I hope Ryan Bledsoe reads this

Taken from:
http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/2003/03/10/worst-hero-ever/

I used to insist the worst super hero ever was Aquaman. I still believe he is the most useless, but he is not the worst. You see, “worst” is defined differently. I define “worst” as the least enjoyable super hero to watch, or read about, or pretend to be. Many heroes are created and thought out in way that makes them very human and very believable, despite that fact that they have extraordinary powers. The suspension of disbelief is all the more possible when these powers, or combinations of powers, or clever uses of powers, make sense. Some heroes, one in particular, is written in such a way, in almost every instance, as to defy all the rules and limitations placed on him by his powers. This ridiculous hero is none other than Superman himself, the father of all super heroes.

His conglomeration of unrelated and unexplainable powers leaves him at the top of my list of unenjoyables. Furthermore, at every harrowing turn of his boring existence, instead of finding clever uses for his already substantial powers, he constantly gets new ones, new ones that just happen to be perfect for the situation at hand.

Now I’m no nerd. I can’t site every comic where each of the following examples took place, but maybe Jonathan Clarke can. In any case, I’d like to point out some of the more ridiculous situations I have seen the man of steel get into and out of in movies, TV, and comic books, in order to demonstrate the utter bore of this “undefeatable” super character.

OK, let’s start by listing out some of his more commonly known powers:

1. He can’t be hurt by physical weapons (hence “Man of Steel”)
2. He’s immune to cold
3. He’s immune to fire
4. He can fly
5. He can run REALLY fast
6. He is super strong, like lift a bus up by its bumper with one hand strong, despite the fact that the bumper would tear right off in the real world
7. He has laser vision
8. He has x-ray vision
9. He has super hearing
10. He has super-breath
11. He doesn’t need air (he flies through space for long periods of time, but I don’t know his underwater experience. I guess he has to leave something for Aquaman.)

Now, let’s examine some of the odd, out of place, if you can consider anything out of place after place after seeing that list, uses of these powers:

His clothes don’t get destroyed by the physical weapons, however, his cape does tatter on occasion. This annoys the shit out of me. One of Superman’s biggest problems should be his constant need to keep himself dressed. I remember one comic that attempted to explain the phenomenon by saying the invulnerability is cause by a force field covering his whole body and the thin layers of clothes. I hate that reason, and I refuse to accept it. I’ll tell you why. If I were covered in a force field, but not physically invulnerable, bullets would easily bounce off my chest. However, if hurled by some super-strengthed bad guy, you might be able to imagine the mush my body would turn into inside that force shell upon crashing through a building at 300 MPH. My brain would smash in upon my skull, organs against each other and bones, rendering massive internal crushing damage. Therefore, Superman MUST be physically invulnerable, with super strong guts and whatnot, thus rendering the need for a force field only to protect his clothing all the more ridiculous.

I don’t know about you, but my breath is warm, some temperature warmer than the outside air and cooler than my internal 98.6 degrees. Now, I can understand when you are super strong that maybe you have super lungs and blow hurricane force gusts of wind from your mouth. However, we have seen on countless occasions, Superman’s super breath not only put out fire and blow crowds of people down the block, but also turn stuff to ice. To ICE??!!! Where does that come from? How does the breath get cold? Why does the breath get cold? I think it’s fucked up. You don’t need cold air to extinguish the flames, or brittle up the metal bars before a good old fashioned shattering. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s no need for it.

Superman is super fast. There’s no denying it. In fact, he’s faster than a speeding bullet, which is somewhere between the speed of 800 and 3500 feet per second, depending on the bullet. He’s this fast flying or even running in some cases. We know he can run faster than a train at least. Now, I have no problem with him traveling at this speed. However, I can’t sit by an watch as writers extrapolate this power to include traveling at or near the speed of light, rotating the earth in the opposite direction and thus traveling back in time!!!??? Who writes this shit? This is total and utter crap. I don’t want to even start on the completely fictitious physics required to pull off the rotation thing! But time travel!!! What the fuck? Superman can travel back in time??!! He should just do that all the time. This power alone would make him the most powerful hero in the universe.

His super speed is also occasionally extrapolated to include his molecules. He vibrates his own molecules to make himself pass through solid objects. Pass through solid objects! I am not lying. Some genius over at DC comics though this was a cool idea. Probably the same guy invented the fact that Superman does this all the time, vibrates his molecules, so that he can’t be photographed clearly. Photos are always blurring. Oh god, it’s just like total abandonment of all physics. I want to scream. Why does he need to avoid photographs anyway? Plus, if you can see him clearly with your eyes, the photo will come out fine. It’s all fucking dumb.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot my biggest pet peeve about this lame hero. Kryptonite. This is the mysterious element from Superman’s home planet that is his total weakness. It renders him vulnerable, weak, and will eventually kill him if he is in contact for too long a period. Here we go again with stupidity. They wrote a character so powerful they had to invent some stupid mineral that he is allergic to. It makes no sense. But even if it did, why does everyone and their mother have a fucking piece of this rock. Everybody has it in mass quantities. In fact, I saw one guy who made bullets out of it. Yes, bullets, and no Superman didn’t die. He figured out something I guess. I don’t even remember. Anyway, if it were me, they’d have to change my name to Kryptonite Hunter, because that’s all I’d be doing, day and night, hunting down kryptonite and killing the owners with my laser eyes or some other such dumb power. I would be so careful it would be ridiculous. I would wear lead armor. I would x-ray everything. I would collect and then launch into space, every single piece of that green rock in existence. Then I’d force the government to classify it as a material more dangerous than enriched uranium, and it would be nearly impossible to find. Kryptonite sucks.

Let me add to the kryptonite discussion that if I had Kryptonite, I could kill Superman so fast he would never know hit him. I would just use chunks of kryptonite as the shrapnel in some homemade lead pipe bomb. I would throw it at Superman and he would hold out his ridiculous chest in defiance. The bomb would go off and the Kryptonite shards would embed themselves deep into the Man of “Steel’s” flesh. Then, in his weakened, vulnerable state, I’d walk up to him and empty a magazine of plain old 9mm bullets into his head. Problem solved. No more ridiculous hero. End of story.

You see, if you don’t write yourself into the box that Superman was created in, you don’t need ridiculous gimmicks to create suspense and drama. Superman is by far, the “worst” superhero ever written.

I’ve got nothing else to say about this guy. What do you think?

Superman is defiantly a ridiculous and stupid "hero" for muscle brained americans (and those who wish they where) along with most of DC, but this post is just as dumb.

Spider-Man is more awesome.