“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” director David F. Sandberg recently participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Instagram, and revealed that while he once was interested in making a Superman movie, he’s now decided against ever being involved in taking on the Man of Steel, or indeed the Justice League.
When asked if there was another DC superhero he would be interested in taking on, Sandberg replied, “At one point I would have said Superman, but when there are so many different expectations and hardcore fans you’re going to piss off so many people no matter what you do.”
“Seeing how people react to things like The Last Jedi makes me want to stay away from things like that. Shazam! was perfect in that there hadn’t been that many adaptations before. There are still people who think it was done wrong, but it was on a manageable level.”
So, in the first instalment of our new “Great Debate” feature, we ask the question…
Is Superman Fandom Toxic?
Yes
Some of the best and brightest people I’ve met are Superman fans, and through this site. Close friends. The kindest people I know.
People who admire Superman’s ethic tend to be great folks, in the main.
That said, this fandom? Clearly among the most toxic on the internet, second only to Star Wars, or perhaps the Fox News comment section.
I get chastised for saying this. Sometimes. “The good people are just being quiet” is the go-to critique. Perhaps. But if they are, it’s functionally indistinguishable from not existing. If they don’t speak up, the only voices we hear are awful.
I’ve written for this site for twenty years. I know how this fandom behaves. I’ve seen it all. Some examples:
– I had a FAN MAIL folder before I deleted it that I could regularly fill with hate mail over the stupidest of things. Hundreds and hundreds of people willing to seek me out personally to tell me how awful I was for having an opinion on, say, Smallville. Oh, how important that was. And is.
That’s sarcasm.
– When I gave Superman Returns a positive review (or negative, depending on who wrote the hate mail), a group of rabid homophobes made an entire website to talk about how gay Steve and I were. Using fake avatars named for people we really knew.
They posted daily. For years.
– I’ve even been targeted by creatives. Writing Superman isn’t enough of a reward, apparently. They have to systemically track and target people who disagree with their visions and badger them. It’s a longer list of people than you might think. Most people who write Superman are quite chill and nice. But many are quite insecure, and act like the worst of the fans.
And all of this was before Snyder came in and lit the match. Snyder, like him or loathe him, has been the single most polarizing thing in the history of Superman. He’s brought out all the bad.
People don’t like to say it, but I will. It’s because there is a clear association between Snyder and the rising rampant right-wing militant fascism in the United States. Stupid bullies. And with stupid bullies comes stupid behavior.
Homophobia has escalated, to the point where I have had to ban about five hundred readers, give or take, because of something so benign as Superman having a bisexual son.
It’s not just the staff that gets targeted. There’s infighting in the fandom. I rarely see a civil discussion. All I see is camps. Pro-Snyder/Anti-Snyder. Pro-Jon, Anti-Jon.
If I could copyright the phrase “No true Superman fan thinks…” I’d be rich.
Every single day is this dreadful trudge to the internet, not to talk about the comic book hero I’ve always loved, but rather to learn, in disappointment, who I have to ban for attacking someone else personally, for participating in brigading, for harassment. Over a character who wears their underwear on the outside.
That’s the never-ending battle now.
No
The second the credits rolled on Shazam, I believed, for the first time in years, that it was possible to make a Superman movie that fans would like.
David F. Sandberg managed, in a movie that seemed to take everything I’d loved about Superman (movie and character) as a kid; the idealism, moral absolutism, and pure joy inherent in a man who can fly and who isn’t creepy about it, and funnelled that energy into a film about Superman’s most obvious plagiarist.
It was glorious. And a part of me hoped, as I watched Zack Snyder’s experiment in graffiti as film crash and burn in spectacular fashion that, out of the wreckage, we’d get a Sandberg directed (or inspired) Superman reboot to launch a reset of DC on film.
That hope, per Sandberg’s recent dismissal of his helming any such project, has now been flattened like so many buildings in the climax of Man of Steel. Worse, the reason he gave for not wanting to touch a Superman movie felt personal. “Hardcore fans” he said, would be pissed off “no matter what you do.”
As a lifelong Superman fan, that made me bristle. Hardcore Spider-Man fans have turned out for three iterations of the character in the last 20 years, Batman has had four in the past 30. We’re about to get another reboot of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. Surely Superman fans can’t be so intolerable that the prospect of touching the property causes talented directors to curl up in fear of us, the fans?
I’m gonna take a stand and say it isn’t necessarily us, but rather the character that poses unique challenges right now.
The things I listed up top as Superman’s virtues can sometimes cause serious division. Especially the moral absolutism. In other times that character trait has been used, on film and in comic book form, to navigate morally grey real world quagmires. For Superman, “there is a right and a wrong in this universe. And that distinction is not hard to make.”
Except…
That’s not necessarily the healthiest view in a world that’s becoming more divided by the minute. After all, when we’re collectively having a hard time determining right from wrong, except to assert that I’m right, and you’re definitely wrong, every other viewer would see Superman as a tyrant instead of a hero.
