The hype has been all over the place. The alleged controversy more or less. As usual, I decided to see for myself. I’ll do my best to not ruin this entry with spoilers. I will say this — I liked Reeves’ Superman, didn’t care too much for his Clark. Cain’s was lacking but a decent Clark. Whomever the actor for Superman Returns was, I was indifferent. I loved Cavill’s rookie Superman but didn’t care for his Clark at all. His portrayal had a parallel problem as Smallville‘s; experiencing things opposite of his character’s milestone markers of experience. Cavill had a rookie Superman learning his powers, lineage and faced, saving the whole world in the face of very real destruction by one of his own kind. In Smallville, a Superman who hadn’t even got out of his town. He’s basically Superboy but forced to face problems a seasoned Superman is expected to tackle (Doomsday included). James Gunn found a happy medium we sorely needed.
This film doesn’t do the usual rehash of origin the way previous 1st films did. Instead, it’s year 3. Gunn respects the viewer’s time and gives a quick and easy text-based summary of origin, location and being 3 years into being Superman. Superman isn’t a rookie but not at his prime, either. We also get Krypto. Lex Luthor has his tech empire on a scale only comparable to the comics. The action hearkens the Superman I grew up with — Superman: The Animated Series. The quieter portions of the feel range between somber, tense or lighthearted but when the action happens, it lets loose.
The film score definitely was cooked with taste to perfection for Superman. Is there political messaging in the film? If you’re really trying to dig for it, oh it is. On a grand scale, this Superman understands what it means to live and be human in a world definitely not his own. Whether he was sent to eventually dominate the planet as its ruler? That will never be known. The latter half of the message from his parents was doctored by Luthor. The giveaway? Why would Jor-El encourage Kal-El to have his own harem? I almost collapsed dying with laughter. That had Lex Luthor shenanigans written all over.
Contextually, this film has emerged in the wake of our real world, mired in so much shade and grift. It’s often hard to distinguish genuine acts from one followed by devious intent and purpose. James Gunn’s message was a bull’s eye. Being good in the face of cynicism is the most punk rock thing to do today. In spirit, this is very much like the Superman a lot of us grew up with. He wasn’t just The Man of Steel — he was the Man of Tomorrow and like Captain America, he stood up for truth, justice and what should be the American way.
As much hate is given now for Snyder and Man of Steel, I feel very differently because unlike a lot of folks, I understood the Superman he gave us. The film was a reflection of the times we lived in. If you read Kingdom Come, you understood a Superman at a loss of what to do when he tried doing it by the book and the system let Gog free. A superhero community divided and he did what happened in What Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow; he left and confined to a farm somewhere in the mid-west. In almost a parallel answer, we had the novel Injustice — where Superman kills The Joker after he had killed Lois and their son. This resulted in a dark, bitter and very angry Superman that descends into tyranny — the kind that Batman and others are divided and fight to save the world from. Had Superman done what he did in KC, he likely would’ve divided the hero community and likely would’ve hid away until things got too chaotic and forced to face it again. Let also remember that we had Injustice and Injustice 2 out in video games. They didn’t show the symbol of hope at all; they gave us Superman come undone to the point that even Brainiac takes advantage.
Whereas Gunn presents us the classic Superman, Snyder gave us a Superman that wasn’t able to give that and it was very deliberate. He was also green to learning what it meant to be a hero, let alone understanding the roots of his powers. His first major conflict wasn’t Luthor, Brainiac, Metallo, Myzlsptlk or other villains. It’s General Zod. Granted, he faced Zod in the comics as Superboy in his early years but managed to send him into the Phantom Zone. He would later face him again as Superman. In Man of Steel, however, he’s facing him for the first time ever. This Zod is looking to just collapse all of Earth with Kryptonian-like gravity. This is why Superman struggled so hard with Zod — he was barely getting used to his powers and didn’t known about atmospheric gravity in Krypton. That gave Zod a big advantage. The stakes were so high that there was no holding back. Killing Zod was the only way to beat him. Hesitance would equal defeat but the cost in the wake of that was near-catastrophic. It was enough to have a bitter, retired Batman come out of retirement but without him knowing about Zod, Batman didn’t truly understand that Superman wasn’t a threat and was, in fact, the hero.
This comes down to how perspective can warp reality to our eyes and ears. Luthor did this in Superman to deceive the populace. You know who has always been forced into this kind of predicament? Spider-Man! No matter what good deed, James Jonah Jameson always found a way to twist it into how Spider-Man is a menace.
Let’s also see a DragonBall parallel in Superman. An alien raised on Earth, sent by his parents as their home planet were to crumble. Man of Steel’s main hero/villain conflict was Goku vs. Vegeta. Forced to know of his heritage and power but knowing how willing to commit genocide Vegeta was, Goku fought. Superman and Zod were very much a DBZ story beat. Superman’s conflict with Luthor and his flunkies is like Goku vs. the Red Ribbon Army in classic DragonBall. People around him barely knew squat about Goku but we saw Goku facing an evil army powered with androids. The twist is that, until the Saiyan Saga in DBZ, Goku was unaware of his Saiyan heritage. Superman at least had knowledge of his and then some; less with Snyder but moreso with Gunn.
