Misadventures in Blissville

This is BlissVille, Misadventures in BlissVille, and tonight we’re going to be discussing Jon Schnepp’s 2015 documentary, “The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?”.

Narrator: Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Man 1: Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird.
Woman: It’s a plane
Man 2: It’s Superman!
Narrator: Yes, it’s Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way. And now another exciting episode in the adventures of Superman.

I love Superman. He is a true super-hero, because he has super powers. He’s from another planet. He’s incredibly strong. He can fly. As much as I love Batman, he’s not a true super-hero. He bought his powers. He’s a billionaire. Batman is the capitalist super-hero, whereas Superman is more of a socialist. There’s a great line in “Kill Bill 2”; David Carradine’s monologue toward the end, he tells Uma Thurman that the visage of Clark Kent is the disguise, and that Superman, or Kal-El is the reality.

I watched a couple of the old Superman tv show episodes with George Reeves last weekend, to prime alongside the documentary. They’re pretty silly by today’s standards, but they were enough to entertain people back then, and still nowhere near as silly as Burton’s conception of the character. The show ran from 1952 to 1958, 104 episodes, killed George Reeves’ career, and then 20 years later, we have Christopher Reeve, whom is still the standard for the character.