51):
Like, no, people, I mean, me personally even, I would probably.
My mind would probably burn.
Like, what the hell was that?
Probably wouldn't work.
And also think people may not familiar with the comics and stuff.
I think it might have been a little bit too much, you know, I mean, I know you mentioned the ending here.
I think the ending here was much more clean cut and served movie.

Case (53:13):
Like I said, the twist ending of the comic has nothing to do with the actual story of Red Sun.
Like it could be any Superman story.
Could have used that as the whole Deal.
The only thing it means is that you don't have Kryptonite.
The only thing you have to use against Superman is Red Son.
And he doesn't come from a world with a higher gravity because he comes from fucking Earth.

DJ Nik (53:31):
So he was a human all along.
He was never an alien.

Case (53:34):
He's.
Exactly.
He's a human all along.
Which is one of the interesting details there, which is that his whole, like, well, I should leave humanity alone is actually wrong because he's always been a part of humanity.
In fact, he was sent back and intentionally to break the cycle of humanity.
Like killing themselves and that.
Yeah.
And we're not very good at it in the real world at breaking the cycle of killing ourselves anyway, so.

(54:02):
J. Mike, you brought up the Wonder Woman breaking her lasso and that whole thing.
I think it is a lot better in this movie.

Jmike (54:10):
It is because, like, we keep going back to the comic.
In the comic, she, like, she breaks the lasso because Superman is.
He's legit manipulating her to do it for.
To save him.

Case (54:24):
Oh, he's so fuckboy using, like, doing that.
Like, he.
He's being like Diana, like, if.
If our relationship ever meant anything to you, please save me.

DJ Nik (54:36):
Wow.
Okay.

Case (54:38):
He's so.
He.
He's being Steve Trevor from the failed Wonder Woman pilot with the Adrian Plicky.

Jmike (54:45):
We don't talk about that.
Like, we don't need to bring that up anymore.

Case (54:49):
So doing, like, Fuckboy manipulations on Wonder Woman, like, and it's.
It's gross.
But you know what?
It's real.

Jmike (55:00):
But, like, when she breaks.
When she breaks.
When she breaks the lasso in the comic, she straight up, like, it looks like she lost her.
Her powers.
She looks, like, physically drained.
She ages a lot.
Yeah, they do a better job of it in the.
In the movie where it looks like she's just really tired and she flies.

DJ Nik (55:19):
Off and we just have the white hair, I guess, which is pretty much it giving you, I guess, that her energy's been drained, I suppose.

Case (55:26):
Yeah.
I think that they do a better job of keeping her power of action.
Once she breaks it, she does a bunch of things as opposed to.
I think she just breaks and does one thing in the comic.
I forget.
Specifically deactivates the lights is the deal.
But it's a much more bombastic scene in the movie, which is good.

(55:46):
But I think the fact that she's outraged is the really good part here.
Like, she's not doing it because Superman's begging.
She's doing it because she's really pissed.
She's really frustrated to be, like, captured by Batman and be taunted and be powerless in the.
The situation.

Jmike (56:02):
And just taunted.
He was controlling her too, because, like, he had a whole line of, like, you do anything else?
She can't even hurt me because, like, I told her she can't do anything.
So if she does that, she's gonna die.
So what are you gonna do, Superman?

DJ Nik (56:14):
She very much had her feel what had her feel of mankind and just men in general.
Greatest point.

Case (56:19):
And I also like that they say, like she says specifically, even you can't break this Superman.
And then she goes ahead and breaks it herself.
Which I like, because in this work as.
As a movie, Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman feels more powerful than Superman.

DJ Nik (56:36):
Oh, yes.

Case (56:36):
Yeah.

Jmike (56:38):
There's a scene later we could talk.

DJ Nik (56:39):
About the whole thing with the lanterns.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jmike (56:44):
Well, like, but here she.
She's just kind of over everything and then.
And then bat or it's a badass scene when the lights turn off and all of a sudden Superman has his powers back and his eyes glow red.
And I was like, that's awesome.

Case (56:57):
That wasn't well handled.

DJ Nik (56:59):
I genuinely was smiling to myself when that scene showed up.
I was like, yeah, this is great.

Case (57:03):
And I like his.
His little speech and how that kind of turns off Wonder Woman, who is definitely reeling from the trauma of breaking her lasso of truth.
Like, that turns her off to Superman as well.
I wish that we could have had something like, in the comics where it sort of conveyed that, like, something was broken in Wonder Woman when the lasso was broken.

(57:31):
Like, it was very traumatic for her.
We do get that she's, like, got the white hair and she's very drained.
But, like, the comic didn't handle it well because she just says it flat out.
Like, I wish there was some kind of vibe that she is emotionally more battered than just physically battered from the breaking of the lasso.

(57:55):
And so Superman doing, like, having this fairly reprehensible speech in front of her is particularly distasteful because she's going through, like, all the stuff on top of it.
Like, you know, when you're having a bad brain day versus a good brain day and like, someone like, says something like, kind of shitty to you and like, your ability to, like, let it roll off your back.

(58:17):
Like the, like, that's the.
The difference I'm talking about there.

DJ Nik (58:22):
Not to mention she's also seen all the darkness behind this so called perfect government that Superman was doing, where now everybody's pretty much brainwashed and she had seen that where there had been this.
This.
This kind of mental brainwashing going on.
So that already wasn't sitting well with her.

Jmike (58:37):
And.

DJ Nik (58:38):
Yeah, and then he is basically, you know, threatening Batman that he'll do the same thing to him.
He'll do that to me if I don't comply.
So I guess she's kind of seeing the parallel of Stalin was kind of doing the same thing.
He was like, oh, this is such a great place to live in, while behind the scenes, you were throwing people into gulags, and here everybody's, you know, compliant and happy, etc.
But if you look at how the sausage is made, it's literally he's brainwashing people.

(59:02):
And so clearly Diana wasn't happy with that.

Case (59:04):
Yeah, that's also happening a little bit faster in the movie.
And that, like, the slippery slope that Superman is on is much slipperier in this.
Like, basically at the start of Act 2, he's already, like, under the control of Brainiac at this point.
Assuming that all the.
All the brain modification stuff is Brainiac stuff.

(59:25):
Stuff.

