Is it possible for someone good who can hear people dying and crying for help every second not go insane?

Thanks
I was worried about going there because it's about as crazy as /a/ or worse sometimes, but will gladly take their torrents. Thanks

If they're born with it... Wouldn't that just be Tuesday for them?

The comic has a number of issues like that. Also he breaks under the constant stress of heroism and constantly hearing all that, but not only is the speed of sound not ignored - meaning he logically should know that he can only react quick enough to relatively local happenings - he also manages to hold down a secret identity. This is also in a universe where there are a bunch of other active superheroes.

Have you ever been to a hospital? Sure, it's not every second, but in certain departments (like carcinology) the doctors and nurses constantly have to deal with people in pain, grieving relatives, angry relatives who somehow blame the doctor for "killing" someone et cetera. This is why doctors and nurses often appear aloof: they are above it all. If they weren't, they'd go insane.

Extrapolating it to a superhero, I imagine a succesful one who has seen a lot of suffering he cannot prevent would either go insane, or become incredibly stoic (to the point where the media might actively depict him as some kind of indifferent douchebag who only helps when he "feels" like it).

what kind of retarded son do you have ?

Someone post PALADIN: THE REDEMPTION

Sound only travels so far before disapating, it is a wave

To answer your question though, this is why I like to imagine Superman as the most zen motherfucker alive, he has to be.

Please also leave Veeky Forums while you are at it, you are part of the reason its so shitty right now you redditor newfag piece of shit.

Superman Returns has him explain exactly this.

That movie no one watched?

I imagine it hurts worse people expecting him to see all and know all even though he can't literally hear and see everything. I mean, the earth fucking curves, and the crust has iron in it. So he can't see further than the horizon, can't hear further than the distance sound takes to completely disapate.

Aww wassa matter you're daddy didn't beat you enough? Maybe you would have learned some manners.

God I hated that comic, it was yet another in a long list of pointlessly edgy superhero "deconstructions"

>iron
I meant lead, fuck. Also browser ate my long fucking reply, fuck

I like Superman with tactile teleknesis and localized telepathic powers, which is why he can react so fast, why he's more vulnerable to surprises and mind control, why a pair of glasses and a slouch fool everyone even though there a million pictures of him, and why he can lift things that if they obeyed physics would crumble to peices under their own weight.

But people tell me that's boring. Meh

Agree, deconstructions of Superman have become more the norm than constructions

I used that in a Mutants and Masterminds game
My character was a Psychic Superman so all his powers like strength, flight, and invulnerability where telekinetic and his senses were a sort of remote viewing thing

I worked in a comic store for a few years and it felt like there were always at least three "what if superman was a fuckhead" comics on the shelves. I honestly wonder if these people think they're being clever and original. Oh shit, what if the iconic comics good guy was a bad guy! What's next, what if alice in wonderland was "dark and mature"?

No, shitposting doesnt make you funny or "fit in with Veeky Forums" more.
Leave.

It's the same reason behind "the Paladin Falls".

Behind punching Hitler, the only real point to Superman is either pushing him to hear his breaking point or pushing him over the point and fucking everything up before declaring it non-canon.

>What's next, what if alice in wonderland was "dark and mature"?

user, I...uh...

No, but not because it wears on their spirit or concience however. Most people have NO IDEA the kind of horrible things the human mind can adapt to after a long period of exposure because in modern day we no longer need to regularly test these limits.

Instead they'd go insane because it's quite likely that they'd never get enough proper deep sleep, which would inevitably begin to affect their brain chemistry and drive them to irrationality and hallucinations.

People hate Superman because he represents everything that they will never become.

Read pic related and tell me that the person who wrote it doesn't sound like the sort of bitter, self-loathing person that you'd find on places like /r/atheism or a THAT GUY/GM thread.

>Behind punching Hitler, the only real point to Superman is either pushing him to hear his breaking point or pushing him over the point and fucking everything up before declaring it non-canon.

Honestly, superman played completely straight is really good when it's written well.

Superman is not just a big, strong superpowered guy. He's the sort of person we wish we could be, even without a single drop of powers.

People wank batman's intelligence and cunning a lot but Superman is the distillation of heroism and morality that humans could be. It's not that it's easy for him, it's just as hard as it is for everyone else (If not harder, due to his powers) and he still does it. He works hard, every day, to be a good person.

