Superman: Man of Tomorrow #16

[superfangirl1]

Superman is having nightmares, dreams of pain and destruction and he can’t understand why. That is until Darkseid comes to Metropolis and plans to use the Anti-Life equation to subjugate the universe, starting with Superman and his city!

Comments

[dragontail]

There are no words for how much I flipping love this.

[blueprintstyles]

i need to read more of scott kolins

[sadoeuphemist]

I have no idea what's going on in these scans, I do not know what the actual conflict is.

1. Darkseid drops a bunch of buildings on people. This is not a hostage situation that would prevent Superman from intervening - Darkseid has already flipped the switch, fired the bullet; he is in the process of killing all these people right now.

2. Superman says "I can't fight him until these people are safe, and they won't be safe until I fight him. It's impossible." Uh, this is not actually a paradox? All it means is: I can't fight him until they are safe (from this immediate threat) and they won't be safe (in the long term) until I fight him. So you save them first, and then you fight him. It's actually a really simple solution.

3. Darkseid says "You fled from me during battle" and then like ten seconds later says "Inconceivable! I was fighting you - when did you have time to save them?" Hmm, maybe - and just hear me out here - it was when he fled from you during battle?

4. Superman says that he saved them "between every hit you landed on me". So he was flying away to save lives, and then deliberately flying back in-between saving lives to get punched??? What??

It seems like the actual conflict here is: these people are in danger, but Superman is tied up fighting Darkseid right now - but oh wait Superman has superspeed so he can just avoid Darkseid completely, it's actually really easy, I have no idea what all the rest of this drama is about.

[cricharddavies]

I have no idea what's going on in these scans,

Then read the comic.

[sadoeuphemist]

Surprisingly, what I am seeing here does not incline me to want to read more of it.

[cricharddavies]

That is your right, but there is no point in complaining about being unable to understand something from a collection of random pages.

[sadoeuphemist]

I think, perhaps, this scene is actually indefensible, and this is why you are making these completely uninformative rebuttals instead of actually claiming it makes sense.

[cricharddavies]

What reaction are you hoping for, here?

[sadoeuphemist]

I don't know, I would maybe like you to talk about why the scene is good, actually, instead of just obliquely hinting that there is some pertinent information that makes it all make sense. So far all you have said about it is that Superman needed to fly back and forth at superspeed between saving people and being hit by Darkseid as a distraction, which makes no sense whatsoever.

[cricharddavies]

I didn't obliquely hint at anything. You complained about not understanding what was going on. I said that if you want to understand the scene, you should read the comic. If you don't want to do that, then don't. It's just a comic book. But don't complain about not understanding something if you're not willing to educate yourself.

[gnarll]

If hes fast enough to evacuate those people faster than Darkseid can see, why does he go back to take punches that must be molasses-slow to him?

[cricharddavies]

To keep Darkseid's attention on him, rather than all those people.

[sadoeuphemist]

The thing is, if he can move faster than Darkseid can see, then it's completely irrelevant who Darkseid's attention is on; Superman just runs in and saves them before Darkseid even notices anything happened.

[jlbarnett]

I suppose the issue is Darkseid would see that he wasn't there, and would then either pursue him or attack someone else.

It's not like Superman was being held the entire fight and then darting in and out of his grip, just returning, he was being knocked down and then doing something else on the way back to the fight

[sadoeuphemist]

Who cares if Darkseid sees if he's there or not when Superman moves so much faster than he does. This is like saying that Flash has to keep getting punched by his opponents in order to keep them distracted - no, he can just take them out at superspeed before they can do shit.

Heck, if he's so insistent on doing this, he could just visibly dodge all of Darkseid's attacks, why does he even need to get hit at all??

[jlbarnett]

number one Omega Beams. Darkseid doesn't only have enhanced strength. Number two he does have enhanced speed also, he just rarely uses it

[sadoeuphemist]

What about Omega Beams? If Superman moves so fast that he can fly off and save people without Darkseid even realizing that he left, there's nothing to aim Omega Beams at.

[tianyulong]

It said it took all of his energy to move that fast. Maybe he couldn't fight with that kind of speed, but he could move people out of the way?

[sadoeuphemist]

What does this mean, why doesn't he just move all the people out of the way and then fight Darkseid? Why this nonsense where he moves some of the people out of the way and then goes back to be punched by Darkseid, and so on?

[juniper6]

Superspeed isn’t unlimited. Presumably he couldn’t move all the people out of the way quickly enough for Darkseid to not notice, but he could move them one group at a time. And D is enjoying Superman’s apparent distress, so Superman keeps giving him more, to help keep him focused on that and not on the strange wind that keeps stirring. And it looks like Darkseid underestimates how fast Superman is.

[sadoeuphemist]

Let me present you with two scenarios:

1. Superman flies off at superspeed and gets all the people to safety before Darkseid even realizes anything happened.

2. Superman does what he does in the comic and flies back and forth between saving people and getting punched by Darkseid, moving so insanely fast that he is essentially in two places at once and Darkseid doesn't even realize he's going anywhere, and despite wasting all that time standing still for Darkseid's normal speed punches, he still has the time to save all those people.

It is my assertion that scenario two requires way, way higher degrees of superspeed than scenario one. Agree/disagree?

[cricharddavies]

Disagree. Also, not relevant.

[sadoeuphemist]

Yes, yes, you have made it clear you don't care about logic and reason, there's no need to keep reiterating it.

But of course it is relevant if there is an easier option Superman could have taken. In that case, his elaborate back and forth deception is not the triumph of hope in a desperate situation; it is him showboating. It completely changes the whole emotional tenor of the piece.

[juniper6]

Multiple trips would be required to get everyone out. Multiple trips, one after another, added together, take more time than each individual trip, because that’s how addition works. One trip might be fast enough, as in, take little enough time, for Darkseid not to notice. But with all the required trips added together, at some point between [one trip] and [all the trips], it will be enough time for Darkseid to notice Supes is gone. So he does one trip at a time, and Darkseid doesn’t notice, because he’s not looking over and counting the people left.

I don’t even want to know what you think a “degree of speed” is. Also, jfc; it’s a comic book.

[gnarll]

Would it not be better to distract Darkseid by punching him rather than taking punches in that case?