Look Ma, No Trunks!

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2014)

YOU CAN CALL us reactionary, if you like; but we prefer to look at it as being traditional. Just like what is right or wrong, some things just don't go away or evolve. So it is with our American icon and demigod, Superman.
ONE JUST SHOULD not be tinkering with any of the established parameters. The legend of Superman, as was developed over the years and (we might add) are officially written in stone. Revisionism is one thing that flies directly into the face of what is well established.
PARTICULAR GRIPES THAT we have with MAN OF STEEL, may seem to be petty to some of our readers. Well, we don't concur. The liberties that today's writers and directors take with long established super heroes, be the from Marvel or DC, are inexcusable at best and sacrilegious at worst.
FIRST OF ALL, let us consider the costume changes. Okay, if they want to make it look like chain mail, so be it! But the disregard for the long standing tradition of "Superhero Double Modesty" is just unacceptable. The exclusion of the Red Trunks being worn over the Blue Tights just goes too far. It is equal to having Santa Claus sporting a goatee.
ANOTHER OF OUR complaints is what must be an attempt to replicate the scenario of BATMAN BEGINS by giving Krypton's favorite son a long, globe-trotting and meandering journey of "finding himself." This was handled much more convincingly and concisely in the Christopher Reeve initial outing of SUPERMAN (1978); which neatly had the young Clark Kent being clued in about all by the hologram of father, Jor-el. it took place in the Arctic Fortress of Solitude.*
AGAIN WE MUST register a complaint concerning a violation of a key tenet of the Superman myths; namely his not needing any products from Gillette Safety Razor company. They actually had young Clark growing a beard on that tramp steamer or wherever he was while at sea. Any follower knows he can't do whiskers!
THE CONTINUATION OF the Superman movie franchise would have been better served with a series following the less than spectacular box office bombshell of SUPERMAN RETURNS; which had a lot to recommend it. Other than Lois Lane's having a calf in tow, there was Kevin Spacey's Luthor; which remains our favorite characterization of the Mad Scientist.
PLEASE, JUST GIVE us some returning to basics. Let's have all the best traditions of the Christopher Reeve era and less emulation of the "modern", "sophisticated" and "adult" revisions.
NOTE: * The Fortress was added to the comics storyline circa 1960. It was welcomed by we, the readers. Little did we know then that it was an idea stolen, right down to the name, from the DOC SAVAGE Pulp Novels; which predated Superman by some 5 years or so,