Jmike (59:25):
We didn't talk about the Brainiac part.
Was it Stalingard?

Case (59:31):
Stalingrad, yeah.

Jmike (59:32):
Stalingrad, yeah.
Like, he.
He strings Stalingrad.

Case (59:35):
Yes.

Jmike (59:36):
And turns it into candy.

DJ Nik (59:37):
The placehold hold of a candle.
Yes.

Case (59:39):
Yeah, yeah.
Good, good use In.
In.
In both the movie and the comic and the movie, we.
We get more time with it, which I appreciate.
I need to, at this point, admit that I have been trying to pitch a Superman movie that is a Brainiac movie my entire life.
I. I have been picturing that since.
Since Independence Day came out.

(59:59):
I have been saying that you could do a good Brainiac movie.
Like.
Like, you just do the effects of Independence Day, but instead of blowing up a city, it shrinks the city.
And.
And you got Brainiac drones that are things that look like the.
The ships, and they look pretty good independence Day.
And we already.
We already saw that we could prove that a man could fly, and Neo double proved it for us.

(01:00:20):
And so every.
Every time we've had, like, jump forwards and technology, I've been saying, like, yeah, where's our Brainiac movie?
And act two is obviously inside candor from the perspective of Superman, who has to deal with not having superpowers, that makes the most sense.

DJ Nik (01:00:33):
Hopefully James Gunn's crew are listening case.

Case (01:00:39):
Anyway, so.
So we actually get a bit more time with Brainiac here.
We get him being, like, this menacing, like, flying saucers shrinking down Stalingrad, and that's pretty cool.
And that, like, we said it sets up a candor equivalent that is used very effectively later in the movie.

Jmike (01:00:56):
Yep.

Case (01:00:57):
But, yeah, so like, Superman, quote unquote defeats Brainiac and then quote unquote reprograms Brainiac and then quote unquote puts him to good use.
But.
But in reality, Brainiac is never put to good use and is.
Is completely in charge of the situation from this point on.
And, you know, like I said, you could make an argument that, like, everything, like, all the really bad stuff that Superman does is because of Brainiac kind of.

(01:01:22):
Well, but they put Brainiac in place really early in this and.
And all the bad things that are, like, super science bad things you assume are Brainiac.
Right.

Jmike (01:01:32):
Okay, I'm gonna have to fill up my.
My very nerd hat here.
Like, this is the whole Arthur's Lich King situation.
Was it.
Arthur's in control, Was allergic in control most of the time.
Who knows?
But, like, you could say, like, Superman thought he was doing something or he thought he was being good with the mind control devices.
Like, oh, they just need it for a certain time.
Or was it Brainiac telling him, oh, yes, Kal El, we can do all this stuff, like he usually does.

(01:01:58):
We can repurpose them and have them work better for society.
It's only temporary.

DJ Nik (01:02:04):
It all plays back to how manipulated, how easily manipulated Superman is because he does things.
Think he's doing good.
Just like when he was under Stalin, he thought he was doing good, and now he's found a replacement for Stalin, he feels he's doing a good job because Brainiac is kind of, you know, I'm sure it's Brainiac on his shoulder, but he's actively participating in it.
He's not questioning it.

Case (01:02:26):
Like, I totally get.
Or rather, I'm not saying that Superman is in no way complicit once Brainiac is, like, on the scene.
I am just, like, arguing when Brainiacs being on the scene starts to matter for him because.

Jmike (01:02:41):
Okay.

Case (01:02:44):
So to address this.
All right, so Arthas was clearly in the wrong for several of the details leading up to his ultimate succumbing to the Lich King, however, was he.
However, once he pulled the sword and he was effectively under the control of the Lich King from that point.
So we.

Jmike (01:03:03):
How much though, Katie?

Case (01:03:04):
I would argue that, well, we know that he gave up his soul, and so we're going a real nerd tangent here, guys.
Yeah, yeah, we know that he gave up his soul, and we know that means that at the very least, like, his.
His Basic moral barometer was gone from that point going forward, he's.
He was effectively the same as a Lich in terms of his moral compass, which is to say non existent.

(01:03:26):
And so even if he had some modicum of free will, he was still an agent of the Lich King from that point going forward.
He had now, certainly once he fully fused with the Lich King, he was.
He was fully evil.
But to bring it back to the.
But to.
Yes, because they became one in the same entity.
But to bring it back to the whole Superman situation.

(01:03:47):
I would argue that Superman legitimately thought that he was expanding Soviet powers in the name of making the world a better place, but did not start incorporating super science until Brainiac was is, quote unquote, reprogrammed to work for him.
This is not a Superman that has his own Fortress of Solitude.
That, that way.

(01:04:08):
Like this is not a Superman that we.
We see having Superman robots and shit like that.
Like, this is a.
A Superman that does.
That seems to rely on the technology of Brainiac once Brainiac is in place.
And so I would imagine that the.
The behavior modification stuff is only once.
Brainiac is already manipulating him to a certain degree.

DJ Nik (01:04:30):
Oh, most likely.
But I.
And I think.
But it really much plays into, you know, to play armchair psychologist here.
I think it very much just plays into the kind of person that this Superman is where he needs somebody to tell him what to do because he, you know, he's.
He is almost like an empty vessel and gets filled by somebody else telling him what is right and such.

(01:04:51):
And then he adopts those ideologies as his own.
And so I think that's very much the case here as well, is just like when he was under, you know, as I said before, while he was under Stalin, he was being filled with, you know, make the Soviet Union great again and all this kind of thing.
And even though he had those core values of doing the right thing, he needed somebody to push him that extra step for their own.

(01:05:13):
To, you know, for their own gain.
And so just like starting that is exactly what Brainiac did.
He's like, this is an empty vessel that I can use for my own purposes.
I mean, even the fact that.
That he could have restored Candor, AKA Stalingrad and never did, and, you know, see him point out by Brain, like, I had the power to do this all the time, just never asked me to.
And he and Superman used that as, you know, his sticking point of, well, going to work on it, we'll get there eventually.

(01:05:40):
But then he used that then in his, you know, ideology to then move things forward of making the world a better place in honor of Stalingrad, almost.
So even though.
So maybe he even knew that the Brainiac could have brought it back lickety split.

