The utter hubris to me is the refusal to accept that many fans of classic Superman appreciate the fact that they were meant for kids, were fun without intellectual posturing, and were NOT great literature and are NOT great literature today.
Perhaps the single most insightful comment on this message board.
There is the continuity
imposed by editors and writers--continuity
obsessed upon by fanboys--and there is the continuity
understood by the casual culture. Thus, even if an editor decides Superman can eat Kryptonite like candy, he will always be vulnerable to Kryptonite in the pop culture. Solid writers build on that; slipshod writers diminish that. Hollywood—that great calculator that reduces all equations to the lowest common denominator—"groks" the pop culture and delivers it in iconic form.
The appeal of these characters is they are inextricably absurd, running around in tights, cracking wise or melodramatic, expressing an ethos ultimately wacky but wonderful in its black/white simplicity. The hubris is placing the angst of Hamlet in the mouths of wrestlers and rodeo clowns.
