On Friday, I watched the new Superman movie. And while there was a ton I liked about it, there was one particular facet that stood out to me above all else:
Superman is a hero again.
Now, I know that’s an oversimplification and might not even make sense, considering the varying definitions of “hero.” But stick with me here.
Oh, and some spoilers ahead. If you haven’t watched it yet, I definitely encourage you to go watch it first, then come back. (Because why did you click on a blog post about a new movie you haven’t even seen yet? Psycho.)
But First: Context
I want to start this off by saying two very important things:
- If I had a Mount Rushmore of my favorite comic book heroes, it would consist of The Flash, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four, and Superman. So I have a bias, but I also have… a lot of prior knowledge.
1(a). I know the Fantastic Four are four people. Shut up.
1(b). If my Mount Rushmore had a 5th head, it would be Green Arrow. That’s not important to anything I just wish he got more love. - I never hated Man of Steel, the 2013 Superman movie that started the “Snyderverse,” a cinematic universe that this new movie and studio was made to replace. It has its flaws, yes, but there was also a lot I liked about it, and I’d even go so far as to say it’s my favorite movie Snyder has made.
2a. I know that’s not a high bar to clear. Shut up.
2b. I did hate his version of Pa Kent though. Everyone should.
With that out of the way:
Superman is a 180° course correction from Man of Steel. It reads like an apology for every mistake the Snyderverse made to an almost intentionally opaque degree. If you did not like Man of Steel, or Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, or Justice League, then James Gunn is here to tell you that this is not that, don’t worry.
So what is it that Gunn does so differently from Snyder? What makes this Superman so completely opposite of Man of Steel‘s version?
He F***ing Saves People
One extremely important facet of Superman’s character that the 2010s seemed to entirely forget is that he saves everyone. The very concept of the character is that he can do anything, and he always chooses to do the thing that saves lives, regardless of any other factors. At his core, he’s quite simple. The shades of gray that occur in Superman stories are always caused by the world he’s trying to save, and how its imperfections clash with the right thing to do. Clash with him.
In the new Superman, our hero is shown not just saving people, but saving everyone. He saves a squirrel. He saves a dog. He fights for his life one-handed because his other hand is holding an alien infant that he refuses to let drown. When he’s fighting a monster the size of a government building, he’s constantly shown not just keeping the monster from hurting bystanders, but also keeping the monster from hurting itself. He understands that this “monster” is just an alien creature, frightened and alone, too big to fit where it is but not deserving of death just because of that. He also understands that, unlike everyone else on Earth, he has the power to fix it.
There’s one part in the movie, against said giant monster, when the typical Hollywood blockbuster thing happens to escalate the threat, and the monster’s fire breath blows past the hero and results in a glass-breaking stunt with a bunch of extras who nearly get burned to death. In most every other superhero movie, this would be followed by a cut back to the action and an assumption that the bystanders are fine. They’re not important. The fight is. But this movie pauses the action for Superman, still wrapped in soot from the hit he took, to turn and ask, “Is everyone okay?” And I loved that they did that. That’s what Superman does, and is. He’s supposed to be all the possible good decisions humanity can make wrapped together in a body capable of making all those decisions. He’s the ideal, the unshakeable moral compass, the propensity to do good, unimpeded by the inability to do it.
The Propensity to Do Good, Unimpeded by the Inability to Do It
(Cue the “with great power comes great responsibility” memes.)
Superman is written to have basically no weaknesses. Yes, he’s got kryptonite, and yes, he’s unable to do much about magic, or mind-control, yada yada. But those are artificial additions the author will add to up the stakes, because otherwise, Superman simply cannot be beat. He’s busted. That’s the point.
So while the objective of vigilante heroism is always to help people, stop the bad guy and save the day, every hero has their limitations. And those limitations create the crux of the story. That’s not the case for a man who can do anything.
One trope that has seeped its way into the greater “superhero” subgenre, and branched out to Hollywood and multimedia in general, is that the hero doesn’t kill. It’s often called “the Batman rule“. While it’s intrinsic to Batman’s psyche as a high-functioning psychopath who refuses to take any life, ever, out of fear that it will only allow himself to justify taking more lives later… it’s not really a one-size-fits-all rule. I always find it jarring in media when, confronted with an opportunity to kill the villain and end their wicked ways/finally get long-awaited revenge, the hero (who has likely killed plenty of other people to get to this point) suddenly refuses to kill said villain because “they’re not the bad guy”.
But with Superman, when he’s written right, the goal to hold life sacred isn’t an obligation. His character is meant to be a reminder that it shouldn’t be an obligation to us, either. That life is sacred, that people need help, and that, if given the opportunity to do good for others, we should take it. There is nothing that makes me pop off from my seat more than the hero saving the powerless for no other reason than he can, he should, and he does.
How This Influences Our Work
This actually isn’t all that complicated:
I like heroes being heroes. Our protagonists should be heroes. It’s that simple.
While Superman is a literal demigod, invulnerable to almost anything and capable of doing everything, the Gundams that our heroes pilot are also invulnerable to almost anything and capable of doing everything, within the context of the After Colony universe. Gundanium may as well be Plotarmorium, and the way the story is set up, Team Wing is much less a faction within a larger conflict (a la White Base for the Federation in the UC) and more the vigilante super team fighting for the general populace that can’t defend itself. The colonies aren’t armed. Oz is.
My favorite Heero moment in the show actually isn’t one I see referenced often. It’s in Ep.25, “Quatre vs. Heero,” when Trowa and Heero confront an insane Quatre hellbent on destroying an entire space colony. Throughout the show, Heero consistently refers to himself as merely a weapon without a will of his own; he is the gun someone else points and shoots. And for the first half of the show, his missions always boil down to the destruction of life. He has to kill Relena. He has to kill Zechs. He has to kill his Gundam. Even when he saves Relena in episode six, and thus the entire school, it’s pure happenstance: he would have never tried to do so had his position not been compromised due to Relena being the target, and him… being present.
I believe that this moment in Ep.25 is when Heero’s entire character arc changes. When he morphs from Snyder’s Superman to Gunn’s Superman.
I’m not leaving. There’s a colony that needs to be defended.
I f***ing love this moment.
This is, to my memory, the first time that Heero’s entire objective, his entire motivation, is to save lives and defend the weak. Yes, you could argue that the entire goal of Operation Meteor at the start of the show is to save the colonies, but ultimately it’s really to simply defeat Oz, thus allowing the colonies their freedom. It’s an attack against an enemy. This moment, when an underpowered Mercurius is all that stands between Wing Zero and the complete obliteration of hundreds of thousands of people’s homes, is the opposite. Mercurius’s entire design is defense, with limited offensive capabilities. There’s no way that Heero can kill Quatre. All he can do is fight to assure that the colony that needs to be defended behind him stays safe. He’s the only one who can do it.
And these are the moments I want to highlight as we get further into the show: the boys being heroes. Wing‘s writing often gets lost in the weeds of war philosophy and the typical mid-90s edge, but where I think it shines is when we can all pop off in our seats because the heroes saved the day. And as our characters grow from the poorly guided and selfish teenagers they were to a band of genuine heroes to believe in, I’ll be excited to write it.
…some are just going to take a lot longer to get there than others.