Case (01:05:55):
Okay, that's interesting, because he says, like Brainiac says, that it's implied.
It's an implied vow.
And I find that I took that to be that Superman was, like, running tests and trying to figure the whole thing out.
Maybe he never asked directly, like, Brainiac, can you just reverse the process?

(01:06:17):
But at the very least, like, he was certainly trying to fix it.
And Brainiac was interpreting Superman's, like, better judgment as being, like, it shouldn't be fixed because it.
It's strategically more useful not to be fixed.
But you're saying that, like, maybe it was just like he, like, literally, like, never asked the question, period.

DJ Nik (01:06:38):
I think that's what it is.

Case (01:06:39):
Like, you never asked, which is, like, way more Superman, like, act like.
Like it.
Like it's not super.
Like, basically, what that's saying is that, like, that.
Oh, no, Brainiac was right in his interpretation of what Superman was thinking.
And that.
That is interesting because I actually hadn't interpreted it that way.

(01:06:59):
I. I had taken it at least that Superman was betrayed by Brainiac in this situation.
But, wow, that.
You make a.
A good case for that.

DJ Nik (01:07:09):
It kind of makes me think of.
To go down a tangent here there of that scene in the Muppet Christmas Carol.
Yes.
I'm bringing up My Christmas Carol where you've got Gonzo and Rizzo at one point, and they're trying to get into, you know, back into, I guess, to see what Scrooge is up to.
And they're like, we have to climb over the fence.
And we see Riz is like, oh, I forgot my jelly beans.

(01:07:31):
And he goes through the bars and comes back.

Jmike (01:07:33):
Yeah.

DJ Nik (01:07:34):
And Gonzo's like, you could fit through those bars.
And Bruce's like, yeah.
It's like, almost that.
You never asked me to do this.
You know, it's like, rather than climbing up over the.
Over the.
Over the gates and going through.
It's that kind of thing of, like, almost spraying eggs.
Like, I could have done this the whole time.
You just didn't ask the right question.

Case (01:07:51):
Yeah.
So either.
Either way, Superman is complicit in some way of not restoring Stalingrad, be it for not asking sufficiently the right question or for just not asking the question because he was scared to ask the question.
Either way sort of plays out.
But this brings us to act three of the movie because now we're really talking about Brainiac as the central plot.

(01:08:14):
So we get a much more fashy looking Superman and we get now a fully bald Lex Luthor who is now President of the United States.
And acting on.
What we kind of glossed over from the previous act was that there was a scene where there was a crashed spaceship that President Kennedy brought Lex Luthor to.
We get the.
The gnarly scene of him cutting off the finger to remove the.

(01:08:34):
To remove the ring.
I think it's the.

DJ Nik (01:08:38):
Yes, it was.

Case (01:08:40):
Gives it over to Hal Jordan in the comics.
Sorry.
Let me again, push my.
Push up my glasses on this one.
There's this whole sequence of how Hal Jordan was in a Viet Cong internment camp and, like, had, like, had such, like, amazing willpower that he, like, constructed, brick by brick, his own concentration camp and then, like, executed his, like, captors in this, like, whole scenario.

(01:09:06):
And that's kind of fucked up.
Like, it's.
It's a interestingly written exercise in sort of like.
Well, what does, like, what does Green Lantern willpower actually mean?
It's probably good that it was removed.

Jmike (01:09:19):
Yeah, Green Lantern willpower looks crazy to me.

Case (01:09:22):
Yeah.
Like, I don't think it would have.

DJ Nik (01:09:23):
Gone over well had it been.

Case (01:09:25):
No, it would not have.
It does.
Like, like I said, it's an interesting exercise in sort of like conceiving of, like, what the willpower of a Green Lantern is actually supposed to, like, mean.
Like, oh, you don't go.
You don't go crazy when you're in solitary confinement because you're able to envision, like, this perfect construction of a thing.
But like I said, it's.

(01:09:45):
While it's an interesting rendition, it's not.
It's not something that, like, would go.
Go over that well with what is supposed to be a more mass market material in the form of.
Of the movie version of this.
You also, like, it would be a really.
It would be a really fucked up flashback sequence to include in a movie that doesn't really do flashbacks.

DJ Nik (01:10:06):
Yeah, point.

Case (01:10:07):
So that's the thing that we kind of gloss over there.
But yeah, so we get the actual launching of an assault on Superman by way of the Green Lantern Corps.
And this is an excuse, both in the comic and in the movie to make a lot of references to various Green Lanterns from Earth.

Jmike (01:10:23):
Well, they switch it out because in the, in the movie it's Guy Gardner.
It's.
It's Jon Stewart, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner.
And then in the book, it's Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart.

Case (01:10:35):
Sure.

DJ Nik (01:10:37):
Yeah.

Case (01:10:37):
I mean, like, I, I, I wouldn't even like call like, I wouldn't even say one was missing because there's a big crowd and like, it's just like the ones that get called out are different.
So like, clearly it's all it's supposed to be.
Everyone you can think of that has been an Earthborn Green Lantern and then.

Jmike (01:10:52):
Some, which is like an entire planet.
Because I thought there was only supposed to be one lantern per quadrant.

Case (01:11:00):
Right.

Jmike (01:11:01):
And the earth has like 50.

DJ Nik (01:11:04):
I guess nobody told the Owens, I suppose.

Case (01:11:08):
I mean, that's part of the reason why they like modified it when they brought back the Green Lantern Corps after Kyle Rayner was the sole Green Lantern for a period of time where they brought it back to being at least two per and then like found other jobs for Kyle and Guy.
But that still doesn't like get around the fact that like you also have Alan Scott actively around who's like, oh yeah, I'm coincidentally a Green Lantern by way of the Starheart, a thing that you just happen to be used in creating the Green Lantern corps in the first place.

(01:11:38):
But surprisingly, because of reasons, but surprisingly broke off and traveled in originally to a different dimension, but now just to Earth and landed and was just coincidentally turned into a lantern that happens to be green.
And I use it as a Green Lantern and gives me powers that are identical to the Green Lantern thing.

(01:11:59):
But my weakness is wood.
My weakness is wood, not the color yellow.

DJ Nik (01:12:03):
I'm so glad they did away with that.
That was terrible.

