Spoilers! James Gunn’s Superman introduces a massive and controversial change to the House of El, AKA Superman’s biological family. The character of Superman has existed for nearly 100 years and has remained a pop culture staple, with his symbol, red cape, and bright colors immediately recognizable, even to people who aren’t familiar with the character. Superman has been a symbol of hope for so long, someone who is seen as incorruptible. Of course, things like Injustice and Zack Snyder’s DCEU Films have toyed with the idea of a corruptible Superman, but the gold standard for the character is to be a hero who is straight as an arrow.
Superman values life; he offers a helping hand to anyone who needs it, and he’s even willing to use his powers to protect small critters like squirrels from danger. He’s a very honorable character, but this is also used against him constantly for more dramatic and nuanced storytelling. Even within the lighter, more optimistic James Gunn-directed Superman, there’s a crisis of faith for the Man of Steel to deal with.
In James Gunns’ Superman, Jor-El Has a Dark Plan For Humanity
At the beginning of Superman, we see the titular hero retreating back to the Fortress of Solitude after losing his first ever battle. His robot assistants assess his injuries and heal him using the rays of the sun. Given this is a pretty intense and painful process, the robots play a pre-recorded message from Superman’s parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara (Angela Sarafyan), to soothe him. The message was attached to Superman’s pod when he was sent to Earth as a baby, but part of the message was damaged in transit, so Kal-El doesn’t know how it ends.
The broken message seems warm, hopeful, and gives Superman the motivation to do good on Earth. However, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) eventually charges into Superman’s fortress and has the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) hack into the computers, where she’s able to recover the full message from Superman’s parents. After a heated battle with a kaiju, Superman sees Lex broadcasting his parents’ message on the news and it’s revealed that the second half of it were instructions for Superman to essentially conquer Earth and rule the primitive species that is humanity. That revelation causes public sentiment to quickly turn against Superman.
Although it’s suspected that the footage might have been doctored, Lex Luthor claims that the footage was verified as authentic by experts, and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) confirms that those experts wouldn’t lie. It isn’t some Lex Luthor deep fake technology: it appears that Superman’s parents wanted him to rule Earth, not protect it. It’s a bold story change, and as far as we can tell, isn’t based on any sort of notable event from the comics. It may take inspiration from Superman: Birthright where Lex Luthor stages a fake Kryptonian invasion against Earth, but that’s about it.
In any event, Krypton’s hostile views toward Earth cause Superman to more or less disown a piece of his heritage by the end of the film, by embracing his Earth parents as his true family. Shaken by the revelations, Pa Kent tells Clark that he shouldn’t let his origins define him: how he interpreted that broken message, and why, speaks volumes about his character and who he has become. Similarly, Earth seems to become accepting of Superman again, after he reveals Lex to be a psychotic schemer and murderer, and saves Metropolis from certain doom. In the final scene, Superman asks the Fortress of Solitude bots to once again show him his family, and it’s revealed that now he watches home videos from his upbringing on the Kent farm, instead of the message from his birth parents.
Could Jor-El’s Message Be Setting Up General Zod in Superman 2?
James Gunn is outspoken about not wanting to see Superman’s origin story again, so we don’t really know what happened on Krypton besides the fact that it was destroyed. We’re thrown straight into the action in Superman, 3 years into his tenure as a superhero. We don’t know if there’s any kind of history with General Zod, but that blank slate allows Gunn an open canvas to do whatever he wants, going forward. Could Jor-El’s commands for Kal-El be part of General Zod’s plan for conquest and colonization? And if that’s the case, what does it mean for the future?
Perhaps this plants a seed for General Zod to come to Earth, stepping out from wherever he has been hiding, to complete the mission that Superman couldn’t. Of course, we’ve seen Zod in a handful of Superman movies before: He tried to destroy humanity in an effort to essentially resurrect Krypton in Man of Steel; but what if he came to Earth to try and lead it as some sort of king or emperor (or commanding general)? Only time will tell, but it’s food for thought. Perhaps this first Superman movie is the beginning and end of this particular DCU plot arc, but we know from the end of this film that Kal-El isn’t the only Kryptonian out there. Whether that leads to more drama remains to be seen.
Superman is playing in theaters now.
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