The Batman - 2022

[Psyren]

I mean sure yeah, this is supers and this is movies. in my experience, its an inevitability of both the genre and medium. small stake superhero comics are rare, and a movie like Joker is even rarer. I wouldn't hold my breath about another one coming.

He's one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and he dedicates himself to helping mankind, but there are some problems that he cannot solve as Superman. And that can be interesting. There could absolutely be a character study done about that, about how Clark Kent could help in ways that Superman can't (just as an example, not as a mandate that must be touched on). Hell, Joker grossed a billion dollars, and was nominated for gobloads of Oscars, so it's not even like an idea like this is completely out of left field. And Superman is way more interesting than the Joker as a base character to build on.

I just don't see a Superman movie working the way a Joker one could. I can't quite put my finger on why, but "rise of villain" where he spends the entire movie not being the icon until the very end, just seems to end up more satisfying than an origin story where the hero does the same.

The closest I can think of is season 1 of Daredevil, where he doesn't get the outfit or name until the finale... but even without those things, by the hallway fight he IS definitely Daredevil (whether they know to call him that or not), and that happens in episode 2.

I'm not saying the specific themes of "soldier who fought in war has difficulties acclimating" (and, having actually seen Winter Soldier, I would argue that it handled that theme cartoonishly, but that's neither here nor there). I was more referring to the general theme of a highly competent person whose skills are not suited to the world they now occupy. It's not a perfectly straight 1:1 analogy, but just as Rambo was in charge of million dollar equipment over there and over here can't even get a job parking cars, so too is Superman capable of fighting off galactic threats but can't treat depression or fix world hunger. He can stop murders, but he lives in Metropolis - even though it's no Gotham, crime is still abundant enough in a city of 11 million people. He can't stop every mugging, every assault, every extortion. And hey, he can even stop a mugging, but he can't stop the underlying cause.
...
Seriously. If SMBC can come up with interesting moral and logistical issues for Superman (albeit veering sharply into the absurd with its outcomes, because it's a humor-based format), then Hollywood with all its resources sure as hell can.

I wouldn't call anything relating to Isaiah Bradley "cartoonish" myself. I agree the Flagsmashers were undercooked though.

As for SMBC - I'd say the last thing DC wants is anyone applying their levels of fridge-logic to anything Superman related in an official property. Some kind of parody maybe. (Also, I think you're vastly overestimating the degree to which general audiences would want a SMBC-style story of Superman's obsolescence played straight on-screen, but that's neither here nor there.)