"Superman IV" - the Greatest Super Hero Film EVER!

I maintain that "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace", is not only the greatest of the Superman movies, and not only the greatest of all super hero films, but could possibly be considered one of the greatest films ever made.  This post was spawned from my recent viewing of the 'Avengers' film, which to me was just a big "meh" with a lot of CGI effects, but no soul (more on this in a future post).  Not like Superman IV!  Here are some thoughts as to why this film is so fantastic:

• This was Christopher Reeve's last run as the man of steel, and by the fourth film, he had the character perfected.  All of the nuance of this hero, straight from the comic book, perfectly depicted on the silver screen.  Of course, meddling with human affairs across numerous countries and taking away millions of dollars in military weaponry to destroy it in the sun, all with a universal acceptance of the UN delegates, did seem a little peculiar.  But bah, who cares about plausibility in a Superman film?
• Lex Luther returns, and he creates the Nuclear Man, the coolest of all villains, even cooler than Zod!  With all of Superman's powers plus crazy fingernails that cause nuclear poison, too!  Shame that he was so weak that when the sun was taken away he'd lose his powers, but thankfully, the moon orbits the sun, so he wasn't in the shadow of the moon for very long before regaining his powers again.
• Lois Lane is back too, looking like she's aged 20 years since the first film!  Apparently Superman's "memory eraser" kiss must have had some sort of residual aging side-effect.  But hey, all that more intriguing!

I could go on and on, but the fact remains, Superman IV is the greatest super hero film ever.  I'll have more to say about this cinematic gem in future posts.  "Now Neophytos!" you might say, "What about the OTHER Superman films?"  And to that I say, "meh."

• The first one was decent, but it did tend to drag with a little too much Marlon at the beginning.
• The second one was ok, except for all of the blatant commercialism, and the totally icky romance with Superman and Lois Lane, including the ultra-icky 'Fortress of Solitude' segments.  Yuck!
• The third one was terrible.  It was more Richard Pryor than anything else.  All I remember of that film is the opening, with Pryor standing in line in a smoky, stinky unemployment office, begging a smoke from some guy, while everyone around him smoked.  I've been unemployed, and been in unemployment offices, and they don't look anywhere near that smokey.  Oh, but Robert Vaughn was good in that... wonder if he's still alive.
• Then Superman IV blew away all of the others.  
• I refuse to accept the cannonicity of 'superman returns'.  It never happened, and if it did, I refuse to accept that Superman was a creep sneaking into windows late at night (and why didn't he just stun Luthor and his crony on the big kryptonite continent from a distance?  And how did he manage to pick up that thing, anyhow?  Ridiculous.)

I hear there's a new Superman film coming out.  Doubt it will be as good as "Superman IV".  This one was THE best of them all.  I need to go and watch it again...