Case (01:12:07):
I mean, wood at least like makes a little bit more sense to me because like, it gets into like the weird magic kind of shit or like his powers being kind of magnetic in origin.
You can make some kind of argument for it.
The yellow weakness never made sense to.

DJ Nik (01:12:21):
Me because like even exactly the color.

Case (01:12:23):
Yellow, it's like, okay, like, okay, sure, maybe something to do with like the color spectrum, like literally like it absorbing the frequency or some like that.
But they would do things like there'd be like a school bus on a train track and it'd be like, I can't do anything.
It's like, what do you mean?
Just roll the tire years, sorry, Green Lantern diatribe on the, on this thing.

(01:12:46):
Anyway, so the Green Lantern core in this movie is actually a bit more effective than they are in the comics.
Like in the comics they basically get wiped out, like almost immediately.
With Superman, like taking all their rings off their fingers and being like a thought based weapon against someone who can Move faster than thought.

Jmike (01:13:00):
Like.

Case (01:13:02):
And I think that the fight is better in.
In this.
Like, it's obviously like, actually the.
They.
They do some pretty good.
And like, Superman probably could have broken his way out of the whole situation.
It really comes down to a willpower thing.
But it's interrupted by Wonder Woman.
As opposed to the Amazons being just like another wing of Luthor's attack plan that is also easily dispatched.
Which never made sense in the comics because, like, if Wonder Woman's supposed to be any kind of threat to Superman, then the movie takes the stance that Wonder Woman is stronger than Superman.

(01:13:29):
The comics took the stance that Wonder Woman was significantly weaker than Superman.
I'm just.
That's basically what it comes down to.

DJ Nik (01:13:35):
Because in the comics, Wonder Woman doesn't intervene in this moment to break up the fight.

Case (01:13:38):
She doesn't come to intervene.
She comes to assist.

DJ Nik (01:13:42):
Okay.

Case (01:13:42):
Like, she's on the side.
Like, she.
She and the Amazons have allied themselves with the USA in.
In their battle strategy against Superman and.

DJ Nik (01:13:51):
The ussr okay, so she's full on Team Luthor at that point.

Case (01:13:54):
Yes.

Jmike (01:13:55):
Yeah.

Case (01:13:55):
So are a bunch of super villains, which they.
They don't do here.

Jmike (01:13:59):
Well, because, like, they don't mention the super villains in the movie at all.

Case (01:14:02):
Right, yeah.
Which.
Which is fine.

Jmike (01:14:04):
The book.

Case (01:14:05):
The book, it was just an excuse to, like, include, like, characters from.

Jmike (01:14:07):
Shit.
Yeah, yeah.
From the Superman Rogue galaxy.

Case (01:14:10):
Right, yeah.
And, like, people.
There is a contingent out there who didn't care for Superman Red Son, because it doesn't play by the what if rules.
And so it doesn't.
So, like, it's like, oh, Lex Luthor invented all these super villains, which includes, like, Doomsday.

Jmike (01:14:27):
Doomsday Parasite.
Was it Metallo and some other.

Case (01:14:29):
Yeah, I mean, like, it's the whole Norman Osborn, the amazing Spider Man 2 situation.
But it's, you know, like, saying that Luthor invented all these characters which are traditionally not characters invented by him, rubbed some people the wrong way.
And, like, I've always been of the stance of being like, it's just a fucking Easter egg.
Like, it's just like.

(01:14:50):
It's just for us to be like, oh, look at all the characters that we can put on the page that are from his own stellar base.
Yeah, exactly.

Jmike (01:14:56):
Yeah.

Case (01:14:57):
And we don't get it here.
And like, that's fine because, like, again, it is less.
It's more straightforward this way.
And it goes fine.
We, in fact get a way more dramatic.
Or rather, let me say this, Lois Lane has a flair for the dramatic way More so in this than she does in the comic because she walks out with this with the actual bottled city of Stalingrad, as opposed to just the letter that says, why don't you put the whole world in a bottle?

(01:15:23):
Yeah.
So that's kind of a fun bit right there.
It's also gets fucked up and destroyed, which.
Holy shit, that was a big moment.

DJ Nik (01:15:34):
Like, what the hell?
They actually went there.

Case (01:15:38):
Like, that's.
That's intense.

Jmike (01:15:41):
Like, just trying to blast it.
You're like, wait, what?

DJ Nik (01:15:45):
You just destroyed a whole city just like that?

Case (01:15:47):
Yeah.
Yes.
So we have a way higher body count.

DJ Nik (01:15:52):
Yeah.
Apparently six and a half million people.

Case (01:15:55):
Yeah.
Way a way higher body count in this movie.
Kind of accidentally.
Like, it certainly is a surprise.

Jmike (01:16:03):
Yeah.
Because, like, everyone's having, like, their eight, is this really worth it speech.
Superman's like, I think we messed up.
We should probably go home.
And Brain X like, no, this is the best possible outcome.
You know, all the calculations said, this is how it's supposed to be.
And super like, nah, we done Goofs.
Let's get out of here.
And Brandon's like, nah, I'm gonna do my own thing and blast the blast all in Gratit Smithereens.

(01:16:26):
I was like, then that's when the.

DJ Nik (01:16:29):
Light bulb goes off of.
You were cheating me the whole time.
You never really converted, did you?

Jmike (01:16:36):
Yeah, because, like, I didn't.
I didn't pick up on it.
Especially in the book that Luther and.
And Brainiac were working on the same team scene until, like, much later.
Yeah, because even at the end and in the comic, there's this huge confrontation with Luthor, and I want to see Clark, but it's not Clark, Luther and Superman.
Before the fight starts, where Luthor just appears, his Fortress of Solitude, or wherever he's hiding with Brainiac.

(01:17:03):
And Brainiac just straights up, like, takes him out and absorbs him, it looks like.
Right, right.
And then they play off, I think.

DJ Nik (01:17:11):
You know, I. I haven't read it, but I think it works much better like this, rather than having Lex and Brainiacking, you know, in cahoots.

