Superman.
Two nights ago, I went to the theater to watch James Gunn's Superman with my friend as a very chill, calm, and restrained birthday excursion (I'm so down bad [platonic] for my wife Clark Kent I need to be shot like a sick dog).
Since then, I've only rambled in my journal (4 pages, and I only stopped because I realized it was getting ludicrious) once, and rambled to my friends... Well honestly I'm not sure how many times this has occured at this point.
Definitely more than once, but it should be mentioned that I've shown some admirable restraint by having kept it to less than 10 unasked for, incredibly long undignified ramblings.
So I think it's safe to say I have some thoughts about the movie.
Let me try and summarize them as completely as I may ever be able to here [BEWARE: Spoilers ahead, continue at your own risk!]:
The movie was great, but not by any means perfect, which made me love it all the more. There's something to an imperfectly told narrative, especially in material that is so often beat to death and misrepresented. Case in point: Superman. The first Superman comic came out in 1938, and his franchise has been chugging along with the same dynamism ever since. I don't mean 'beaten to death' disparagingly--not at all. But what I do by using that phrase, is that Clark Kent's (or Kal-El, Superman, Big Blue, Boy Scout, or whatever you may like to call him) story has been told a million times over, in a million different permutations. I don't think this makes a new variant on his story more difficult to tell per-say, as comic book characters have a certain kind of mythology to them. They each have a million different interpretations, authors, and histories. It is my own personal belief that this makes no one single aspect of the character absolutely and irrevocably true. For example, Robert Pattinson's Batman isn't a suave, playboy Bruce Wayne--still rich off his ass yes, but a playboy, no. He's awkward, burning the candle at both ends, working himself to the bone, and most importantly (by Patterson's own admittance) a virgin. Patterson's Batman is just one interpretation of the man, one version of Bruce Wayne--as true as any other.
This interpretation of Bats isn't 100% in line with how Bruce behaves in the comics. Bruce is purposefully the idiot playboy, air headed and incompetent, as that is perfect cover for Batman. No one would ever believe it, even if with all of the evidence flashing in a bright neon sign right in front of them. In Batman 2022, Bruce Wayne is a hermit, he isn't often seen in public. He isn't flashy, not in the way Bruce typically behaves in his comic persona, Patterson's Bruce is simply not there. And it amazingly this isn't a bad interpretation of his character. Patterson play's Bruce as being still so wholly affected by his parent's death that he behaves shell-shocked even into adulthood. Wide-eyed and frightened.
I hope I haven't lost you on this ramble, because it has a lot to do with how I think Superman so often gets shafted.
There's been a recent trend in superhero films, in both DC and Marvel, pushing for grittier, edgier themes, stakes, and characters. This is primarily driven by the market, for whatever reason it seems that people wanted those movies, so they grossed well and kept being produced. With this being said, I would tentatively like to believe that the other shoe has begun to drop and more 'whimsical ', fun movies are rising in popularity. And there are a whole boat load of reasons to believe this: the depressing lull many people have found themselves in following the pandemic, stifling political shifts popularizing right-wing extremism, and just a generalized burnout of saturnine themes facilitating a need for something fresh.
The live action Superman movies (and TV Shows) I've watched throughout my lifetime have followed these same trends. Most remarkably, the Snyderverse (which encompass Zach Snyders: Man of Steel (2013), Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and his most recent Justice League (2021)) have molded into Clark into an incredibly grim and gritty character. I'll admit to my bias of just not particularly enjoying Snyder's interpretation of DC's characters--not only just Clark--but my dislike for the fact that his movies rely primarily in what I consider to be a massive oversight on the crux of each hero's themes. Synder's disparity with the important aspects of their characterizations is where Gunn's film really shines
James Gunn understands Clark. He's clearly read the comics, Clark is dorky, he's a sap, he's pathetic. Clark Kent is invulnerable, near impossible to kill, the strongest man on Earth--he's not even technically from Earth! But every single thing about the world around him effects him viscerally. This is the same reason I enjoy Dan Mora's interpretation of Clark, he always looks shocked beyond belief. Even after years of being Superman, everything he's experienced in an effort to protect Earth, Metropolis, and the people he loves, its all still new to him. The extent of people's cruelty still appalls him, because unlike Bruce he couldn't conceive of a person wanting to purposefully hurt someone else.