Who cares how much superman can lift or how powerful his heat rays are. It's the strength of his character that's what makes him a hero and worth respecting.

Which is sorta why I feel Irredeemable falls short. It takes a very shallow view of the sort of person that Superman is, the fact that he's a well adjusted person who's had an entire lifetime to understand his place and his powers and to come to terms with his own moral code. A lot of 'Superman Goes Bad' stories have that issue, acting like superman has never been tested or been tempted and thus it's easy for him.

>Unironically using the term Deconstruction when you mean subversion

Irredeemable actually is a deconstruction in the first part.

>not posting McGee's Alice

Madness Returns had great eye-candy and a great ending for an otherwise mediocre game

>reading comics means you can't like Veeky Forums

The biggest problem with Superman is that he sucks fitting into the comic book Single Continuous Universe concept. When Superman, a man who actually has the power to singlehandedly change the world and the sense of duty to do so can actually change the world, things get very interesting.

That's why Superman spin-offs tend to be his best appearances. I liked Red Son for being, in effect, "what if superman wasn't non-interventionist?"

I'd both agree and disagree with that. I think it's less that he sucks at it and more that DC sucks at it's own continuity.

After all, the DC universe ISN'T a place where stuff is 100% like it is on earth. It's a world where energy weapons are becoming common due to the research of several prominent scientists, S.T.A.R Labs Seattle is slowly starting to cure genetic illnesses and the american government can deploy mech suits to combat metahuman threats.

It's a world where nuclear disarmament has gone much further than it has in our world because of what Cheshire did (She nuked a country).

It's a world where conventional crime in Metropolis barely exists not because supes will beat you up but because after a man has saved your life a dozen times, how can you disappoint him like that?

But it's also a world that's 100% our own save that it's got superheroes because DC is shitty at keeping a universe bible to tell it's writers what is and isn't happening.

I rather like Red Son but it also rather ends on superman leaning to BE more non-interventionist. That and it sorta goes out of it's way to make sure that none of the superman-tier heroes end up appearing in order to prevent it's own story going off the rails. Dr Fate turning up and bitchslapping Supes would have made it a very different story.

Oddly enough, I think Batman is a lot worse for a Single Continuous Universe idea than supes is. As Batman isn't allowed to make a difference. Supes? He can stop a disaster. He can stop most crime in his city. He can cure a disease. Bats? He needs his city to be the same shithole it was yesterday.

Sorry for the wall of text.

no, dont apologise, I for one know very little about DC and that was very interesting.

That was a good idea that unfortunatelly drowned itself.

>Oddly enough, I think Batman is a lot worse for a Single Continuous Universe idea than supes is. As Batman isn't allowed to make a difference. Supes? He can stop a disaster. He can stop most crime in his city. He can cure a disease. Bats? He needs his city to be the same shithole it was yesterday.

It's been clearly stated that Batman has saved a considerable number of lives over the years and he HAS made the city a better place (the guy literally in charge of all police in Gotham is an incredibly decent man because of him for one), but the issue is that his ultimate goal is the complete eradication of ALL street crime, which is a flatly impossible goal for anyone. Gotham for instance actually deals with organized crime far less then it used too, but instead the problem appears to have been replaced by Batman's ridiculous dressed archfiends instead. And even if they WEREN'T there it'd be extremely difficult for any one person to "fix" an entire city the size of NYC even with all the donations and projects he does as Bruce Wayne to help the city out.
Even Metroplis has Suicide Slum and Superman himself can't really do anything about it because he doesn't have the power to punch poverty in the face or heat vision income inequality into nonexistence.

Batman's endless crusade literally IS an endless one because his open statement involves chasing an impossible goal, while Superman's objective is merely to help out when and where he can and protect people when and where he can, which is broader and less specific in nature.

im also pretty sure that gotham is cursed or something like that

>What's next, what if alice in wonderland was "dark and mature"?
The "old children's fairy tale, but edgy" has been a thing for at least a decade, if not more. Where have you been?

What to know about DC:

>They use retcons to solve problems.
>They never damnwell work out what the rebooted universe will be like and just sorta wing it.
>They don't commit to the reboot as they want to keep some really loved storylines regardless of how much extra stuff it drags in for new readers.

Those three don't work well together.

