Russ! (decaf) wrote,
@ 2006-07-02 16:41:00
Current mood: aggravated
Current music: "I Ain't Got No Home" by Woody Guthrie
Superman Flops (Spoilers Ahoy, Mateys)
A month and a half or so ago, my friend Zach came to see me. He brought with him a can of the new Sobe Superman energy drink; I don't remember exactly what it's supposed to have inside it, but it had a big Superman Returns S-insignia on the front of it, and Zach thought that, as the comic book guru of our circle of friends, I ought to at lesat give the Super-drink a try.
It was awful.
Warner Brothers, who are both the parent company of Superman's owners DC Comics and also the distributors and producers of Superman Returns, are notoriously protective of their more lucrative properties. Lawsuits are filed all the time defending the trademarks of things like Harry Potter, and within the comics industry, I once had a writer tell me that DC will let you get away with "pretty much anything if you want to screw with Black Canary or The Enlongated Man. But if you want to do a story that involves Superman or Batman, everything has to be vetted through Warner." That being the case, I thought, how in the world could DC/Warner/Bryan Singer/whoever have allowed such a poor-quality, destined-to-fail product to be released to the market with a big Superman logo slammed all over the front? I wondered about this for a while, and then eventually let it go. Having seen Superman Returns, though, I finally have my answer. Apparently they're going for the "steaming pile of crap" theme with this film.
