Super-Hypnotism?

[Captain Kal]

Back on-topic:

Given the incidents when Superman has used hypnosis or similar means in the past (documented earlier on this thread in my posts: Spellbinder, Mxyzptlk, and extra-dimensional alien) -- and they didn't all involve safeguarding his secret identity -- we can reasonably deduce that he has no free will problems with using super-hypnosis from a character or values perspective.

That leaves the other option that his lack of inspiration or creativity just doesn't allow him to consider the option in most cases.  Perhaps, when most problems are solved with his backbone powers like super-strength, super-speed, and flight, a subtle approach with super-hypnosis just doesn't occur to him.

A similar thing happened to the Pre Crisis criminal Ultraman.  Superman tricked Ultraman into landing on a huge kryptonite asteroid.  Kryptonite, in this first Earth-Three storyline, gave Ultraman new super-powers.  That huge chunk gave him so many new powers that his body was paralyzed into inactivity.  Ultraman couldn't focus to bring to bear a single power to beat Superman with that overwhelming array.

I suspect something similar is going on with Superman even if we discount free will and lack of creativity.  He simply has so much to work with that he tends not to be that effective with the minor powers -- just like UM was paralyzed by his overabundance of powers.

(I suspect that was a theme point the writers were trying to make about Superman's power usage via the example of Ultraman.)

[MatterEaterLad]

Also, the grotesque, jingoistic comparison of a fictional comic book superhero to real life historical events is not only innaccurate, but in poor taste as well. Uh...what AGAIN does WWII have to do with Super-Hypnotism? Bringing up brave veterans or little blind orphans or teddy bears doesn't prove your point, but it does manipulate emotions.

Jingoistic is always a phrase that can be turned to lend credence to the argument at hand, while in this case, I have no opinion, plenty of declarative statements about "who are acceptable and talented writers" have been ventured without any more objective reasoning than "emotional feeling"...and I even agree with some of your reasons.

This is really a specious, specious comparison. A dog has no free will to begin with - it can't make a moral choice. A lion can't "choose" to not hunt and kill a gazele, because it is an animal that acts by its instincts. It wouldn't be wrong to tie up a dangerous dog.

Not particularly, more and more, moral code is merely being identified as a product of the species that defines it, in other words, we are more "moral" because we we are the most human species on the planet (that's a truism, not an argument)...tell that to a lion that kills its competitor's cub's so it can breed with the female, all sorts of species have a morality and a free will that are as particular to them as a species as our own is to us...no judgement or separation as humans as "special" seems to be warrented.

Super heroes do carry on a fictional fight for what some members of our species value...in fact, their mythos is very SIMILAR to "all warriors go to Valhalla"...