For an example, the New 52 Reboot was a hot damn mess. It wasn't worked out until AFTER the Teen Titans book was published that there wasn't going to be previous titans groups. When the first page of the first book had made reference to there being previous titans.

Or the clusterfuck that is Damian Wayne.

Damian Wayne is the cloned child of a batman villain who is the head of an immortal ninja clan with Resurrection vats who wanted batman's child after he'd proven so effective at stopping her and her father for years.

This was the choice for the rebooted, back to basics Robin in a DC universe where heroes were rebooted back to being rather new and that description of Damian isn't even touching on half the bullshit that leads to his existence. When instead they could have used Dick Grayson. People know Dick Grayson. Parents killed, wants justice. Bam. Everyone likes Dick.

This rather shows in the DC movies coming out as well. Regardless of your opinion on the Marvel movies, they are carefully planned and meticulously worked out before filming happens to already know how they fit into the setting and future movies. DC is mostly just winging it and trying to roll with the punches, which is why Suicide Squad ended up cut to death to try to make it more what people wanted after filming was finished.

It is, but that's really besides the point.
Especially given how vague the curse itself is and how it applies to things pretty much only when a writers wants them to apply to things.

>What's next, what if alice in wonderland was "dark and mature"?

Dude, there was an entire movie about that.

You should probably kill yourself for getting so butthurt about nothing.

That's...that's his point.

yeah I know enough to say that Damian Wayne was fucking stupid. I was pretty sure the new 52 didnt work out well since they had to reboot it again shortly after. Still 52 did intruduce me to my favortie DC hero so there is that

Yeah, I was going with broad strokes for the setting. Some of Batman's issue also sorta ties into the fact that since Frank Miller made the dark knight...well, beloved for being Dark, Gotham needs a lot more inherent shittiness. You need organised crime (Even if it's supervillian led) so the World's Greatest Detective has organised crime to use those talents with and other superheroes need to stay out of his turf if they have the sort of powers needed to take on his villains without breaking a sweat.

Batman isn't bad (I wasn't trying to say so) but I think that he trickier to work with on that front. In part I think due to his dual roles of 'Can be taken on by a skilled brawler' and 'Can turn up to fight parademon invasions' meaning that Batman in purely Batman stories often a different beast to Batman in mixed stories.

Oddly enough, the Flash's villains end up in a funny area where they are (Mostly) not that much more powerful than Bat's but they are that bloody good at taking on the flash of all people they would be considered utter beasts in most other cities. However, they are allowed to be so as they don't have to really pretend to be gritty and down to earth (Save Boomerang at times. I honestly preferred the utter insanity that was the old Boomerang. He fit into Flash's universe better than the washed up drunk of a has been they made him after a while.)

A shitty, shitty movie.

There's only one thing you need to know about cape comics: they repeat themselves, and they suck 9 runs out of 10.

Yes.

People have done that for centuries, pretty much.

Samaritan's been putting himself through a living hell for 31 years and he hasn't broken yet.

>People have done that for centuries, pretty much.
Expand.

People have a degree of awareness about the state of the world around them. Even if they don't know about every specific case of poverty, war, and injustice, they know that these things exist for other people in the world. And yet they manage to go about their daily lives and put these unpleasant facts out of their minds. This is true even for those who try to make the world a better place through charity or volunteering or whatever - nobody can always be "on."

>you will never be this mad at literally nothing

But that is a far different scenario than one where you can literally hear all the cries for help and all the horrible things happening to people - and every second too.

It's not like where Jacob the farmer had a quiet moment after tilling his fields and realized that there's a lot of suffering in the world, empathized with them briefly, then shrugged when he realized he couldn't do anything about it. It's hearing all the bad things happening ever - and being powerless to stop all of them, or even any of them depending on the character.

All it really takes is one voice in your head to be insane - what are you going to do with thousands upon thousands? Best you can really do is be a hermit off in the woods where you can't really hear anyone.

I feel that for the most part Batman runs in to the same problem as the Punisher
He works better in a standalone universe

Not to say having him in a shared universe is bad just that he works better in a world where he is the only hero

In Green Lantern/Superman Legend of the Green Flame Superman and GL end up in Hell and due to Superman's senses he perceives the entirety of Hell and all the suffering the damned experience which paralyzes him and starts to erode his sanity until he is freed

Of course that was literally Hell and so is an extreme example

Considering many of those fairy tales were edgy when they were first written, we're talking a few centuries.

