*Warning: This article contains spoilers for Superman (2025)!*

James Gunn’s Superman felt like returning home. 

It felt like stepping into your childhood bedroom after a long, long time away, only to find it hasn’t changed a bit. Your posters are still hung on the wall (in the case of our Superman, it’s the Might Crabjoys). Your books, trophies, and other scattered mementos from a lost, yet more hopeful age have simply grown dusty. They haven’t been thrown into boxes. Your room hasn’t become the in-house gym, your memories traded in for a Peloton. It’s still yours. While you may be older, and more cynical but you come home to find that the warmth of that old hope returns. And you remember why you started your fight in the first place. 

Throughout both of my viewings of the film, I found myself getting swept up by this hope, by the genuine joy and love that David Corenswet brings to our most adapted superhero. You might have wondered in the time leading up to this new adaptation, why we needed another Superman movie, why we needed another guy in a very long line of guys to don the iconic red cape. I’ve wondered that myself, especially since in the larger scheme of DC and their live-action productions, it’s only been a couple of years since we’ve seen him on either the large (2023’s The Flash) or small (Superman and Lois 2021-2024) screens. 

We have a mountain of adaptations featuring the hero already so when I heard Gunn was gearing up to send Superman to the big screen again, I’ll admit I was skeptical. I thought there was nothing new to be done with the character.  

And in a way, there is nothing new about this Superman. That’s because he’s a true return to form. At his heart, he is not a symbol, he is not a god, He’s a man who loves his life, his friends, and family. Who takes a stand against darkness simply because it’s the right thing to do, and along the way, he inspires the world to be better too. 

Superman rose to prominence during dark times, first appearing in Action Comics #1 in 1938, and as World War 2 began to brew overseas he grew into the hero we recognize today. I think it only makes sense that he is connecting with us once again, inspiring us today. 

Everything is in utter turmoil. I often feel like it’s either too hard to care or that I care too much, like my body will be crushed under the weight of this reality. I open my phone each morning and am bombarded with a chain of posts telling me how our rights are in danger, our libraries are being shut down, but not before the books are banned. How the ice caps are melting, and the world is on fire.

There comes a point where I want to shut off my brain and throw my phone into the ocean (check out Lyny’s Social Apathy: Why We’ve Stopped Caring for more on this front).

Where I curse my own empathy. And yet I feel useless, like all I can possibly do is sit and watch as the world crumbles down around us. 

The media we’re watching is also skewing darker as well. Our heroes are being twisted into darkened shells of themselves all for the sake of “realism”. Corrupted from their pure and hopeful incarnations simply so they can bow to the altar of “good taste”. When it comes to comic books and comic book movies, it sometimes feels like the creatives behind them are embarrassed by the source material. As if they see the core elements that define a character as silly. 

But that is not what this Superman is. David Corenswet dons the red cape and matching trunks and portrays a Superman who  loses a fight, who struggles with his fate, yet never loses his heart along the way, which was perhaps the most ingenious twist of all. In the film, it’s revealed that he was sent to Earth by his parents, not as a protector, as he thought, but rather as an overlord. He was meant to be the leader of a revived Kryptonian race on Earth, taking as many wives as necessary to accomplish that. And Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) exposes this message for the world, right after Superman and the Justice Gang (Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi)) publicly defeated a kaiju in Metropolis.  In a matter of seconds, all the good will he had done for the public over three years in the spotlight, all the lives he’d saved, meant nothing. 

He is hated by those he had sworn to protect.

He is seen as a monster. 

An Alien.

In other creative hands, Superman could have easily warped into a revenge tale. Perhaps one where Superman stops saving people. A vindictive plot, one meant to show how much he helps humanity. His intentional neglect would lead to death and destruction in Metropolis. And while he surely would come back in the third act to save the day, his relationship with humanity would be altered, forever. 

But instead of recusing himself from the world in the face of their criticism and hatred. He keeps saving them. He takes time out of fighting villains to rescue dogs, squirrels and even the dangerous kaiju he’s battling, hoping that rather than killing it they can transfer it somewhere safer. In the face of darkness, Superman chooses hope.

I believe this film is somewhat of a catalyst. Since its release on July 11th, there has been over a 500% increase in people searching for dog adoptions, after watching the rambunctious Krypto steal the show (who was, in this iteration, actually based on Gunn’s own rescue dog Ozu).

And it’s finding its audience, particularly a younger one who had only seen this darker – and notably trunkless – Superman on screen. James Gunn’s interpretation and David Corenswet’s portrayal feels like the Superman I was always promised, the hero who acts because it’s simply the right thing to do. These heroes were originally created to inspire, to entertain, and to be a light in the darkness, and I think it’s wonderful that in this desperate time of need our heroes are returning.