That's why the best Superman stories aren't the ones about who can punch harder, because Superman can always punch hardest. Either you give a thinking type villain that threatens Superman in nonphysical ways (which is why Luthor and Brainiac are two of his biggest recurring villains), or you focus on Clark Kent in some way to drive the plot forward. IMO, that's why the rebirth Superman was the best in a very long time, before Bendis took over and ruined it all, because the primary focus was on his role as a father and the plot was largely driven by the characters and their relationships. I one issue where he took Jon on a flight around the world, just having a father/son talk, teaching him about life and heroism and all that, and he performed dozens of saves and beat several villains, just in the background. Him being the strongest wasn't a detriment, but it also wasn't the point, it was literally just a background detail, the point of the story was his role as a father and his relationship with his son. It's sad how few writers seem to want to write that version of the character, when IMO, that's the quintessential Superman. He's just a good dude trying to help where he can, he just happens to be the most powerful dude in the world, so that means he can help a lot more than most.

IMO, that wasn't Caville's fault, it was Snyder's. From other roles I've seen Caville play, and from the interviews where he discusses his nerdy ions, I am absolutely convinced that he had the knowledge and understanding of the character to have been capable of giving us the best Superman performance since Reeves, but the script and direction didn't allow for it.

Snyder is on record claiming he hates the character of Superman, and he's one of those weirdos who thinks gritty grimdark = realism. Yes humanity is full of jerks and hatred and all that, yes the world is a crappy place where bad things happen to good people for no good reason. But humanity is also full of wholesome, good, kind, generous people, and the world is also a wonderful place where full of hope and kindness. Focusing on one side of things over the other doesn't make your view more realistic, just more pessimistic or optimistic. Superman should always be an optimistic character, and any superman lead story should be about showcasing that optimism. Superman is the big blue boyscout, the man of tomorrow, a beacon of hope. In the comics it's shown a few times that people all over the world are trained for Superman in times of crisis because statistically your odds of getting saved if you yell for Superman instead of anybody else are demonstrably and significantly higher. If things are bad and you see Superman, you know everything is going to be okay. That is what the character should be. Superman should show up with a reassuring grin, he should make silly dad jokes, he should be kind and gentle whenever possible. Random citizens shouldn't be afraid of him, not after they've actually seen him in person and interacted with him.

Not unless you're doing Injustice, or one of the other elseworlds titles, anyway. Honestly, while I'd bet it would never happen, I'd love it if they did some variation on Injustice and cast Caville to sort of redeem the performance Snyder made him give.

Aging up Jonathan was what ultimately led me to dropping comics entirely (I was DC only since I couldn't afford to multiple publishers and DC had the most characters/titles I cared about). The rug pull on the bat/cat wedding had soured me significantly, the whole "Ric Grayson" storyline made me drop the Nightwing title, and so all I had left of the series I had been following since rebirth (which was the point where I started buying comics since I could actually afford to and was extremely pleased with the new direction rebirth was supposed to be taking things) was the superman titles.

The way they handled Superman post-rebirth was ideal, focusing on his role as a family man and a mentor to his son was a perfect solution to solving the "Superman problem". Superman stories where the solution is to just punch harder and there's no other source of tension other than "oh no, this super powerful space alien can take more than one punch from Superman" are boring, and this leads people to think Superman is a boring character since that sums up most Superman stories. You either need a villain like Lex Luthor who presents a threat other than physical, you need to focus on Clark Kent as a character, or you need to make him the villain (such as with injustice). Post-rebirth focused on his role as a family man, which was a fresh and new take on the second option which usually involves focusing on him as a reporter or his love life. And super sons was absolutely amazing as a title.

And then Bendis happened, wrote his wife and kid out of the story, gave him villains to punch harder, then had Lois act wildly out of character when she came back, and aged up Jon when he came back, effectively ruining everything that had been built and beloved since rebirth, it was a complete betrayal hot off the heels of the wedding debacle so I was done. Then everything I heard about Superman afterward was a betrayal of the character, so I haven't gone back. Bendis did all of them dirty.

So Tobias using Darkrai is cheating hax and should be banned but Ash using Melmetal is totally cool? Or what about Naganadiel or however you spell it, an ultra beast? That's a double standard, either mythicals are cool and Tobias deserves his win just as much as Ash, or they aren't and Ash is just as undeserving as Tobias.

Honestly, the gen 7 anime was a joke for several reasons, but Ash winning with a mythical, an ultra beast, and AN UNEVOLVED STARTER on his team (Rowlet, not Pikachu) was just insulting.

At least the world championships win was satisfying and felt well earned, although it would have been better to bring back some of his best and most iconic 'mons instead of building a whole new team (he even got Lucario a decade late and narratively it was just another Ash-Greninja). Imagine if he has Charizard, Sceptile, Infernape, Greninja, and either Lyconroc for type coverage, something from the gen 5 anime (didn't watch it so don't know his team, but I think he had a Krookadile? That would have been good if that was a significant mon), or caught ONE of his new Pokemon to round out his team, to fight alongside Pikachu, it would have been a proper wrap up to the series as a whole, like an actual capstone on his journey and struggles so far, with each member of his team struggling to overcome their past failures. Like that brief follow up where he befriended Latias and finally revealed what exactly a pokemon master is was a decent epilogue, but we didn't get a proper climax to the 25 years of Ash.