I have always had a hard time understanding that characters like Superman are too powerful or not easy to relate.
Okay, let me ask you this, would you prefer to read stories about Hercules or Zeus.
If you take the stories of Zeus, you know, without question, how the story will go. He is a god. He is so powerful that there is little room for conflict that he can't overcome rather quickly. There is no build-up. There is no danger. It's Zeus. It's a yawn story without the chance of a different outcome ... and sadly, no chance of being able to watch the struggle to overcome the situation. And I am not talking about the Zeus in movies ... I am talking about the Zeus of myth.
Hercules, on the other hand, is flawed. Sure he is strong and half god, but he is also half human. He struggles with love, power, moral conflict, ego and countless other situations. Zeus we know that in the end, he will survive, but the fun is watching the struggle. Watching him 'overcome great odds' to claim victory.
THAT is what makes the difference. It is not how the 'god' handles trying to be mortal, it is how the mortal tries to handle being god.
When I was growing up, there was nothing ... NOTHING Superpooper couldn't do. Ice breath, fast as flash, strong as anything, able to fly, x-ray vision, heat vision, invulnerability, Super hearing, super smell, memory retention, on and on and on. How could a guy this powerful face anything he couldn't over come pretty easily? He didn't because he always could. BORING.
By definition, a comic book character is very powerful.
Yes, but not omnipotent. At least not the ones that you want to read about ... or I want to read about I should say
The conflict is having powerful abilities that do not cure the world of all its ills without causing more problems even robbing human kind of the opportunity to grow and be self reliant or that power not being able to make someone love/trust/respect you.
I don't see it that way. The easy solution to that would be isolation. Like having the aforementioned Zues just stay out of the way. The conflict should be internal sometimes and the more power you have the less room for internal conflict because you can usually take care of anything bothering you.
Who cannot relate to having a talent or social status that keeps them from some aspect or elements of life that he/she may want.
No one, but it is easy to want to be the person we see on the outside. We all want to be that rock-star, or that star athlete, or that start comic artist
but reading about the good parts over time just gets boring. The fun stories are the more flawed ones. The Brittany Spears going crazy and cutting off all her hair. Bottom line for me ... the less perfect the character, the more room for growth, humor, anger, sadness and dismay. More close to what humans deal with all the time. The non-perfect character.
How many resets does DC need, and when will the next one be?
If only that could be answered.
