The Most Powerful Superman Cannot Exist In Movies Or On TV - Here's Why
Jesse Lab
Superman is one of the most popular and powerful fictional characters in existence. While plenty of hardcore comic fans can generate countless hypothetical scenarios explaining how and why Superman could lose to heroes like Batman or Goku, people just have to accept that Superman would win all of those fights because of just how strong he is.
There are plenty of feats that Superman has accomplished in film and television to back up that claim. In Superman (1978), he flew around the planet so fast that he traveled back in time. He let loose against the anti-hero group, The Elite, in Superman vs. The Elite, and made this all-powerful group practically beg for their lives. Then in Justice League, he single-handedly defeats the Justice League, which at that time consisted of The Flash, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Aquaman. And that’s not even getting into some of the things he’s done in comics!
But there is one ability that Superman has in the comics that will never be seen on screen. No matter how much people want to see Superman assume this form, it will forever be a pipe dream because there is no way in the world that we will ever see Cosmic Superman.
Cosmic Superman Is Literal Plot Armor
Cosmic Superman, or Cosmic Armor Superman, originates from Final Crisis, an event comic written by Grant Morrison from 2008 to 2009. In it, specifically in the tie-in issue “Superman Beyond #2,” Superman assumes the form of a gigantic robot powered by his thoughts to find an antidote for a sickness that Lois Lane was infected with. In order to do so, he needs to travel beyond the multiverse and fight against Mandrakk, a nigh omnipotent being described as “the opposite of life.”
As a story, calling Final Crisis complicated would be a gross understatement. The series plays fast and loose with plenty of metatextual ideas and concepts, like how Limbo is an actual place where characters go once they’re forgotten, to the very nature of storytelling and, depending on who you ask, a thorough repudiation of the grimmer outlook of storytelling that the comic industry was steering toward following the success of Alan Moore’s acclaimed works like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns.
It is a mess, to put it mildly, and Cosmic Superman is one of the most complex things about it. It’s never outright stated what Cosmic Superman’s powers are, but they’re described as being an elevation of Superman’s own abilities and how he is a living narrative device. He has to power to adapt to any threat and can perceive space and time on an entirely new level. He knows that he is in a story and that the story is shaping around him, ultimately becoming a living plot armor that has one purpose—defeat Mandrakk.
Cosmic Superman is constantly growing and becoming more powerful the more he fights. While he’s never shown in Final Crisis doing anything other than flying, punching, and using his heat vision, the constant narration from Superman portrays him as a beyond omnipotent being, someone who is aware of all realities and, quite literally, cannot be defeated. Because that’s what the story of “Superman Beyond #2” needs him to be. He can’t be defeated because the story can’t continue if he loses.
Cosmic Superman Is Too Meta For General Audiences
If you were brave, or foolish, enough to try to bring Cosmic Superman to the big screen, there are several major challenges that any filmmaker would have to overcome. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you wanted to adapt Cosmic Superman without any of the baggage from Final Crisis. You wanted to leave behind the narrative confusion, the examination of storytelling, and all of the not-so-easily-explained concepts like Superman inhabiting the giant robot through his thoughts.
First of all, you can’t have Cosmic Superman without those metatextual elements. Final Crisis, and the “Superman Beyond” miniseries within it, are entirely reliant on the examination of story and narrative. Superman is meant to represent the desire for a happy ending and how Superman’s stories can never and will never end. When Cosmic Superman finished his fight with Mandrakk, he left behind a message of “To Be Continued,” showing readers that Cosmic Superman, and Superman in general, can’t end, something that Final Crisis codifies in its ending.
Trying to explain these ideas to audiences in a Superman story would be the cinematic equivalent of Kryptonite. Many moviegoing audiences don’t want and probably wouldn’t be able to understand dissertations on the function of story and narrative. They want to see Superman fly around, defeat the bad guys, and save the day, with maybe a smattering of more grounded themes here and there. Grant Morrison’s depiction of Cosmic Superman is baffling in and of itself, so dumbing it down to fit within a conventional superhero story would defeat the whole point of featuring him in a movie or TV show anyway. It just seems like a terrible idea and is destined to make audiences walk out of theaters or check out mentally.
Cosmic Superman Without Proper Context Is Just A Bad Idea
But even then, if a creator is insistent on removing the thought-provoking context this form of Superman needs: What are you left with? Superman in a giant robot. Make no mistake, that sounds cool and would be cool to see, but it also cheapens Superman’s own powers and abilities.
Superman has been shown to be powerful enough to fight against gods. Why does he need a giant robot? What can a giant robot do that Superman can’t? Sure, it could probably take a hit from Kryptonite and still keep going, but then the giant robot would have infinitely more weaknesses. Plus, if you’re trying to go to the scale of Final Crisis, creators will have to try to match the same scale of that series to justify the creation of Cosmic Superman, which is nigh impossible. Cosmic Superman is so big, he can hold all of Limbo, a near-endless world of forgotten ideas, which also contains a book with infinite stories and pages, all in the palm of his hand. How do you convey the scale of that to a general audience?
If you just want to have Superman fight a giant monster, let him fight a giant monster. The tension of watching Superman fight a being far stronger than him is exciting enough and will lead to plenty of entertaining moments, whether it be in a movie theater or on television. But the minute Superman enters a giant robot to fight his foes, the fight becomes less interesting. It’ll begin to feel like something that should happen in a sci-fi action movie and not a Superman movie. Other heroes can and should have giant robots, but not Superman.
Cosmic Superman is a cool concept, but he’s simply unadaptable. He can’t exist in film or television because he’s not meant to exist in film or television. He’s a narrative device that works solely in Final Crisis, and while Superman’s powers are normally unfair in how powerful he is, Cosmic Superman is just plain broken. It’s fun to read about, but not to see on screen, making him a version of Superman audiences will never see outside of comic pages.
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