Case (01:17:19):
Yeah, well, Lex and Brainiac aren't in cahoots at that point in the story.
They.
They were earlier.
But when.
When it happens, Brainiac has this whole spiel about how, like, I couldn't let him keep talking to you.
By my calculations, if you keep, like, you're engaging with the 10th level intellect, like that would.
He would have convinced you to commit suicide within 5.8 minutes or something like that.

(01:17:41):
Some spiel like that, and that then plays out with, like, when Superman, like, comes to the realization, like, oh, wait, no, Brainiac's been the one manipulating me this whole time is part of his thought bubbles when he's going through the sequence of events.
Lex is not actually dead.
He's just snuck aboard Brainiac's ship, if I remember correctly.

Jmike (01:18:01):
Yeah.
And it's like reprogramming him the entire time.

Case (01:18:07):
Yeah.

Jmike (01:18:07):
But the, like, the movie does it much better because we get the Lex suit.
Or a version of the Lex suit.

Case (01:18:14):
Yeah, Lex comes off as a more active participant in this whole situation and a more like, more generically heroic participant, which is consistent with how this Lex is overall.
And at no point did he, like, ally himself with an alien invader.
Like, he.
He keeps the moral high ground way more in this movie.
Like, it's.
It's absurd how, like, how good a guy Lex Luthor is in this movie.

DJ Nik (01:18:37):
I think it's also because you want to make, you know, right.
You know, Soviet Superman look even worse.
Because if you're doing, like, more, you know, talking about propaganda here, if you're doing, like, more a pro American side of this, you're not going to want Lex to look too bad.

Case (01:18:51):
Well, it's just like.
Yes, yes.
It, like, what's interesting is that, like I said, his relationship with Lois is so much better.
So, like, when he retires from being president, it like.
And he's like, I've got, like, the most important chapter of my life with.
With this little lady.

DJ Nik (01:19:10):
Like, you want to be.
You want to have your audience cheer for him by the end of the movie.
Yeah, that was not satisfying.
You want to make him look good.

Case (01:19:20):
It's just so interesting because, again, like, so the end of the comic.
And like, I'm not saying that they could do the end of the comic here, but the end of the comic is that he leads the world into a utopia and, like, his effectively becomes, like, the thought leaders.
His, like, his family line becomes the guiding, like, royal family of the world.
Like, unto.

(01:19:40):
Unto becoming the L family in the house of El in the Superman timeline kind of shit.
So, like, it's just so bonkers to me that this is so different.
But I understand that, like, if you didn't know that was, like, the way that the comic went, you'd be like, well, yeah, no, it makes sense.
He's got, like, this awesome wife in the form of Lois Lane, and he's accomplished all the things he ever wants to accomplish.

(01:20:04):
He can retire.

DJ Nik (01:20:06):
Yeah.

Jmike (01:20:09):
It's just so Weird that we're being kind to Lex Luthor.

DJ Nik (01:20:14):
That's what I'm saying is because you have to make him.
You have to make him look good in this.

Case (01:20:17):
This.

DJ Nik (01:20:17):
This thing.
You can't make him look too villainous.
I mean, we talked about earlier about the superior Superman, his fate, and then after that's kind of forgotten that he actually did some shady shit.
You know, it's like, oh, he's a good dude.
He loves his wife.
He's helping the country and everything else.

Case (01:20:34):
I. I have written fanfic where Lex Luthor was in the role of Iron man in like, a.
A DC version of the Avengers situation and, like.
And was like, just straight up a good guy.
It.
Like, I. I can.
I can.
General Lex Luthor not being a bad guy.

Jmike (01:20:52):
Wasn't he kind of good in the new 52 run, I was gonna say.

DJ Nik (01:20:55):
Because didn't he have, like, his own Superman suit and everything else?

Case (01:20:57):
Yeah, no, he's had runs where he's been the good guy.
And like, that's like, I. I can.
I can deal with that.
He's.
He's recently had, like, a big run where he was like, a good guy.
Now, part of that was with.
With memory loss.
But, like, that was still I.
A run that I could appreciate and work with.
I'm just saying that in this story, considering that he already was, like, painted as something of a monster for creating.

(01:21:18):
Being the.
The superior man.
Like, he.
It's just surprising that, like, how good he ultimately, like, he.

DJ Nik (01:21:26):
He's.

Case (01:21:27):
He's a net good.
Like, he's a net positive.
And there's no.

Jmike (01:21:33):
I feel like we just do this because it's Lex and like, yeah, history.
It just feels weird.

DJ Nik (01:21:42):
And in the comics, when you get that moment where apparently Superman has survived, that, I guess is not in the comics at all where Lewis sees Superman.
The crowd as Clark, you know, dress up as a.
You know, in his clock gear, you know, with the fedora and everything else in the.
You don't get that in the comics, right?
You don't.
We don't.

Case (01:22:00):
There is a scene like that.

Jmike (01:22:01):
Yeah, you do.
But like here in the movie, it happens at his Lexus.
Like, he's retiring from presidency.
He's like, I'm done with here.
I'm out.
I've done my thing.
But in the comic, it happens like.
Like, oh, how many.

Case (01:22:16):
How many years Funeral or something like that.
Like.

Jmike (01:22:18):
Because how.
I forget how long Lex actually lives.

Case (01:22:20):
Lex lives like, hundreds of years.
Like, they.

Jmike (01:22:22):
Because, like, he cures everything yeah, like when.

Case (01:22:27):
When Brainiac says in his, like, readout of, like, life expectancy is now up to 97 years and greater improvements are expected over, like, the next couple of decades.
Like, that's.
That's a nod to.
In the comics.
They start setting up this idea that Superman's going to live forever because he's, like, eugenically fit, which is also a thing that's probably good to not, like, overdo in modern media, like Cindy Sweeney Good jeans and all that, whatever.

DJ Nik (01:22:51):
You know, you read my mind.
Like, Superman has good genes.

Jmike (01:22:57):
He, like.
Because, like, it happens at the funeral, and then her son is talking to her and she kind of, like, glances off and she sees Superman with the fedora and everything, and she's like, oh, wait, I think I saw somebody.
Maybe I didn't.

Case (01:23:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Plays out at about the same.
Which is why it makes sense to do that as sort of your finale for it all.

Jmike (01:23:17):
Yeah.

