Krypto Made My Day
Why We Always Need Another Superman
It wasn’t life-changing, but it was worth the $20.
Last night, I put on my Spider-Man mask, grabbed my two favorite people, talked them into costumes, and went to see the new Superman.1
Why, you may ask, do we need a new Superman? That was the very question put to me by the kid I conned into a cape.
Everyone needs heroes, and Superman may be the last one we’ve got. The last son of Krypton may be the last one we agree on, the last one whose heroism is pure myth. Batman is too cynical. Spider-Man, too conflicted.2 Superman may sometimes have his doubts about his mission, but he comes from a place of hope and optimism, not angst.
As the Crash Test Dummies so eloquently put it:
Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes, I despair the world will never see another man like him.
Superman is the hero for the post-Christian age, a figure who embodies all the finest and least tarnished ideals of the Enlightenment and the Pax Americana. He’s not perfect. He can be fooled. He can be discouraged. But pound him as you will, kill him even, he will always come back to his roots, the Kansas-bread sense of right and wrong—not the redneck version lampooned by cynical elitists, but the family-farmer version of our kindest imagination.
So, why do we need a new Superman in these days of mutually assured political destruction, of civil-war- and fall-of-Rome-fantasies, of AI alienation teetering on the edge of transhuman dystopia? The question answers itself.
This looks like a job for Superman.
The real question is not do we need a new Superman, but is this the right Superman for the job. The 1930s had its Hitler-punching Superman.
The 1950s had its domestic Superman.
The 1970s had its tragi-comic, charming Christopher Reeves Superman.
We had the big blue boy scout of the Dark Knight graphic novel in the 1980s to offset Batman’s nihilism.
And we had the Smallville capeless Clark Kent usher us into the 21st century with boyish charm.
Is James Gunn’s Superman up to the 2025 job?
You’re going to see lots of hot takes on the politics of this movie, uncovering analogies for the immigration debate, for authoritarianism. People might complain about the race-swapping of Perry White! or the elevation of one minority group over another. Those things are in the movie, it is true, but they do not overwhelm it. This movie is not woke. It’s not left- or right-wing. It’s aggressively centrist, as Superman has mostly been throughout his history.
It does its share of fan service with numerous winks and nods to generations of Superman fans: “Don’t call me, Chief!” Lois pouring gallons of sugar into her coffee. Jimmy Olsen being Jimmy Olsen and more that I won’t give away.
David Corenswet is a serviceable superhero. Nicholas Hoult a convincing Lex Luthor. Rachel Brosnahan as 1978 Lois Lane call-back in the best way.
But the best, the show-stealer, is undoubtedly CGI, breed-swapped Krypto. The incorrigible squirrel-chasing supermutt absolutely makes the movie. Let’s face it, James Gunn knows dogs.
Does the movie mess with the mythos? A little. It alters Superman’s origin story in a way some might consider, frankly, blasphemous. But that’s done in the service of story, not ideology, and has a sweet payoff in the end. And it’s a blasphemy that could easily be—and I suspect will be—corrected in sequels.
The movie brings back the 1978 comic tone, also characteristic of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy series, and, in truth, Superman feels a bit like Guardians 3, the weakest of them, including some of the dog gags.
It’s not, in truth, a great movie. But it is a good one, an entertaining one, one that gives us a Superman we can all agree on, if we don’t go looking too hard for stuff to fight about. It’s good for two hours of—not mindless, but mythic, entertainment.
Because, for better or worse, Superman’s really the last myth we have in common. Enjoy it while you can.
And tempted as I am to post the family pictures of said event, I fear I’d end up like these guys.
Spider-Man was the hero of my pre-adolescence, Batman of young adulthood. Superman, I think, I appreciate more as I mature.
I always preferred Batman (although I stopped reading Batman some years ago, as there was just too much sadistic, realistic violence and little sense of fun). That said, I think you're right about Superman as myth. This is probably why my favourite Superman stories work e.g. "Red Son" (infant Kal-El lands in the USSR and fights for Stalin, Social Justice and the Communist Way) and "For the Man Who Has Everything" (Superman is trapped in his own fantasies, which turn out to be a desire for a superpower-free life on Krypton, with a wife, kids and a mundane job).
Does he use the phrase "Truth Justice and the American Way"? Otherwise, WOKE