The question might not be whether you can make a Superman movie that pleases most of the fans (who aren’t, after all, any more vocal than those of any other franchise) but whether it’s possible to make a Superman movie in 2022 that doesn’t turn the character into a fascist nightmare from one view or another. I found Snyder’s grim take on Superman to be repellant; you might find a Sandberg version hopelessly naive and hokey.
As a fan though, I have hope. Superman is the greatest, purest superhero of them all. I believe someone will come along and give us a version of the character that can heal some of these divisions between us, and appease even the most demanding fan.
As long as he has underwear on the outside of his pants. And the S shield is the right size. And the boots are the right length. And his cape has a big prominent S on the back. And the S is the symbol of the house of El.
And…
Many thanks to our Great Debaters – Neal Bailey and Julian Finn.
I think it depends on the fan and not the fandom as a whole. I’ve talked to some really nice and friendly people on this site. People who I call friends. If I were to actually meet them in person, I’m betting we could be friends in the real world as well as the virtual one. That’s why I think it depends on the fan. If a fan gets possessive of the Superman character, then it might reflect badly for the whole Supermanfandom as a whole. The whole fandom shouldn’t be judged by that fan’s possessiveness. And to not even… Read more »
Yes, Superman fans are chill and nice, it’s the fandom as a whole that is toxic and poisonous.
At one point Superman was voted to be the second biggest Pop Culture Icon (right behind Oprah, so… Grains of salt and all); I don’t think that there’s anyone in the industrialized world who isn’t aware of the character. So those with strong feelings are going to be most vocal, and technology is increasing the megaphone for the loudmouths anyway (full disclosure, I was known to rage on the old message boards…) So there’s something of a confirmation bias towards the more toxic individuals and groups, who are now going to loudly conflict with each other, making the whole situation… Read more »
A lot has been written about Superman’s approach to right and wrong, but the real keys to the character are his humanism and idealism, and the best stories challenge his commitment to those isms and challenge his human/Kryptonian duality. And the best antagonists are his opposite in some way in their view of humanity – Luthor helping people only when he benefits from doing so, Darkseid relentlessly pursuing absolute power, Mxyzptlk treating people as playthings, Brainiac reducing humans to collectibles or data artifacts, Manchester Black assuming that the answer to evil is more evil. That’s why most of the 1950s… Read more »
I would like to clarify what I meant when I said misguided directing. And the best way that I can explain this is speaking about Amazon Prime’s Homelander from The Boys series. At first glance he looks like Superman. He can fly, has a cape, smiles to the camera. But anyone who watches the series will immediately see a huge difference in his character compared to Superman. He’s a maniac in a super suit. Now image the same kind of character in a Superman suit calling himself “Superman” and then have fans get all upset about it. My point is… Read more »
I loved watching Chris Reeve fly when I was a kid and my father took me to the cinema. I had loved Superman since I saw Super friends on TV when I was 5. Superboy, later Lois and Clark, then came the Animated Series and Smallville. I watched Krypton and Man of Steel. I have liked most of what every iteration had to offer, and though some things were not perfect from my point of view, I was every time thrilled about seeing my childhood hero take off again before my eyes. I really like Superman and Lois, and it… Read more »
There are definitely toxic aspects in the fandom, and they can be VOCAL and often abhorrent. But that’s true of just about any fandom that’s not outright starved for content. Add that Superman is a massive pop culture icon with strong cultural identification in his early history, and you’ve got a built-in powder keg. Add to that the fact that DC and WB have often participated in practices that explicitly split the Superman fandom, and that gets even worse. And part of the problem is that we have both too much and not enough cinematic content. Batman has had so… Read more »
“If they don’t speak up, the only voices we hear are awful” That is some REALLY crass arrogance to think that you are special. You’re on the internet on a site I’ve NEVER heard of until today but apparently it’s been MY responsibility to contribute to YOUR conversations for the past 20 years? That’s not on me. You’re attitude translates as “I like MY friends but nobody else matters.” Well welcome to the internet. If you want an echo chamber go to Twitter. I don’t blame you for being this way with all the partisan triggering things that have happened… Read more »
So to be clear, we are unqualified to make these distinctions, yet the distinctions we drew were powerful enough to make you sign up for an account and comment, but somehow they are wrong and have no value. Winning argument there, chum. “My enemy is stupid and weak, but also so insidious and powerful I must personally invalidate them.” I have every right to declare anything I want to be anything I want on this site, as one of its editors. And so I repeat: Superman fandom is toxic. Your comment is absolutely a symptom of it. If you don’t… Read more »
Neal, if you want to call me the villain and kick me out of your fortress of solitude? Go ahead and make yourself feel better, brag about it on your ‘lets do some editing’ videos, attack strangers but still feel entitled to beg for money on your Patreon.
Have a better life, cuz right now you don’t seem to be enjoying it.