>and every second too.

This'd make it fade into background noise pretty soon.

>Irredeemable. It's not that great as a whole. It's companion piece, Incorruptible, is better.
I thought Incorruptible came after irredeemable, and speaking about the former i have never finished since irredeemable pissed me off towards the end.

Batman's competence in mixed stories varies by author, too. Sometimes he really is an insufferable mary sue. But sometimes the author gets it just right, and Batman is as competent and prepared as you expect and STILL gets his ass kicked. He might get his ass kicked in a way that allows him to win, or at least make the villain only get a phyrric victory, but that's just Batman.

>I like Superman with tactile teleknesis and localized telepathic powers, which is why he can react so fast, why he's more vulnerable to surprises and mind control,
That doesn't make sense, having telepathic powers would make you LESS vulnerable to surprise and mind control, not more. Also, Superman isn't weak to those things, he just isn't resistant to them like he is physical attacks.
>why a pair of glasses and a slouch fool everyone even though there a million pictures of him
Because there aren't a million pictures of Clark Kent. He doesn't need to fool everyone, he just needs to fool people who know him in both identities, and he can do that easily by appearing as both people as once with robots.
>and why he can lift things that if they obeyed physics would crumble to peices under their own weight.
Okay, that makes more sense as teleknesis, but then you have to start saying every superhero with super strength is secretly telekinetic, and that's just silly.

It would have been, but that particular superman expy has issues.

He needs to be the most important bestest thing all the time because none of the foster parents were willing to put up with a child who's tantrum can heat vision you. The parent's who raised him were being held hostage by a superpowered child.
The mom eventually killed herself, Plutonian heard her beg God and cock the gun. He flew there to stop her and learned that sound has to travel to him before he hears it.

Old Supes was great, but I find that as the things he represents have declined in the real world, so too has Superman declined, doomed to shitty writing and bad 'what-if' storylines where he's taken drastically out of character.

This is how deities work in a setting of mine. When they freshly ascend they're incredibly vulnerable because the influx of prayers to whatever domains they have is completely overwhelming, and a few just turn it off and never heed it again. These usually fade into obscurity because they don't get the worship they need to stay relevant. OTOH, if they can endure it for an hour or so, it just turns into background noise, and the deity has to actively focus to make any prayer distinct. This is why deities don't grant every prayer they hear, because they certainly have the ability to (besides the fact that most prayers are stupid or selfish), not to mention why they don't fix all the world's problems themselves. Because that shit will drive them fucking bonkers.

Technically the construct took an insane woman as a base, so he was "broken" from the moment the construct took human form and Now I'm trying to remember if the comic ended shortly after the aliens showed up or what, didn't they send him outside of the universe where he couldn't hurt anyone then he simply got out, went back to the earth and the smart dude, who willingly let the lex luthor ripoff posess him, sent him to the "real" world where he would become a comic book character or some shit?

And, obviously, because they have to tune in to the prayers to hear them at all.

I did too, but the companion piece Incorruptible is fucking awesome, and you need to at least have started both to understand Incorruptible.

Incorruptible is about the worlds most dangerous supervillain, a hateful, meathead, biker type, trying to become a superhero to make up for becoming evil.

Its fun stuff, but it doesn't work without Irredeemable.

Tbh I always saw Batman as a story about using your family to get past trauma/mental illness. Whereas Superman can be a sort of static characters that we can look up to, I think Bats should be dynamic, not the Man of Tomorrow, but the man of today, who can change himself to one day look to being the man of tomorrow. What happened was DC decided that all of Batman's flaws are too cool, and that he needs to keep them forever so he can be "le dark brooding justice man".

You sound like you picked up your information off of a wikipedia
You sound like you don't actually read Superman comics.
Excusing suspension of disbelief in-universe is dumb

>You sound like you picked up your information off of a wikipedia

What does that even mean? Full of facts?

