Hey, wait! Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a cliche!

I love superheroes as much as the next guy. Whenever there's a new movie out, I tend to go to it (unless it gets horrendous reviews), and I find that DC makes fantastic movies, and has a tendency to be more creative with their movies than Marvel (And I can't wait to see what Disney has in store for us). However, there's always been one thing that bugs me about one of DC's flagship characters:

Superman's powers
Could easily have come from
A 5 year old's mind


I mean, come on! I can imagine it now... a DC rep walking into his kindergartner's class and asking the kids "hey kids! If you could make your own superheroes, what powers would they have?!" The responses would sound something like "he can fly," "he's invincible," "he has laser beams for eyes," "he's super strong," "he's super fast," "he has great hearing," "he has projectile vomit!" The DC people would then see how they can work with these and came up with the idea of Superman. But wait! There's a complication. Here's what that conversation would have looked like:

"He's good.... too good.... what can we do to give a Superman a weakness?"
"Hmm... how about we make him lactose intolerant?"
"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard, Johnson"
"Ok.... well, how about we make him allergic to something?"
"Again, horrible idea"
"Hmmm, well what if he's allergic to a random, obscure element on the periodic table?"
"That's crazy enough that it just might work. What element were you thinking?"
"How about... nitrogen?"
"No, no... he wouldn't be too super if it was nitrogen.... no, it needs to be something rarer.... something more... noble..... like krypton! But it can't be krypton because that would be far too easy for villains to procure... we shall make our own element and call it kryptonite!"
"But we can't just make our own element sir!"
"Oh yes we can... we're DC!"

That's pretty much exactly how the conversation played out in my head. Sorry if I offended anyone who happens to be allergic to a random, obscure element, or who happens to be overzealous about DC and/or Superman.

All in a day's work.