To start with, as mentioned, Kirk Alyn, and George Reeve, I’ll exclude because I’ve no real memory of ever seen Kirk, and scarcely any memory of George. And Tyler also gets excluded because I’ve not watched Superman and Lois, although I have seen him in Supergirl.
But out of the ones I have seen…
In last place is Nic Cage. Didn’t mind his voice over, even though it wasn’t to be taken seriously as a reflection of his portrayal of Superman. So that gives us only the CGI monstrosity of what they did with him in The Flash, where he was on set, but they CGI’d him out just so they could put in the gag reference of him fighting a giant mechanical spider.
Next up from last place is David Corenswet. I can watch James Gunn’s Superman and have a little fun, but I really hated everything about that movie if I start to think about things for even a second. Superman is a doofus in that film. He argues with Lois and she wants to dump him. He doesn’t ever really save anyone and mostly needs saving himself. Hashtag supershit.
Next is Brandon Routh who I thought did a perfectly fine job in Superman Returns, although he was better as Clark Kent than he was as Superman.
He did get a better stab at it in the Cris on Infinite Earth’s Arrowverse appearance, but it’s just a shame that he didn’t get a second movie to grow into the role more. Superman Returns didn’t give him enough chance for battles and action and the weird love triangle with him and Lois and Cyclops was a misfire.
Tom Welling was a great Superman…well I should say Clark as for some reason Tom refused to ever go full costume. Never understood that. And whilst I think the show has aged slightly now, and didn’t always like the direction of the show, I think Tom Welling played Clark with the integrity and authority that Superman should have, especially in his early years.
Dean Cain was the Superman I saw most growing up, and that is mainly because he had lots of episodes in the role, so was just as much my Superman as Christopher Reeve was.
I think he pitched the character spot on, and although the show has aged badly as many a 90s sci-fi show, I do enjoy the nostalgia for it whenever I happen across it again.
so how would I rank them? Who will win this Geek Battle between them all?
Next up is Henry Cavill who played the Man of Steel in…well, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice, Justice League and Zack Snyder’s Justice League…
oh, and Black Adam, for a tease of a movie matchup between Superman and the Rock that we’ll never get. What I really like about Cavil is that he has the aura of Superman.
He’s by far the one that looks most like Superman in terms of build and look, and he has the calm authoritative presence about him which I feel Superman needs to have. He comes across as someone who will stand up for others and that hes the good guy.
I don’t like that they gave him such little dialogue. Watch any of the movies he’s in and Cavil will deliver a soundbite then the other characters will monologue around him. Maybe they didn’t trust his accent or figured less is more form him for some reason.
Also there’s the whole he killed Zod thing, but that’s garbage to me as Christopher Reeve killed Zod in Superman 2 as well and no-one complained.
Speaking of which…Christopher Reeve is by far the best Superman of all time. He wasn’t the first, but he is the standard that everyone else has to live up to.
He nailed both the roles of Clark Kent and Superman, and was great in all his movies…even if some people don’t like all of the four Superman movies he played the role in.
And look, I know people may not like Superman 3 or Superman 4, but I grew up with them and thought both were great. Watching them back now, I think Reeve as the evil Superman in Superman 3 is still incredible.
Superman 4 is definitely a much weaker movie than either 2 or 3, but I kinda like it about as much as I like Superman 1.
What 4 lacks in polish, it makes up in superhero vs supervillain battles, which is what is missing from the first movie.
In both films however, you can’t actually fault the performance of Reeve, who is by far the best Superman to ever wear the cape on screen.
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