Case (01:23:18):
Like I said, it's just interesting that this Lex ends up being, like, a good guy and.
And it's fine.
Like, he.
Like, maybe it's weird that the comic.
That he was such, like, an absurdly bad guy despite being in.
In a situation of, like.
Like, not needing to be a bad guy for any particular reason because everyone was on his side.

(01:23:39):
I don't know.
Like, maybe this is me just, like, being too invested in the comic, which I acknowledge had a lot of edgelord tendencies to it and having a hard time giving up on that.

Jmike (01:23:51):
It's years of Lex trauma case.
All these years of trauma from Lex Luthor.

Case (01:23:56):
Yes.

Jmike (01:23:56):
In all forms of media, I guess.

DJ Nik (01:23:59):
Like, we saw Joker helping old ladies cross the street.
People would have a.
Would have a fit, I guess.

Case (01:24:05):
Something like that.
Yeah.
All right, let's pivot around to Superman.
One thing that I have always liked about this work is that Superman is Superman, regardless of the side of the aisle that he is on, that he is doing good actively as far as he understands at any given point.
I find that he is less good in the movie than he is in the comic.

(01:24:28):
Or at least the slippery slope comes off as slipperier.
And that kind of bums me out.
But I do still think that we capture a pretty good Superman here, especially at the beginning of the story where he is supposed to be as idealistic as possible.
You know, pre Stalin, Pre murdering Stalin.
But, like, what do you guys think?
Like.

(01:24:48):
Like, how does this.
How does this work as far as an interpretation of Superman to you guys and J. Mike, we'll start with you.

Jmike (01:24:54):
I think we said, like, no matter.
I feel like we've talked about this in the comic stuff before, but it's always fun to see that, like, no matter which run he's in or which stories in or which continuity he's in or anything like that, the core mythos of Superman will always be the same.

(01:25:17):
He's always gonna have something going on with Lois Lane, even though he kind of did in this.
In this run and kind of did shouldn't.
But he mentioned it could happen in some form way of whatever.
But his.
His core principles are always going to be there, no matter what.
That's kind of cool to see.
Like, in every situation, it's always going to be Superman.

Case (01:25:37):
Cool.
Nick, how about you?

DJ Nik (01:25:39):
I. I definitely agree.
I mean, I think by and large, even though, you know, they make him a little bit more flawed, at least in this movie, by and large, I think he does retain the core values that we know and love about Superman.
Man.
I mean, like you were pointing out case, you know, wherever he might have been born or wherever his spaceship might have ended up, it shows you that inevitably he's always going to have those ethics and those values.

(01:26:02):
Granted here, as I said, I think it was more misguided and just being, you know, so idealistic.
So you are more prone to manipulation.
But by and large, I appreciate this.
Also, I will say I like my characters flawed to where nobody is pitch perfect.
And so I like that about him because, you know, obviously he was going about things the wrong way.
And as they say, you know what they say about good intentions, you know, the road to good intentions, if you will so.

(01:26:27):
Or the road to hell in that case.
So I think that was very much the case with him, is that he wasn't trying to be.
There was never a bad bone in his body.
He just thought this was the right way to go about it.
I don't think there's ever any malignancy in his intent.
So I really appreciate that.
And I.
And I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
As I said, this was the first time I sat down to watch it, and I think it's definitely a.
A great version, a great iteration of Superman, you know, compared to what we have seen on other.

(01:26:51):
In other versions on screens both big and small.

Case (01:26:55):
Yeah, like, I keep coming away from this being, like, pretty positive about the.
The interpretation of Superman.
And like I said, it's a very fine line between this and evil Superman.
And I think this retains, like, the more nuanced, like, culturally sensitive kind of take on a character.
Like, I think that, as you pointed out, this movie is fairly rah America at some points in a way that the comic isn't.

(01:27:20):
And I do kind of miss that aspect of it, the sort of the more neutral body in terms of view on world history as opposed to like, an obviously biased source.
But it's fine.
Like, you know, it's.
It's still it.
Like, the story goes the same way.
You know, like Superman, like, leads Russia into like, what looks like a golden age and then takes a step back and the US like, fills the void it is played as in both scenarios.

(01:27:48):
Works out pretty well for everyone.
So it's fine.
And I think in both works still emphasizes that.
Like, it still is basically just like, well, which economy was doing better at the given time that they tried this?
You know, like, it could have gone the other way very easily if, you know, X, Y or Z thing was going on.
And.
And like, a lot of that is simply, like, access to certain, like, technologies and certain progressions of things.

(01:28:15):
Like.
So, yeah, it could.
It could have gone a different way, but, like, the US Was in control of like, what.
What was it like?
The US itself was in control of over 50% of the.
Of the world's wealth in the wake of World War II.

DJ Nik (01:28:26):
Like, pretty much, yeah.

Case (01:28:28):
Like, you know, the US was like, pretty.
Pretty well set up to win post World War II.
And, you know, if you tip the scale in the different direction, then it could have gone the other way.
And that's what this is sort of argu.
Existence of a Superman would have tipped the scale sufficiently that it would have gone that.
That direction.
But I don't think it really, like, while it's a little bit like, yeah, democracy, blah, blah, like, there's plenty of gray area when it comes to the United States stuff.

(01:28:54):
Like, we know that, like, the Lois Lane scene is, like, colored by the fact that she is a biased source that knows specifically about the satellite situation.
So, like, even the things that are supposed to call into question, like, some of those scenes that, like, come off as more like America, rah, like, they've got shades of gray going on behind them, like, additionally.
So I find this a pretty effective Superman that I think rises above the potential dangers of having this Soviet setting and I think works really well in that regard.

DJ Nik (01:29:28):
Also, if I may add, this also does remind me, you know, granted this was before that, but it reminds me of the recent Superman movie where we have him intervening in a war.

Case (01:29:37):
War.

DJ Nik (01:29:37):
And here we have the same thing when it comes to Korea where he believes in Kind of stopping it the way he does take actively taking a, a stance when it comes to north and south, the Korean War.
And of course, in the recent James Gunn Superman, you had a similar thing when it came to, you know, intervening in a, a conflict between two fictional countries.

(01:29:58):
But it was rather reminiscent of that because I think it kind of shows you once again where Superman's morality is, even though it might not be the right thing to do, to actively take part because you are a superpowered being.
But it almost raises that same question where he, the way he intervenes in Korea is very similar, I think, in the way he intervenes in the James Gunn movie from this year.

