Superman: A Beacon of Light for Superhero Movies

Midway through James Gunn’s excellent new take on Superman, he delivers a scene that works as a thesis statement for his entire film. In the middle of a fight with a kaiju-sized creature wreaking wanton havoc on Metropolis, Superman takes a break from combat and flies down to the ground where a squirrel sits, about to be crushed by the monster’s giant paw. Supes quickly grabs the squirrel and flies it to safety where it runs into some bushes. 12 years after Zack Snyder’s controversially destructive climax in Man of Steel, Gunn establishes his Superman as a being so concerned with the well-being of others that he puts himself at risk in order to rescue a small woodland creature. This kindness extends even to those he fights, because when the Justice Gang shows up to aid in his fight against the massive behemoth, he tries to stop them from killing it and instead wants to tranquilize it so they can move it somewhere safely.

Superman is the first film in DC’s new attempt at establishing a cinematic universe built to rival Marvel, and it’s quite the gauntlet throw: Establishing a superhero who cares about truth, justice, and kindness above all else. It’s even part of the text of the film, with Clark Kent claiming in an interview early on that kindness is “the new punk rock.” In many ways, he resembles the original vision of Marvel’s Captain America: A do-gooder who believes so strongly in his sense of right and wrong that he will even stand up to those in power. But when Captain America was taken out of the 1940s and brought forward into the future with his Avengers, his character and his solo films became about how that kind of optimism and moral compass don’t have a place in modern warfare. The films became more dour and downbeat, with the paranoia-driven Winter Soldier providing the template for the rest of Chris Evans’s run as Steve Rogers.

James Gunn’s Superman is still about the dichotomy between Superman’s optimistic disposition and the hate-fueled world around him, but unlike the Captain America movies where Steve’s character changes as a result of being outcast by the U.S. government, Superman never really lets this change who he is at his core. Part of this is because Gunn believes in any human’s ability to do good and right by others even while there are higher forces at work determined to keep others down. The people of Metropolis don’t play as big a role here as the NYC citizens of Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy, but they do share a similar sense of care and enthusiasm for Superman even when he’s up against tech billionaires and government agents that wish to control him.

But more importantly, his version of Clark Kent is one that’s driven to do the right thing simply because he believes that doing good and helping others is what he was sent to Earth to do. This is further instilled into him by his adoptive parents, Ma and Pa Kent, who are played here like actual midwestern farmers unlike the world-class movie stars who portrayed them in previous installments. They’re versions of his parents that actually feel like the so-called “salt of the earth” they were portrayed as in the comics. When we finally see the farm where he grew up and the loving support the Kents gave him, his whole belief of doing good unto others clicks into place for the audience.

In a time when many film bloggers and industry journalists have been ringing the alarm bells about “superhero fatigue,” Superman ended up with the second-highest opening weekend of the year, while other Marvel films have drummed up less enthusiastic numbers with Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*. While The Fantastic Four: First Steps could prove to be a fresh start for the MCU, the success of Superman has us wondering: What is it audiences are looking for out of superhero movies in 2025?

While claims of superhero fatigue are not entirely unfounded, we believe one thing that audiences might genuinely be tired of are films that don’t work as stand-alone stories. Captain Marvel made over $1 billion at the height of MCU mania in 2019, but when the sequel finally arrived in 2023, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel character had been minimized to make room for two characters who originated on Disney+ streaming series: Monica Rambeau from Wandavision and Ms. Marvel from her eponymous show. The resulting film ended up being one of the biggest box-office failures of the MCU thus far, and Marvel announced plans after the film’s release to shift focuses to stories that could stand on their own.

Superman is setting up its own cinematic universe essentially from scratch (minus one cameo from John Cena’s established Peacemaker character) and feature a number of characters that will be explored in future movies, but the appearances of Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Fantastic are not designed solely to tease the next projects on the DC slate. All of their scenes and nearly all of their dialogue is only about how they relate to Superman’s story first and foremost, helping to build up the world and make Gunn’s Superman feel like a complete and satisfying tale in its own right rather than a trailer for upcoming content coming down the pipeline. Even the reveal of another character getting her own movie next year (the only other DC movie to begin filming at the time of Superman’s release) feels like a fun little cameo and in-joke for fans rather than a distraction from the emotional denouement of Superman’s narrative.

Another thing that Superman’s success reveals is that audiences are looking for more hopeful, inspiring super tales at this specific moment. Iron Man and The Dark Knight were huge game-changers when they came out in the summer of 2008, and most if not all comic book films have been copying the formula of those two films since their release. Iron Man delivered world-class effects and action with a snarky attitude and a sarcastic, Gen-X personality that made it almost as much of a comedy as it was an action film, setting the tone for innumerable quippy heroes since then. The Dark Knight, meanwhile, placed Batman in the context of a serious crime epic, exploring themes of good and evil in a contemporary sociopolitical context that felt like the polar opposite of Iron Man’s tone. Most films fit under one of these two umbrellas. The fun, sarcastic tone of Iron Man inspired the same in the Avengers movies, the later Thor films, and James Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Meanwhile, the serious, often political nature of The Dark Knight inspired the Captain America movies, Matt Reeves’s The Batman, and Zack Snyder’s attempts at the Superman mythos in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

James Gunn’s Superman suggests another way forward for superhero cinema: Inspiring tales of superheroes laced with humor that doesn’t undercut the excitement in any way. It’s true that Superman is filled with jokes and laugh-out-loud character bits, but unlike the snarkier tones of some other films, it never seems like they’re written by somebody looking down at the material they’re adapting. Instead, they come from a deep understanding of character-based humor and how to use jokes to establish a pattern of build-up and pay-off. For instance, it’s funny when Krypto attacks floating orb-shaped cameras because he thinks it’s a ball, but Gunn is a savvy enough screenwriter to know that, if he establishes this as a joke, he can later use this as a serious part of the epic climax when Krypto attacks similar cameras in a way that surprises and delights audiences. Not only does it avoid jokes that undercut the suspense of the film’s action, but it also cleverly uses its humor as an essential building block of its story.

Whether other films follow in this formula of superhero films based around hope and humor will not be seen for another few years. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse changed the world of animated movies in a way that wasn’t fully understood until 3-4 years after the fact when multiple films came out that aped that movie’s radical art style. However, we can already see it in the way that Marvel is promoting their upcoming Fantastic Four film. Most of their marketing materials focus on the fact that the Fantastic Four are a family that love and support each other, with most of the jokes stemming from that premise rather than calling out the absurdity of the film’s science-fiction premise. It’s also not built around cameos from characters that appeared in streaming TV series or previous MCU installments.

But if Superman continues to be successful at the box office and when it’s eventually released to home video and streaming, it could be a welcome bit of optimism and hope for the genre of superhero movies, and for the audiences that love being inspired at the cinema.