Once Again On The Death Of A Super-Hero-With Ben Affleck’s “Batman vs. Superman”(2016) In Mind

By Associate Editor Alden Riley 

   

Okay, okay I expected some blow-back from my put upon review of Ben Affleck’s Batman vs. Superman from 2016 where I mentioned that I cried no tears over the death of Superman in that film. Although I expected it from a closer source, mostly from Sandy Salmon who “ordered” me to write the review since he was personally emotionally too distraught to do so since he had apparently wasted away his childhood (and later years at it turned out) endlessly reading comics and watching super-heroes go mano a mano against the bad guys of this good green earth. Although Sandy read the review before it was posted he made not huff and puff about it except that he was a little miffed by the last couple of sentences where I make it seem like it was my job if had not done the review which I had done in any case without good grace.

No the source is one Sam Lowell, the longtime film editor here now in emeritus status. (Beside a few maniac readers who decided for some ill- conceived reason to enter the lists in defense of the caped crusader out of old time nostalgia or simply to write something since they nothing better to do-I do not question motives but that is what I think they were about given the hyper-tense tenor of the collective indignation.) His objection. We, meaning me, should not be denigrating the idea of super-heroes in a time when we are desperate for such figures. He argued against my idea that just plain ordinary heroes, people who step up and organize against the ills of the world, are what we need today as models. Argued, vociferously argued, that super-heroes are the only ones capable of taking on the mad men (and women) who run the world and those in the waiting like ISIS and a million other tin-pot desperados too numerous to mention by name. And that is exactly the nub of my objection to the man from Krypton. I am writing this in early October, 2107 shortly after the horrific mass murders in Las Vegas proved once again some very heroic actions by those same ordinary citizens. It was wearisome for me to watch this film and see people running for cover, running like rats, as the forces of evil descended on sweet Gotham hoping against hope that Mister S would show his face and save them. Like very resilient New Yorkers who put up with a ton of hell on a daily basis needed this dude to work things out. No, a thousand times no.             

Sam further went into this spiel about how Superman had done more than yeoman’s service in the fight against evil having taken out whole generations of bad guys and evil empires-until that last tough stretch where it looked for all the world to see like he had lost a step or too. He even alibied the caped crusader on that one charging it off to known bad guy Lex Luthor’s evil schemes. Come on now Superman was way over twenty-one, had free will and he just quit, went out with a whimper on that front until he gathered in that last ditch bit of remorse by falling on his shield (but only after honey Lois and sweet mother were taken hostage).  When I read that response I called Sam up and asked him with as much aplomb as I could muster if he was serious-if he believed that Superman had actually done anything except make his creator and the film companies rich. Frankly I was glad that he had retired since he seemed to have gotten a serious case of senility or something like that. 

Here is the kicker though. Sam accused me of either willfully neglecting to point out that last scene where something seems to be levitating around Clark Kent’s grave. Some arising from the dead like Lazarus or Jesus Christ. (Kent Superman’s alter ego and earthly persona had the official funeral while empty casket Superman was being honored in Washington by a cover-up government which wanted the people to cower and rely on their good services now that he was gone.)  I finally figured out what Sam’s real deal was about. It’s all about a religious experience. Sam has Superman as the modern savior, the messenger from God at first misunderstood but come to save the world in end times. That graveyard scene was the “second coming” of Jesus Christ arisen from the grave. We walked that one around for a while until I realized that whatever Sam’s mental state talking religion with a true believer is always a waste of breathe. Yeah, as I told Sam I stand by my original statement-no tears are shed in this corner for Superman’s demise, none. And plenty for those real citizens like the firefighters in New York on 9/11 and the average citizens who saved lives in Las Vegas heading to not away from the danger.