Superman eventually gains the upper hand and captures General Zod in a headlock in an attempt to force him to submit peacefully. During Superman’s final battle with General Zod, the two superhuman foes wreak massive habit and destruction to the city of Metropolis as they seek to defeat one another.
The filmmakers’ solution to this conundrum is abrupt and unexpected, and seemed to elicit quite the surprise from the audience when I saw the movie during its opening weekend. General Zod possesses the same abilities as Superman, making him nearly invincible, but this merely exposes a fundamental problem with portraying a Superman that audiences can invest themselves in, namely how do you threaten and create dramatic tension for an invincible protagonist? The villain in the film is General Zod, a fellow Kryptonian who pursues Superman to Earth in order to recover information that would help him resurrect the deceased population of Krypton. In the realm of changes made in movie reboots, character mood swings and differences in tone wouldn’t be groundbreaking, but Man of Steel featured an event that shook the foundations that the character of Superman was built on. The Superman we were introduced to in Man of Steel brooded and harbored doubts that no previous Superman was prone to. At its core, Man of Steel is still an origin story similar to the one that has been told many times over the decades, but Snyder and Nolan have provided us with a novel interpretation of Superman that challenges some of our most entrenched ideas about the character. Of greatest interest however, was the reaction to the movie’s portrayal of the Superman character. The action sequences received both praise and criticism, and some reviewers felt the plot was plodding or overdone. While the film performed well at the box office, critical response to it was mixed. With such talented filmmakers, expectations for Man of Steel were understandably high.
Man of Steel was directed by Zack Snyder, director of groundbreaking films such as 300 and Watchmen, and produced by Christopher Nolan, the visionary titan in the comic book movie genre. A more important reason, however, was the production team behind it. It was also one of the year’s most anticipated films partly because it featured one of fiction’s most popular characters. This past summer saw the release of Man of Steel, the long-awaited reboot of the Superman franchise after 2006’s mediocre Superman Returns failed to take off with audiences. In fact, this idea is so well-known and commonly accepted that you might say it is the only image of Superman that Americans are comfortable with. This perception is what people imagine when they think of Superman. He has always been faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, all while fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. From his creation in the 1930s, Superman has had a special place in American culture, and throughout the many decades of his existence, the character of Superman has remained pretty consistent.
His name is a byword for exceptional performance in a way that is almost hyperbolic, and his red cape and blue suit with the iconic red “S” is a symbol that is recognized around the world. Superman is the quintessential American superhero.