Mora and Gunn are aligned in this. Gunn's Clark is angry, palpably--and he has every right to be. So angry, in fact, that it gets in the way of his journalistic ethics. He writes about himself as Superman, a fake interview he never even needed to formulate questions for. He doesn't feel the need to ask himself the asinine No Shit Sherlock-ass questions: "Did you get permission from the DOJ", "Do you know about the political situation between Boravia and Jarhanpur", "Did you know that the Jarhanpurian government isn't exactly saintly either", "Did you know that the Boravian leader wishes to 'free' the Jarhanpurian's?". Because Clark is pissed--people are missing the point, goddamnit! In his scrapped interview with Lois he says it outright--"People could have been killed!". It doesn't matter to him, not when people are being hurt, killed, and stomped all over for arbitrary reasons. Not when he has all of the power in the world, granted to him by his birth and adoptive parents, a crashed spaceship, and a yellow sun, to stop it. And it pisses him off that not everyone can just see that. James Gunn allows that aspect of Clark's character to shine in this movie. He's not passive, he's not indecisive, he's angry and he channels that to do something productive.
Superman isn't gritty, he never has been. He's hopeful, he's optimistic, he's an idealist. Its not naiveté, he more than knows how the world operates at this point, but still he hopes that people can do better. He believes wholeheartedly in humanity's ability to make kinder choices for themselves and others, because that's how he conducts himself. "He's a just a dog, and not even a particularly good one, but he's alone and probably scared."
Earlier, I wrote that every iteration of a hero is technically true, and I do still stand by that. Snyder's Clark still exists, doubtlesslym but that doesn't inherently make it a good interpretation of his character. I believe there's a limit to how drastically you can modulate characterization before they become something new entirely, and for Superman this is the Snyderverse. To make him all-around cynical is to make Clark not himself. He does not just accept the loss of life, however necessary.
--As an important aside, its not that I think he's incapable of accepting the death of his friends/allies/family/himself/etc, or even the necessary loss of any enemy in combat. But I think its important to differentiate the necessity and Clark's own personal hope for there to have been a better way of going about the situation. While sometimes that may be the only eventuality to secure the safety for Earth, or the universe for that matter, that doesn't mean he can't still hope for there to have been a more peaceful way to have come to the same conclusion.
Gunn's Superman was hopeful and capricious. He gave Clark autonomy he's not often afforded many tellings of his story (even the particularly well written ones). He couldn't be everywhere at once, and thus we got some very fun cameos from Mr. Terrific, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl. He had help: from super-powered friends, regular coworkers, your average man on the street, the man tasked with jailing him (Metamorpho), and his cousins ill-behaved dog. He was able to find a way for himself, not just what his birth parents had wanted for him, and did so with the support of his adoptive parents. Gunn allows Clark to understand Luthor for the man he is, and pity Luthor's need to vilify Superman--the alien, the demigod, the variable he cannot place nor control nor understand (because why would Superman, with all his power, do good for humanity when Luthor only pursues his own selfishness?)--because he knows it to be born out of insecurity. Luthor even says it himself, he's envious of Superman.
Hopefully this film can be a harbinger of a new shift to come, not just in cinema, but in society [we live in a society, or something or other]. You can sit back and accept that there will always be vitriolic people holding power over others, using it to create more strife and suffering, because sure, there most definitely will be. If history can teach us anything, its that there will always be another conflict, another villain, another evil that plagues us. But we don't need to be complacent.
You can sit back and let yourself feel numb to it. You can--that's easy. But we can do better, which is exponentially more difficult. Maybe we're all hurtling towards the same, inescapable, fiery end. Maybe its all for nought, but it won't make you or anyone else feel any better if you don't try to be compassionate. If you don't at least try to be kind.
Panels from Superman: Red and Blue, Issue #5, written and illustrated by Daniel Warren Johnson.