Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Who Portrayed Superman the Best?

With the new "Man of Steel" movie out for a couple of weeks now, it's time to ask yourself the inevitable question(s):

Which actor portrayed Clark Kent the best?
Which actor portrayed Superman the best?
Which actor portrayed Clark Kent/Superman combo character the best?

You'll get a chance to vote for your top three choices.

And just for the fun of it, I added a hottest (sexist) option for those questions as well. (The poll insists that all questions be answered. So, if you don't have an opinion for any of the questions, please choose "other". Thank you.)

I know the polling will be slightly skewed due to where this poll is being placed , but IMO that's part of the fun.

FYI: I plan on bringing other character polls later on (including Lois, Perry, Jimmy, the Kents, and Lex Luthor), but the boards have been slow lately, so I thought I'd slip this one in now.

I would like to add in my fourth favorite Clark Kent is Kirk Alyn. Like George Reeves and Dean Cain, he portrayed his Clark as a real man, not a wimp. I also liked Henry Cavill's portrayal of Clark, but I don't think I saw enough of him in MoS to pull him into the top three.

Actually picking my favorite Superman was the most difficult of the three questions. Or actually, my second and third favorite Superman(s). Although, I haven't seen all of the original AoS or the Superman film serials, from what I've seen Superman doesn't have much interaction with the other characters beyond flying in to save the day and flying out again (more so with Kirk Alyn's Superman). Perhaps that will change as I see the rest of the series. I liked Henry Cavill's Superman as well, but again didn't feel like I saw him enough to pull him into the top three. But, despite, his helmet hair (stolen from Dean's Superman, probably) did consider him quite hot.

I'm afraid my answers will possibly skew things a little because I haven't seen Man of Steel yet, and have no idea which is sexiest. I've voted "other" for all of those.

Would it not let you just skip those questions?

No - it insists you answer all of them.

Oh, sorry. I didn't know that or I'd have worded it differently. (Once a Poll is posted, it can't be edited.) I'll keep that in mind for the other polls I have planned. Thanks for you input.

I don't know if this counts or not, but for my second fave Clark Kent/Superman portrayal I said other for Tim Daly's voice performance in Superman: The Animated Series. (Used to be one of my faves!) Though I may be biased (animation student), I think that it's an equally well done job on both sides of the coin.

I agree - it's actually a very effective portrayal. He's portrayed well in the Justice League series too.

Actually, in my earlier draft I have "live action" in my question description, but it must have dropped out in later drafts. So, I guess I'll accept it. Although, voice acting and voice & body acting are very different mediums.

For those of you who chose "Other" (in a category outside of "hotness"), to whom were you referring or were you just marking it as a No Opinion (which I'll definitely add as option in my next poll)? (Thanks, Mouse, for already answering this question.

You are right. Tom Welling doesn't wear the Suit till the very end, and even then it's only a shirt-ripping-open shot. But they play the John Wiliams music and it's pretty cool.

Now that I've gotten to see MoS, I finally placed my vote.

I chose "other" for a few items. I know only live action screen actors were listed, but to me Bud Collyer (Clark/Superman) on the radio was the best overall Clark/Superman. (Incidentally, I would consider him even more "live" than the actors listed, since his performances took place in real time... Truly "live on the air.") To me, Dean Cain beats him (and everyone else) hands-down as the best Clark, and Christopher Reeve will always be the definitive Superman to me, but I thought Bud's Superman to be better than Dean's (sorry, Dean). And although I liked Christopher Reeve's Clark when I first saw the movie in junior high school, I find the over-the-top bumbling painful to watch as an adult. Reeve and Collyer were the only two actors I've experienced who truly differentiated their character's personae so well that it is almost believable that people wouldn't connect the two.

Joy,
Lynn

For the best Clark Kent, I chose Dean Cain, but it really is a close call for me between him and George Reeves, who I ended up voting for as the second best Clark Kent. I find that the two of them portrayed the character in a very similar way. They both played Clark as a competent reporter, which is the interpretation that I prefer, rather than as just Superman's bumbling disguise, which is a concept I never liked very much. Since I'm such a big fan of "Lois and Clark," though, I figured I should vote for Dean as the best.

My vote for the third best Clark Kent was Tom Welling. I'm a big fan of the concept of exploring Clark as a character, so I appreciated that aspect of "Smallville."

For the best Superman, I voted mostly the same way as I did for the best Clark Kent, Dean Cain as the best, and George Reeves as the second best. The only change I made was that I voted for Christopher Reeve as the third best. I couldn't justify giving Tom Welling third place since he didn't actually play Superman for very much time. I also don't think I've yet seen Henry Cavill's Superman enough times to fairly rank him higher than the others. Since I think Reeve was a better actor than Kirk Alyn and since I found Brandon Routh's performance to be mostly an imitation of Christopher Reeve, I decided Christopher Reeve deserved third.

For the overall performance, I stuck with my original order for the best Clark Kent, which was Dean Cain as first, George Reeves as second, and Tom Welling as third. Since the character of Clark Kent interests me more than Superman, that order made the most sense to me.

I voted for 'other' for the hottest Superman/Clark Kent questions. I couldn't honestly give a good opinion for those questions. When you get around to posting the Lois Lane poll, though, I'll have more to say on the matter of hottest Lois Lane.

I'm on a learning curve. Maybe I should have started out with an easier question, like Perry White.

I was thinking for there are two ways to go with the Lois Lane, etc, polls which was keep basically the same format I used here (everyone states which is their first second, and third favorites separately), except add the options: Tie, No Opinion, and Voice (Animation) Portrayal.

Or I could ask the question just once and let everyone choose their top three. The problem with this method is that majority rules, so you don't get to see how each actor / actress portrayal is ranked, all three get lumped together.

Since I wouldn't have to ask the question three times again (being that none of the other characters from Superman canon have alter egos), this Superman poll was definitely the hardest to make (and, as such, I still notice mistakes, especially with Chris Reeve and only putting 2 I's for Superman III My apologies, after a poll is posted, it cannot be edited for even typos).

Other than hottest and best portrayal, are there any other questions that you would liked asked about the characters over the broad spectrum canon? Please let me know here or via e-mail or PM. Thanks.

Ooh! Ooh! Dana Delaney, for sure!!

Being a guy, I don't know how to judge how "hot" any other guy is. For example, one of the reasons cited for putting Harrison Ford in so many big movies is that he's hot. What I see is a guy who mumbles half his lines and has two to two-and-a-half expressions: a smile (happy-go-lucky, seductive, victorious, triumphant, relieved, attempt at charm) and an open-mouthed frown (bad guy or thing coming, forgot his revolver/blaster/wristwatch, just ate a bug/saw a snake/falling from a great height, being punched/kicked/shot at, righteous anger). Number two-and-a-half would be a surprised smile indistinguishable from his regular smile except for an eyebrow lift.

So I picked a lot of "other" on the questions referring to any Superman's "hotness" quotient. I just can't tell.