Case (01:30:21):
Well, yeah, I think that one of the key differences of this Superman versus the Superman that we're normally given to is that he actually is a, a tool of the state.
Like he fully submits to the state from the get go in a way that Superman traditionally isn't.
And so like that's, and part of that is set up here with like, Svetlana and all that.

(01:30:42):
But like, this is a Superman who is, the argument is coming from an ideology that says that he should become more part of the collective and like, submit himself to everything as opposed to being this individualistic kind of actor.
Like, Superman could have also become like a tool of the state in the United States just as well.

(01:31:04):
Like, he could have been brought up by people who were much more like, rah the military.
Like, go submit yourself to being part of the United States.
And you could have seen a lot of this play out the same way if he was just being a tool of the United States.
You know, kind of like how Dr. Manhattan is in Watchmen.

(01:31:24):
Like, you could see a lot of that kind of go kind of in those directions, but I think that they're doing just, you know, a little bit more interesting by having it be a different state than the usa.
Yeah, but yeah, I, like I said, I, I come away from this, like, very positive.
I, I, I rather enjoyed it.
I'm really glad to have the excuse to look at the comics again and to rewatch this movie.

(01:31:45):
So, so, Nick, do, Is there anything that we have not addressed about this movie that you wanted to like, get off your chest?

DJ Nik (01:31:53):
No, I think we pretty much covered everything.
I mean, as I said before, I think I was so glad I got to discuss this with you guys because after having watched, I'm like, I am so ready to talk about this with someone.
And I'm so glad that someone, it was the two of you?
No, but I, I really enjoyed it.
As I said, aside from, as I mentioned before, the more feminist approach that this movie takes.

(01:32:13):
And as I said, I've got nothing wrong with that because I am, I'm a proud feminist myself.
But it did seem like they were hitting that over that, over the head just a little bit.
But other than that, I'm glad I watched and like I said, I'm glad I got to shoot the breeze with the two of you.
It was great excuse to talk to you guys again.

Case (01:32:28):
Yeah, it was a blast.
Just a final question.
Would you recommend this to non Superman fans?

DJ Nik (01:32:35):
I think I certainly would.
I definitely think I would.
I might actually, you know, when she's a little bit older, I actually might show this to my niece.
I mean at this point she's four years old, so she probably wouldn't understand what the heck is going on.
So maybe like 10 years or so, I might sit down and say, okay, check this out.
This is what your uncle enjoys, you know, so I'm already trying to get her into the whole nerdy stuff.

(01:32:58):
I constantly gift her like Spider man figurines and this kind of thing now.
And she actually does the Spider man thing with her fingers when she sees me, which is fantastic.
Four year old, mind you, doing this, which is brilliant.
Yeah, that's what she does every time she goes and like, that's fantastic.
I'm like, I'm doing my job as a nerdy uncle.

Case (01:33:19):
Excellent.
Jmaic, would you recommend this to non Superman fans?

Jmike (01:33:22):
I do all the time.

Case (01:33:23):
Oh, excellent.

Jmike (01:33:25):
It's one of those movies right up there with actually, believe it or not, the nail came up like last week in a conversation with some of my friends at work.

Case (01:33:33):
Okay, nice.

Jmike (01:33:34):
And along with Superman versus the Elite.
Always recommend that one.
So this is pretty high up on my list.
It's so much of a unique story that I'm like, if you want to see more things about Superman and different stories and different ways people have tried to like have written him before, you could try this one out.
Give you something thinking about.

Case (01:33:54):
Yeah.
For a long time the comic was a regular staple in my like rotation of like loan out to people to be like, oh, if you're not really into like superheroes or Superman specifically, this is one that might change your mind.
This and Superman's Secret Identity were like my top two to like loan to people to be like, no, check out Superman and like A Different Light kind of books and which is why I think I don't, I can't find my copy of this.

(01:34:15):
So I think like, I had to read it on the app and I think it's because I probably loaned it out to someone and never got it back.
But I know I've purchased this like more than a handful of times for people as gifts just to be like, yes, here, like, appreciate Superman Red Son.
And I would say that the movie does a pretty good job too.
Like, I think that if you want honest, if someone's like, oh, I don't get Superman, and you're like, if you can deal with him in a different context, this is a really good interpretation of the character with a different set of challenges put in front of him by virtue of like being an active political player.

(01:34:52):
And, and I think it works really well.
So I'm really glad that we had the chance to talk about this, but I'm also really glad that Nick, that you get a chance to plug your stuff, like talk about your things.
Where can people find you, follow you, and what have you got going on?

DJ Nik (01:35:07):
Okay, so deep cleansing breath.
So when it comes to me, you can find me at my day job hosting the radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes where we play the very best and nothing but the best of country music for you guys.
And of course, for more information about that comes our website, which is whiskey and cigarettes show.com.
when it comes to the podcasting side of things, as Case kindly mentioned earlier, you can find myself and Keith Bliss on Happiness and Wildness, the Superhero Movie podcast.

(01:35:30):
We discuss any and every superhero movie under the sun.
And of course, last but say not least, myself, Zan Sprouse and Rachel Friend can be found also on Gold Standard, the Oscars podcast where we have reviewed all the best picture winning movies in chronological order.
And we're now reviewing movies that we have picked.
And we also have new returning guest co hosts bringing their favorite films to the Gold Standard Theater.

(01:35:52):
Case in Pointer Case actually joined us not that long ago and brought one of his movies, Everybody Wants Some, which none of us had actually seen.
So we're really glad to have that opportunity to talk about a movie that was near and dear to uk.
So hopefully we'll get to do that again.
Finally.
Myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on the Fandom Zone podcast where I talked about Neil Gaiman earlier.

(01:36:13):
We're currently reviewing the second and I I'm thinking final season of course of the Sandman.
So that's what I've got going on.

Case (01:36:21):
Awesome.
Everyone should definitely check out all the stuff you've got going on.
It's such a wonder how prolific you are.

DJ Nik (01:36:29):
I have no social life.

Case (01:36:34):
You've got podcasting that replaces the social life.
We all found that out during the pandemic.

