Do you think Superman has grown beyond Comic Books

[Lexrules]

Just a question Id like to see what people think about.

Do you think the character of Superman has grown beyond the medium that created him. If DC closed up shop tomorrow do you see the Character surviving and reaching new heights in other markets like Movies and TV.

[Last1oftheJedi]

Yes. Superman is a world culture icon. If DC closed shop tomorrow, there would a LONG line of companies (Marvel near if not at the top) looking to buy the rights so they could use his image on anything they could fabricate. Tv, movies, lunchboxes, cereal, you name it.

[ascended]

I agree. Superman is far more than a comic character. He's become a global icon. People in the farthest reaches of the world know his symbol and name. If DC fell apart tomorrow, Superman would survive. If he ended up somehow falling into public domain, he'd survive. He'll be around when my son is a grown man, and his children after him, and so on and so forth. Hell, he'll likely outlive America itself.

A lot of people toss the term "iconic" around too easily these days. But with Superman, its not lip service nor exaggeration. He really is (one of) the biggest fictional names in world history. When you step back and really think about that....that's pretty damned huge.

[manduck37]

I'd also have to agree that Superman has grown well beyond his comic start. What's interesting to me is that he actually expanded beyond comics fairly early in his career. You have the animated serials of the Fleischers, the live action serials, the radio show, and several series of tv shows, animated series, movies and novels. Superman truly is iconic and quickly spread beyond what comics have to offer. If the comic medium was to every disappear for some reason, Superman would continue to exist in some form. It should also be noted that Superman was not just an expansion into other mediums but also to some extent a pionier for other mediums. I'm a professional artist with a degree in 3d modeling. When going through my course work for my degree, we learned that Superman is largely responsible for the animated series moving into drama. Without those animated shorts that the Fleischers started, animation may have stayed a strictly comedic medium for a much longer time. With Superman set up as an action and adventure hero in a dramatic series here in the states, it paved the way for other such series to be created and taken seriously as something that could generate a show that could go the distance. Superman made the animated drama popular. So there you go. He'll always have a place in other forms of entertainment.

[Sacred Knight]

The character would survive. But I'm not convinced he'd thrive to new heights. That would suggest that comics being around now somehow inhibit the character, which I certainly don't believe at all.

[Fate's Faith]

Just a question Id like to see what people think about.

Do you think the character of Superman has grown beyond the medium that created him. If DC closed up shop tomorrow do you see the Character surviving and reaching new heights in other markets like Movies and TV.

As an image on a shirt or something, sure, Superman will survive. But there's been nothing to stop him from movies and television. Since those have always been open to him, what's been stopping them from overtaking his role in comics? I don't see there being an either or question here. If the movies did chart his future, then that's where you'd see him with the comics mimicking whatever they do in the films. Same with television. What's interesting to me is that comics continue to accept all aspects of Superman as furtile ground to write stories. But with television we've seen things like Lois and Clark that focus on their relationship. Smallville focusing on his growing up. Neither was a complete picture. With the films so far, I really feel they were more focused on what the first film was doing. And the first film was an attempt to bring everything about the character into one digestable place while the followup films (including Superman Returns) were content to just follow the first with very little added to the mythos. They barely stand on their own as it is.

So, while there's nothing to keep television and film from being the leading voice for the character, none seem capable or desire to overshadow the comics. We'll have to see what Man of Steel does but I hope for the film that its strong enough to be a fair replacement for Superman in comics as I feel the Marvel films have become. The Marvel films seem to be much more independent of their source. They tell an interesting story or retell one which makes me feel I know enough about these characters a comic couldn't tell me much more. I think the two Batman films are similiar in that way though without expanding into the entire Batfamily its never going to reach that same level. But no Superman film or television show has yet to really be that for him. Maybe its due to how well I think the non-costumed identity is treated in comics. I like reading about Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, etc almost as much as them in their costumed identity while I don't find Marvel's non-costume identity that compelling. Them in costume is where the interest is for me but I care about my DC heroes out of costume I guess is what I'm saying. I don't see a film being able to handle both well though a television show could but it seems to limit the whole identity too much in some manner.

Hmm, I suppose that's a long answer for no, I don't think he could reach new heights in other markets.

[The Frozen Reptile]

Please. Rude Dog has survived and he had a few t-shirts and a cartoon series like twenty years ago...so if that Dweeb can survive, so can Superman.

[manofsteel1979]

I think that Superman has definitely reached the status of folk hero, much like Johnny Appleseed ( the mythical legends of him)or Paul Bunyon. So, yeah, he is never going away, and he is definitely here to stay in that sense. Everyone knows Paul Bunyon or Johnny Appleseed even if they have never read a story with those figures, and the same thing is the case with Superman. Everyone knows that "S" and his origin and what he looks like.

The real question is would the Superman character and myth be a living and breathing thing like it is now without comic books? I don't think so. Yes, there might be other cartoons and TV shows and movies in the next decade or two, but without the comics keeping the legend ever changing, morphing and expanding, the character would likely become a 'dead' myth like the aforementioned Bunyon, or Hercules or any other mythological character or folk lore. Yes, still there in the collective consciousness, but no longer relevant in any real sense, beyond his status as the archetype of Superheroes.

[MFitzH2O]

Do you think the character of Superman has grown beyond the medium that created him. If DC closed up shop tomorrow do you see the Character surviving and reaching new heights in other markets like Movies and TV.

Yeah, sure he would if only for a while. We'd see him in movies and TV; from those we'd continue the merchandising, but only for a time. Those shows, like all shows, would end. People would remember him, children would begin to forget him, and the merchandise would become less than profitable. It would dry up. He'd come back years later in another movie and that might spawn more merchandise, but the markets would leave gaps of time between character sightings greater than one month. The character would pop up every few years and the series of films would have as many (if not more) reboots in the first 25 years in film as it's had in the last 25 years ... each story would be the same origin told again and that would get dry. The films would become fewer and farther between. I don't think Superman would become 007 because, well, he hasn't.

I think it'd dry up and the character would become folk fiction; he'd be well known in the broad strokes but the specific stories would be a little fuzzy in memory. I do believe he will continue beyond comics, but not in media.