The Last Son of Krypton, adopted child of Kansas farmers, the Kents, and part-time ace-reporter Clark Kent: we all know the story of Superman, his familiar backstory as the last survivor of a dying planet come adopted migrant son of kindly small-town folk. And Gunn knows we know, allowing the plot to move on to bigger and better things, without wasting our time spending half the runtime recapping what we’ve seen countless times before, instead making the world of Superman feel lived in and alive. James Gunn’s take on the Man of Steel (David Corenswet) is vastly more hopeful and willing to engage in the Silver Age antics Snyder’s incarnation snubbed, bringing with it a fun, colourful pallet where the odd kaiju attack or extra-dimensional imp invasion are simply part of the background hazards you risk by living in Metropolis.
I’m as human as anybody. They’ve always been wrong about me. I love. I get scared. But that is being human. And that’s my greatest strength.
Superman to Lex Luthor
In classic fashion, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) plots to destroy Superman, not physically, but through his reputation as the ultimate super-man, where his participation in conflicts both at home and abroad are made to bring the public to question his actions and morality, as well as the purpose his powers serve – for humanity or for more nefarious purposes. Joined by intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Jimmy Olson (Skyler Gisondo) and Krypto the Superdog, as well as the Justice Gang (official name pending, but I’m personally hoping for the formation of the classic JSA!) including Guy Gardener’s Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Superman is hardly bereft of high octane superheroic action, balanced with more personable moments that help to introduce us to the cast already with a clear sense of established history. This vibrant ensemble serves to remind us that Superman is often at his best when he has a strong, memorable supporting cast rather than lonely and brooding.
Above all, James Gunn’s appreciation for the source material shines true, with Easter eggs including the mural at the Hall of Justice conveying a sense of history to the universe as well as acknowledgement for some often overlooked, even forgotten Golden and Silver Age characters, and a genuine wish to create a comic book experience on-screen. The influences are clear to readers of Superman, some more notable like Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman which served as key inspiration for the return of hopeful superheroics and Silver Age tendencies further inspiring the visuals, design choices and freedom not to ground everything in reality. There are robots, massive monsters, extra-dimensions and future tech, blending sci-fi and superhero in a classic manner which instantly transports you back to a time where anything could happen in the pages of your favourite book, before dark, gritty and grounded became the new cool and revoked the sometimes nonsensical (viewed as ‘immature’) nature of the comics of yesteryear.
My envy is a calling. It is the sole hope for humanity, because it is what has driven me to annihilate you.
Lex Luthor to Superman
One of the glaring issues with superhero cinema as of late – especially directed at the failed Snyderverse – has been the rejection of escapism in favour of casting our heroes in grounded realities, often overbearingly gritty and dark at the expense of hopeful and truly fantastical cinema. Man of Steel makes more sense when you consider Snyder as a follower of Ayn Rand’s branch of Objectivism, famously followed by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, but his Nietzschean Superman was always in stark contrast against the more popular, more recognisable and more hopeful comic book counterpart, as portrayed by Christopher Reeve. As we saw with 2021’s The Suicide Squad – and even in his work with Marvel – Gunn is here to embrace the comic book aesthetic, the fantastical and the bold, with a sense of escapism only possible in the realm of superheroes, reinventing the DC universe on-screen. If Snyder’s DC was a deconstruction of the superhero, fashioned after the darker mid-80s style of Miller and Moore, then Snyder’s new direction can be considered a reconstruction, reintroducing Superman’s optimism and pursuit of higher values as necessary escapist fantasies in a world like ours, rather than negatively viewing them as cheesy or outdated morales. If this is what we can expect going forward, we can only lament James Gunn not having taken charge sooner.