DJ Nik (01:36:38):
Amen.

Case (01:36:41):
On that note, J Mike, where can people find you, follow you?
What have you got going on?

Jmike (01:36:44):
Oh my gosh.
I have not nearly as much stuff going on as Nick does, but if you want to talk I on the blue ski at J5 Bluesky Social, I am occasionally on that other app, J5 on Twitter, and I think that's about it.
Besides Discord Case, which I'm trying very hard to be on occasionally, I'm making much more of an effort, I promise.

Case (01:37:12):
Yes, no, you're doing a great job and the Discord is a great place to find J Mike and to find me.
You can find a link to our Discord server on our homepage for certain pov.com so check that out there.
Or you can find I post links to it regularly.
If you didn't see one, just let me know and I'll send you a link to the Discord and you can come join it.
But like I said, there's one if you just go to certainpov.com, it's at the bottom of the page there.

(01:37:38):
But yeah, it's a great Discord.
It's a great place to come hang out, do a great job of trying to be inclusive and have really fun conversations without it being necessarily so overwhelming as some Discord servers I've been on where it's just impossible to keep track of any conversation because they move so fast.
So I think a good rhythm, it's not too slow, not too fast, it's just right.

(01:38:00):
But another thing you can do to support the show in addition to coming and joining us on the Discord server is, well, sorry, I guess.
Guess I should finish where you can find me and follow me.
You can find me at Case Aiken on most of the platforms, including the blueski except for Instagram, where I'm holding on to my AIM screen name from high school for dear life, and that is quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o A T L 5 I'm sorry I was pretentious in high school, but I'm not going to give it up.

(01:38:30):
I'm still hanging onto the screen name for this and for my twitch like that.
But anyway, what I was getting at before though, is that you can come and support the show on Patreon we would really love actually more support on Patreon.
If you look up patreon.com certainpovmedia that supports this show as well as Another Pass and all the videos that we're doing on YouTube, but it is specifically for the productions of certain POV, so please check that out.

(01:38:57):
It would mean a ton to us to actively support the show, but even if you subscribe at the free tier, we would still meet.
That still means a lot to us and you would still get a lot out of it.
Actively doing two columns a week that are available at the free tier.
One is just my general thoughts about nerd spaces and the other is me talking about homebrew D and D stuff that I've worked on.
Yeah, like those are fun places to check that out.

(01:39:20):
But by the time that this episode comes out, we're going to be doing regular uploads for upcoming new episodes of all of our things and we're going to be doing more and more additional content for our patrons.
So check out the Patreon because there's a lot of good stuff coming for that.
And on that note, we need to thank some people.
So I need to thank the patrons that joined at the executive producer level, and that is Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir, Lee Greger, Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettinen.

(01:39:51):
And those are the people who are wonderful and joined us for.
Yeah, joined us on the Patreon and are helping keep the lights on, which is a really cool state to be in.
We have been an independent operation for so long that it is.
It is kind of nice to be like, oh, yeah, how do I distribute the checks between me, J, Mike and Sam?
That was pretty cool.

(01:40:14):
Yeah.
So please check that out.
Thank you for listening.
We did tease what our next episode is going to be on this one, which is that we are actually going to be talking to JMD Matthias, I believe, two weeks from the time of this recording.
And that is really exciting.
He is a legend in the comic book and otherwise media nerd space.

(01:40:34):
And I'm super excited about that.
So check that out when that comes.
Oh, and lastly, oh, we should talk about one last thing.
Certain POV is launching a new show.
We are launching Trade School, which is a show about comic books.
And specifically it is a show where each week a guest brings a comic book that they love, like a trade paperback of a comic book that they love and discusses it.

(01:40:57):
And it's the same format as side quests from fun and games where.
Where it's just that guest host, there's no one else.
And they just talk for five to 15 minutes about the comic book and, like, why it's a thing that meant something to them.
So, for example, I did the Squadron supreme trade paperback, and I got to talk about, like, why it was, like, really cutting edge when it was written and when I discovered it was really cool and how it was really cool that the.

(01:41:20):
Not this part wasn't cool.
The author had passed away, but the cool part was that they had cremated him and put his ashes in the ink of the comics.
And that was, like, that.
I was like, oh, this is a really gnarly comic.
Like.
Like, it's.
It's fun to know that I have this.
And so it was, like, fun to talk about that on there.
So it's.
It's, you know, is the story good?
But it's also, like, why did this comic mean something to me at the time?

(01:41:41):
And, you know, like, we're talking specifically trade paperbacks.
If it's an arc that's available digitally, that's fine too.
But that's.
That's the basic idea.
So, yeah, please, if that sounds cool to you, reach out to me at my email, case.aikenmail.com or you can find me on Discord or whatever way you want to reach out to me, and I would be happy to take your submission.

(01:42:03):
We are going to be launching in September, and I'm hoping to have a backlog to make us go through at least a couple months before we actually launch.
And I've got a lot of people who have promised episodes and a few who have submitted.
I'm in good enough shape that I should be launching end of September.
But, yeah, more people submitting would be great, and I would really appreciate people doing it because it's a really cool project that really celebrates comics.

(01:42:28):
But that is a lot of me talking.
And we should.
We should wrap up this episode.
So thank you all for listening.
Thank you for.
Thank you, Nick, for being here.
Thank you.

DJ Nik (01:42:38):
Thank you, guys.

Case (01:42:39):
Thank you, J. Mike, always, for being my co host.
Until next time, Stay super man.

Jmike (01:42:51):
Men of Steel is a certain POV production.
Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and Case Aiken.
The show is edited by Sofia Ricciardi.
Our logo is by Chris Bautista, and episode art is by Case Aiken.
Our theme is by Jeff Moonan.

Case (01:43:12):
Do you have a comic book you just can't stop thinking about?
One that stuck with you years later on, Trade School guest hosts get the mic to talk about a graphic novel that changed the way they see the world or just made them fall in love with comics all over again.
In just five to 15 minutes, you'll hear stories about the stories that real people love the most.

(01:43:33):
Trade School, a short form ongoing series about the comic book trade paperbacks we love and why we love them.
Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
Cpov.
Certainpov.
Com.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 154 - Superman: Red Son (Animated) with DJ Nik