Is it "homophobia"?

[rogue06]

-- The level, variety, development, and specific source of Kal-El's powers on earth varied just as much.

Bigly. In the original comics and movie serials, Superman did not fly as the descriptor "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" indicated. I don't think he possessed super speed either until they decided he had to be faster than the Flash. And I don't know when his X-ray vision became like lasers.

[Cerebrum123]

Bigly. In the original comics and movie serials, Superman did not fly as the descriptor "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" indicated. I don't think he possessed super speed either until they decided he had to be faster than the Flash. And I don't know when his X-ray vision became like lasers.

In 1958 Superman could shoot miniature versions of himself from his hands. He also did some really strange stuff way earlier than that IIRC.

[Christianbookworm]

Pretty sure faster than a speeding bullet counts as super speed. They did make Superman ridiculously powerful over time. And still teamed him up with Batman and it kinda worked. At least I like them as best friends that have each other's back. There need to be more friendship stories. Not boring romance stories. Why can't people be friends without getting romantically paired???

[rogue06]

Pretty sure faster than a speeding bullet counts as super speed. They did make Superman ridiculously powerful over time. And still teamed him up with Batman and it kinda worked. At least I like them as best friends that have each other's back. There need to be more friendship stories. Not boring romance stories. Why can't people be friends without getting romantically paired???

Faster than a speeding bullet is several hundred miles per hour. The last I checked light traveled at 186,000 miles per second

Definitely a power boost.

[Christianbookworm]

Faster than light. And the crazy thing is there were still characters even more powerful than that.

[Cerebrum123]

Pretty sure faster than a speeding bullet counts as super speed. They did make Superman ridiculously powerful over time. And still teamed him up with Batman and it kinda worked. At least I like them as best friends that have each other's back. There need to be more friendship stories. Not boring romance stories. Why can't people be friends without getting romantically paired???

It's not that two people can't just remain friends, but when two people are extremely compatible romance is often the next step. Most humans are hard wired to desire romance and intimate relationships.

[KingsGambit]

It's not that two people can't just remain friends, but when two people are extremely compatible romance is often the next step. Most humans are hard wired to desire romance and intimate relationships.

It's interesting, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a story of an intense bond between two men with no hint of anything more, to the point where when one died the other wanted to go too. And the story of Jonathan and David was similar; I doubt anybody was looking to read between the lines there until recently. It must be that the ancients valued friendship more than we do today.

[NorrinRadd]

Pretty sure faster than a speeding bullet counts as super speed. They did make Superman ridiculously powerful over time. And still teamed him up with Batman and it kinda worked. At least I like them as best friends that have each other's back. There need to be more friendship stories. Not boring romance stories. Why can't people be friends without getting romantically paired???

They were best buds through the Silver Age. I don't recall a hint of animosity between them. And they were similar enough in stature, physique, hair color, and general appearance that once in a while they'd sub for each other to protect secret identities, which were a Big Deal back then.

Then Frank Miller came along with his "Dark Knight" stuff that emphasized their differences physically and attitudinally, and created the friction and apparent age difference that has characterized the two for decades. I don't totally mind it, but some writers take it way too far.

[NorrinRadd]

It's interesting, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a story of an intense bond between two men with no hint of anything more, to the point where when one died the other wanted to go too. And the story of Jonathan and David was similar; I doubt anybody was looking to read between the lines there until recently. It must be that the ancients valued friendship more than we do today.

Is it possible the patriarchal mindset played a role? Did they see women as primarily objects of sexual pleasure and procreation, to the exclusion of their being friends and partners, which would then elevate male-male friendships?

[Starlight]

It's interesting, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a story of an intense bond between two men with no hint of anything more, to the point where when one died the other wanted to go too. And the story of Jonathan and David was similar; I doubt anybody was looking to read between the lines there until recently. It must be that the ancients valued friendship more than we do today.

Your premise seems suspect - there's certainly reasons to read the relationship in Epic of Gilgamesh as sexual and no shortage of people who think it should be read that way.

[rogue06]

Your premise seems suspect - there's certainly reasons to read the relationship in Epic of Gilgamesh as sexual and no shortage of people who think it should be read that way.

His point is that it appears to be a relatively recent (that is, cultural) phenomena.

[Starlight]

His point is that it appears to be a relatively recent (that is, cultural) phenomena.

No, he wasn't making a meta-claim about interpretations of The Epic of Gilgamesh changing over time, he was simply taking for granted his own interpretation of it without apparently realizing that his take was controversial.

I'm not even sure if there are any surviving ancient commentaries on the Epic of Gilgamesh, so the idea of there being changing interpretations of it isn't something we could look at.

However, there are a couple of examples from the ancient world where we do see people interpreting possibly-ambiguous evidence of same sex relationships as indicating a sexual relationship:
1. By the 4th century in Greece sources show that Achilles and Patroclus (from ~700 years earlier) were widely viewed as lovers, despite the accounts of them in the Iliad being vague on this.
2. Similarly Roman philosophers seem to have regarded Alexander the Great and Hephaestion as lovers (from 400 years earlier), despite the historical documentary evidence being vague on that.
Those are specific examples of people in the ancient world being more ready than modern scholars to resolve textual ambiguities in favor of indicating sexually active same sex relationships.

[rogue06]

No, he wasn't making a meta-claim about interpretations of The Epic of Gilgamesh changing over time, he was simply taking for granted his own interpretation of it without apparently realizing that his take was controversial.

It's interesting, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a story of an intense bond between two men with no hint of anything more, to the point where when one died the other wanted to go too. And the story of Jonathan and David was similar; I doubt anybody was looking to read between the lines there until recently. It must be that the ancients valued friendship more than we do today.

Whatever you say there champ. smiley snicker.gif

[Starlight]

Whatever you say there champ.

Don't embarrass yourself further by doubling down on your wrongness. In the bolded part of your quote KG is referring to the story of Jonathan and David.

[rogue06]

Don't embarrass yourself further by doubling down on your wrongness. In the bolded part of your quote KG is referring to the story of Jonathan and David.

Looks like both.