Defending Man of Steel

To celebrate the upcoming release of Batman v Superman, I revisited Man of
Steel.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Batman v Superman, I revisited Man of Steel. A lot of people really dislike it, but I’ll be completely up front and tell you it’s my favorite Superman movie. People dislike it for a lot of reasons, some of them valid. Maybe for you it just comes down to Zack Snyder’s directorial style not fitting your taste. That’s fine; certainly there are a number of directors I don’t like. What I do take issue with however is the people that point out specific parts of the movie as being “not what Superman would do” or some variation. I think this completely misses the point of what Man of Steel attempts to accomplish. Allow me to explain my interpretation.

Man of Steel at its core poses the question “Is the world ready for Superman?”. This movie (and so far it looks like Dawn of Justice too) seeks to give a modern, realistic answer to that question, one we haven’t seen in any version of the character. We see how our actual society would likely respond to the revelation that we’re not alone in the universe, and that there are beings out there that could destroy us all. For comparison, my biggest frustration with the Marvel movies is that nobody seems to really care about Thor or the existence of similar beings. It’s mentioned from time to time but largely they gloss over it and just continue on waiting for the Avengers to save the day.

Man of Steel is not content to sit back and leave this reality unexplored. Every moment of the film is designed to set Clark up to face the possibility that the world will reject him. He is constantly pushed towards deciding if he wants to be a protector or a destroyer. Clark not only questions whether the world is ready for Superman, he himself has to decide if he is ready for Superman.

My absolute favorite part of the whole film is most people’s least favorite: Jonathan Kent’s death. OK, I feel terrible saying my favorite part is someone’s death, but I have a reason! This scene is brilliant and it underscores the larger message of the film. Jonathan Kent 100% does not think the world is ready for Superman. He has spent Clark’s entire life trying to shield him from public knowledge. The tornado scene sets up a scenario where Clark could easily save his father, but Jonathan doesn’t let him because he thinks it is more important that Clark remain a secret. This is Clark’s first lesson in the greater good and the sacrifices that must be made to maintain it. Jonathan willingly sacrifices himself to protect his son, in a parallel to Jor-El’s similar sacrifice.

Pictured: Sacrifice.

As we see, this leads Clark to question his place in the world. What’s the point of having these powers if he can’t use them to protect those he loves? He goes into hiding and literally gives up being Superman just before Zod shows up. Think about it: he returns home and essentially tells his mother that he just wants to be simple ol’ Clark. He does not want to be Superman, he’s not ready. He’s seen the world and the world isn’t ready for him.

But then Zod shows up, and ready or not, the world needs Superman. So he dons the suit and tries his best, even though he doesn’t know if he can live up to what it requires. The Superman we’re used to seeing is one full of power and confidence, while Clark Kent is often portrayed as awkward or shy to act as a contrast. What Man of Steel gives us is a movie where those two characters are still one and the same. Look at him in the interrogation scene with Lois; that is Superman and Clark at the same time, not yet confident in the role he is playing.

All this is designed to bring us to the inevitable controversy, and what most people see as the least “Superman” moment: the destruction. Both Smallville and Metropolis are more or less destroyed. Fans wonder how Superman could allow such a thing, but then miss the point that that is exactly the question Superman is meant to be asking himself. Go back and watch those scenes again and you’ll see that at no point in the battle does Superman ever have control of the situation. He is outclassed by Zod on every level. Zod throws Superman around like a cat playing with a mouse. The destruction is never motivated by Superman, in fact there actually are several moments where he does appear to make an effort to move the battle. The problem is that he’s so helpless to do it.

Until Superman gets one teeny tiny chance. He holds Zod in submission but Zod still tries to kill people. Superman is begging Zod to stop but Zod has all but lost control at this point. He is motivated solely by his desire to destroy. So Superman, after getting his ass kicked for five minutes, does the only thing he possibly can: he kills Zod. He screams, shaken to his core. This moment mirrors Jonathan’s death in that Clark is once again responsible for someone’s death in exchange for the greater good.

It's really all this guy's fault.

The concept of the greater good gets played with a lot towards the end of the film, and ultimately emerges as Superman’s way of making sense of his place in the world. Is he meant to self-sacrifice for the greater good, or does he use his power to dictate to others what that good is? Zod falls into the latter category, at one point giving a speech about his use of violence and destruction being for the greater good. Superman looks to Zod and sees the possibility of what he could become if he chose that path.

This moment and the rest of the film also set up the possibility of what Clark could become if the world rejected him. Remember, Jonathan’s fear was that Earth would turn against Clark. Now at the end we see what happens when the Earth turns again Zod. Clark has chosen a side, but in the film’s final moments Superman still has to justify himself to Swanwick (Harry Lennix). Ultimately Superman learns that the world needs him, but there are some that will always fear him.

If I haven’t made it clear at this point, let me explain again that the point of Man of Steel is to question whether or not Superman has a place in our world. We find it is up to Clark himself to make that decision and figure out what his place is. He has to take a determined stance against evil and be a protector. That doesn’t happen until the end of the film. The destruction may seem out of character because we’re seeing a Superman just learning how to be Superman. He likely won’t make the mistake of putting innocent lives in danger ever again. We end with a Superman who has learned one fundamental lesson about himself, but is still on a journey to help those in need. Hopefully Snyder and Warner Bros. pick up this thread in Dawn of Justice and don’t disappoint.

I for one love that we can have a character that lives and breathes and isn’t tied down to his lengthy history. It would be incredibly boring to have the same version of Superman done and redone and redone forever in an endless cycle. Man of Steel isn’t the 1970s Superman, and it isn’t trying to be. They’ve reinterpreted the mythos in a way that we should embrace. The important thing is that Superman acts consistently within the story he’s in, and at that test Man of Steel succeeds.

-Alex