>I rather like Red Son but it also rather ends on superman leaning to BE more non-interventionist
It was also kind of asspulled. Luthor's ninth-level intellect sliver of genius that completely disarms Superman's entire world view in an instant and makes instantly give up on all his ambitions, settling for a mediocre life in the new Luthor-created uotpia for literal millions of years, was just a stupid snarky remark anyone could have come up with in 5 minutes

I would assume he means facts with no context
Like you know all the bullet points but never actually experienced what those bullet points refer to

I mean it sounds like he never read the comics in question. Damian Wayne's history isn't hard to figure out at all, yet user described it like the average comic reader would somehow be confused about him.

Y'all motherfuckers need to read Alan Moore's SUPREME

readcomiconline.to/Comic/Supreme/Issue-49?id=71802

The recent run of Batman is actually a really good example of this:
>Batman is in the batcave, analyzing a dimensional anomaly.
>Asks Flash to help him. Flash is busy fighting rogues and will be there in "just a minute".
>Professor Zoom shows up because he wants to ruin Flash's life by having Flash show up too late to save Batman.
>Batman cannot effectively fight Zoom. Just delay him.
>Lucky, Zoom likes to play with his targets before killing them.
>Gets Zoom talking during a futile fight, Batman is getting his ass handed to him.
>Zoom demonstrates the old "vibrate so fast your punches go through me" trick.
>Batman fakes Zoom out with an overhead kick, but throws a Baterang into Zoom's foot, where it sticks.
>Batman explains that he learned from Flash that you can't be vibrating everywhere or else you fall through the ground.
>Zoom gets mad.
>Batman counts down the last seconds in his mind.
>"Flash should be here right -now."
>Flash is late.
>Zoom kicked Batman's ass.

Damian Wayne's history is pretty confusing for a new comic reader and was a pretty bad choice for a reboot as he comes with a load of baggage.

That and he's just an unlikable little shit.

But that's exactly why I like him. He's great as a foil in SuperSons.

>But that's exactly why I like him. He's great as a foil in SuperSons.

While I want to lock him and Wesley in a trunk and dump them in a lake. For me he hits 'Hate to see' rather than 'Love to hate'.

A new comic reader isn't mentally disabled. Detective Comics and Batman didn't especially feature him much enough for any of his history to be relevant. Batman Incorporated and Batman & Robin both summed up his history enough for anyone to understand his background. This, of course, is ignoring the fact that Batman in New 52 more or less kept all his history in comparison to Superbro and the rest of the Justice League.

Can you really get used to that? I know you can ignore background noises after a while, but what about the equivalent of someone constantly talking or even yelling into your ear?

The smart dude saved him from the end of the universe, taught him his powers, tried to do some random plot device thing to either fix stuff or stop the radiation I think. It ended with him flying around the world to suck up radiation, which made him super old. Then the smart dude did some plot device thing and like scattered his essence across the universe which apparently became the inspiration for superman.

Were you that fag in the samurai jack thread who gave the long winded speech against fun and how we need to fight the culture wars?

>Old Supes was great, but I find that as the things he represents have declined in the real world
Y'know, speaking of that, has there ever been a Superman story where he represents old/traditional values in a world where such values have largely declined?
Like, instead of being the "Man of Tomorrow," he's the "Man of Yesterday," or something like that.
Seems like a neat concept to me.

Kingdom Come is a bit like that in that he stands for Silver Age superheroes in a world largely themed after 90s edgy superheroes

It's all a bit pretentious though

Kingdom Come also very briefly brings up that Captain Comet represents an old value that has largely declined.

This

I really like the comics where it focuses on him not having his powers, or not making too much use of them and instead solving problems in other ways - since not every problem can be solved by punching it, and all in all he's a reasonable and legitimately likable person.

I feel like he's been more demonized in comics as a metaphor for too much power or control, and that sucks. Not just in a 'boohoo a superhero I like isn't getting much attention,' but in the sense that it's the same song and dance that's been going on for decades, and it's undermining good things about Superman for the sake of a tired point. I just want hope again.

Fuck I hate JRJR's art with a burning passion.

Yeah, one of my favourite scenes in comics ever is superman talking down a mugger by appealing to his better nature. He's superman, he could MAKE that mugger stand down or knock him out instantly. Instead he tries to be an inspiration and to help the other person.

Thanks for pointing me towards Irredeemable, Veeky Forums.

Even though the story has its flaws (especially 2/3rds in, as mentioned ITT) and I feel it drags or too long, I quite enjoyed it; the ending most of all. That was a nice touch.

