Amph "On your left." - Captain America (Brave New World)

I think someone else already said this in the actual MoS thread, but there's no good reason for Zod to be a good hand-to-hand combatant. People just expect the Authority Equals Asskicking trope to constantly be in play, even though it often doesn't make sense. Zod was born, raised and trained to be a strategist and leader, not a front-line soldier. Realistically, he was likely one of the least capable fighters amongst his crew.

 

There is plenty of reason for him to be a good fighter.

This is a society with genetically engineered castes. That was the whole system Jor-El disrupted. Zod was from a lineage that had been specifically tailored to function as soldiers. Even if he was on the weaker end of that spectrum, one would still expect that he would have more capacity than someone who was a scientist. Then setting that aside, there's the issue of actual experience. Jor-El had little, and Kal-El had less. Zod, at a minimum, had to make it through basic training. Where Jor-El was spending years studying equations and scientific principles, Zod was learning--alongside things like tactics--the basics of how to kill people in combat. Yet, despite a specific set of inborn advantages further honed by years of specialized training, he still fails to beat anyone. That's decidedly miserable in a way that doesn't make sense.

But of course, this only opens up a whole series of other plot holes in the film.

1. If someone from the scientist cast can easily best several soldiers without training, what was the point of the castes in the first place?

2. Relatedly, if he can cross over and best soldiers, and soldiers can cross over to best politicians and stage coups, how are their genetics really limiting their future? Aren't they already all freely choosing how they want to live their life and what their destiny is? So what exactly is so revolutionary about Jor-El's plan?

3. If both Jor-El and his wife were from science caste lineages, aren't they pretty much guaranteed to favor traits that also lend themselves to the science caste? In which case, was the natural birth and sexual reproduction really half so revolutionary as he tried to make it seem?

4. If his goal was to end the whole asexually reproductive caste-based society, why did he send the whole species genetic database with Kal-El? Isn't that sort of begging everyone to restart the whole thing?

4b. Why would there only be one copy of that?

 

You know what's say about all those questions above? They'll probably never been answer or touched upon as The Man of Steel sequel is basically a setup for a Justice League film. Which will be interesting since the release date is suppose to go up against Captain America 3, now with Hawkeye. Imagine the fanboys running from one theater to another on or around May 6, 2016.

Anyway, Zod says to Kal El in the middle of the battle before he sheds his armor, "I was bred to be a warrior, Kal. Trained my entire life to master my senses. Where did you train? ON A FARM?"

 

Nobody's going to comment that the destruction of the helicarriers caused several building to become damaged?

 

Where the buildings that were destroyed by the helicarriers SHIELD/Hydra facilities? I've only seen the movie once.

 

The fact is that is needless property damage, but no one complained like they did with MOS.

 

I mean, the collateral damage from this movie is almost as bad as the carnage of MOS. Almost.

 

Nothing is as bad as the carnage of MOS.

 

Again, wasn't necessarily Supe's fault.

 

Sure it wasn't

 

"KAL-EL WAS ABLE TO TRAIN FOR THIS ON A FARM! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!"

 

"KAL-EL's UDDER MANIPULATION GAVE HIM THE SKILLS NEEDED TO DEFEAT ME!"

 

I think it has to do with the story writing and characters. Captain America is a soldier. As the Joker pointed out in The Dark Knight, "truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan."

 

Cap is definitely a soldier, while Superman is definitely not.

 

Cap was also working with a team that helped contain it. Superman was on his own fighting against people that weren't narrow minded as Loki was. Much less the Chitharui were.

 

The problem I had with the destruction of Metropolis in the Man of Steel is that Superman never got the sense of the destruction and his contribution to it. It would have helped out Superman if the writer or director included a few seconds where Kal El realizes/acknowledges the damage the battle is creating, something along of Donner's Superman II.

I would absolve the writer and director from this oversight if they make the destruction of Metropolis a reason for Lex Luthor and Batman to rise up against Superman. As it is now, it's a just a gratuitous punching that doesn't hurt either character. It's just punching for the sake of punching; just destroying buildings for the sake of destroying buildings, like a Godzilla movie.

 

I was thinking about the Marvel movies in general the other day and I think The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier are my favorite MCU films, the stories are just fantastic! And Cap isn't even my favorite superhero! Not even top 5!

Yeah, honestly as a whole for a Superman movie there wasn't any Superman in it until the last minute at the Daily Planet...my favorite part of the whole film. Superman's actions just were not Superman to me, going back to Cap he acted exactly how I would think Cap would act. Marvel has done their characters perfectly while anything non-Batman at DC just doesn't seem the same way (even TDK and TDKR didn't feel too Batman to me, but that is another discussion entirely).

 

But that was to set up the fight at the Fortress. There's no Fortress and Clark tries to get them away, but they keep taking the fight back down. And in the comics and cartoons, Metropolis is destroyed a lot by Superman's fights. Stopping Zod is more important than worrying about property damage. I don't see Captain American going, "We've wrecking buildings, we've got to take this fight out of the city". Or "Take the fight back through the portal".

 

He threw Zod into a gas station that had people walking around under its awning. Do you know how completely insane that is? It's one thing to say you can't do anything about collateral damage. It's another to deliberately choose actions that exponentially increase the likelihood that innocent people will be hurt.

 

Ha hah!!!

In a way. I'll give you that, IIRC there's an instance in Superman II where Superman stops in the middle of the battle and sees the citizens of Metropolis and the destruction he causes and then flies away. Again, I think something like that moment in Man of Steel would have went a long way in helping Superman's character in Snyder's film.

 

One, Captain America doesn't have the power set of Superman and therefore he cannot pick up his enemies and move them to a place to battle. Two, I believe the buildings that were destroyed in Cap 2, were overrun by Hydra agents and most the of SHIELD agents we running out of the buildings to help out Cap or putting down their lives for Cap.

Moreover, I don't know if Superman had always planned to take the battle to the Fortress in Superman II, it appeared to be something he thought of in the middle of the battle with Zod. I'm just saying that in the Man of Steel, it would have been helpful if Superman realize he was contributing to the destruction of Metropolis.

 

It wasn't insanity. It was uncontrolled rage. His mother got knocked aside and was going to be killed. Clark comes in there and starts beating the tar out of Zod.

1. Cap could have ordered Black Widow and Hawkeye to use the Chitharui transports and have Hulk, Iron Man and Thor all fly away from the city or into the portal, thus forcing the follow.

2. We don't know who was all HYDRA in the buildings that were destroyed. There could have been non HYDRA agents in there.

The city was already trashed before he got there. Having him realize it isn't going to change anything other than make you feel better.

 

Fine. It was still him, though. That's why we're criticizing it. What's your counter-argument?

How? Thousands of endlessly respawning video game bad guys were pouring out of the portal with no regard to the heroes attacking them. If the heroes had left to go somewhere else, they would've just kept doing so unopposed. That's a completely different situation that in Man of Steel, where a fair amount of the fights were centered on Superman specifically, and thus could have been safely relocated.