What I liked most was how it made me think about Superman more towards the mindset people have in those two AWFUL dc universe movies that came out recently: how the fuck do we take this guy down if he ever goes rogue?

Him not going Rogue irks some people for a myriad of reasons, but I don't think all people bothered by Superman are just anti-moralfags. In this regard, Irredeemable brings up a pretty interesting point: he just has to mess up ONCE to be hated by mankind. Even though Plutonian's response to fucking up was way over the top, think about it:

Superman doesn't have to be the embodiment of guilt from a suicidal mother like the Plutonian. He is, for all moral effects, just a human dude; he was raised as human, grew up in a human society... That alone makes him prone to all the emotions humans sometimes experience: rage, bitterness and so forth. What makes me dislike his character isn't just that he doesn't slip at least once; is that with someone who holds such enormous power, you don't need to turn full chaotic evil like Plutonian to fuck things up.

At that power level, you just need to be human. You, me, sometimes we fuck up. We drop a plate accidentally; we pick up a bag with too much force because we don't know it's empty; we get mad and shut a door with way more force than necessary.

Superman is, at his core as a sentient being, just as human. Just imagine what would happen the day he misjudged his strength; the day he got mad and shut a door too hard.

I always liked Kingdom Come's "superman fucks up and society hates him" situation where he just leaves. He starts to pretend to be Kal-El because he wants to stop being human but he can't. When he's dragged out of retirement he's still stuck in that "pretending to be Kal-El" thing not because he's evil but because it's a lot easier being a god when you think you're a god. It's a lot harder when you know you're just a man.

>Leave.
Make me, faggit.

Y'see my friend, we all have this little thing called "self-control," and people tend to fall into two categories, either you learn your limits and learn how to manage those emotions or you let shit build up until it becomes too much to bear, at which point you've developed a personality disorder.

Superman falls in the former, he knows what could happen if he loses control and he does his best not to go too far. You can gauge how much power you put behind a punch, why wouldn't Superman be able to do the same?

Plutonian though was unstable due to having to live up to high expectations and not being able to properly process his emotions before they reached a point where he had to let them out, placing them in the latter.

Humans fuck up all the time, but the difference is how you respond to it and whether you use it to learn from your errors.

Yes, that's a much more coherent approach to the whole thing. It's the Dr Manhattan approach: humanity hates me so I'll just leave for Mars. Plutonian's answer of turning into a genocidal maniac felt too heavy handed for me

Well I think it's because his entire life is a really funny subversion of Superman. His kindly salt of the earth small town couple who took him in were the definition of "bad christians", his Lois Lane freaked the fuck out when he told her he was a cape because that meant he was lying the entire time, and everything in his life kind of follows that. The conclusion to the Superman story is never gonna be Injustice Regime Superman but I'm pretty sure that Plutonian would be up for that even before he went evil.

It's like reading those "evil reverse universe" comics. It's more about the ridiculous morbidity of it all rather than a serious look at how a hero goes evil. If you want that you should look for something like Justice Lords from the JL cartoon, that's a top-tier "what if the heroes went bad" story.

On another note, the way Irredeemable tried too hard with science at the end had me cringing.

It's comics, I'll suspend my disbelief beforehand; I even thought the physics explanation about the true nature of the Plutonian's powers was cool. But then you get to the final issue and suddenly you have a guy dragging a Neutron star around the surface of the earth. The comic itself showed what dragging something with the mass of a moon outside of a planet's surface caused and now they want me to ignore what dragging the densest object outside of a black hole that close to the surface would do.

That's why writers should avoid diving too deep into hard science, you'll rarely get a result like Interstellar.

That sounds interesting, I'll check it out. Thank you

I roll my eyes whenever capeshit tries to reference something scientific because usually, the writers didn't put any research into understand the mechanics as to WHY that thing happens but then they conflate another scientific principle to a misunderstanding that they made before, creating a situation where a superhero is now magnitudes more powerful than they would've been if the people in charge left well enough alone (Read: Flash witnessing events that take place in less than an Attosecond).

It's like that one retard with low self-esteem who always lists off random trivia in polite conversation yet can't even explain the conventions behind what they're saying. If you don't shit, don't reference the shit you don't know, because the people who do know what that means are going to lose their suspension of disbelief while the people who don't know will lose suspension of disbelief just by wondering what the fuck any of the shit actually fucking means.