Superman 2025: A Whole New World - And A Pre-Populated DCU

You can follow our posts on Superman at this link, and our posts on the new movie, Superman (2025) at this link.

This week, set-photos started trickling out onto the internet from the shooting locations for Superman (2025).  

Reactions have been fairly enthusiastic from the Super-folk I've seen online, with some notable exceptions (you know who you are).  Rather than the somber, "getting ready for work before the sun comes up" look we initially saw, we're getting David Corenswet's Kal-El in his four-color glory.  

Yeah, they did the trunks, and they let Superman's colors *pop*.  No more somber tones.  I'll hide the rest of the pics below "Read More" for the folks trying to avoid spoilers.

Seeing a purple-clad Lois alongside a red/ blue/ gold Superman does my heart good.  Sure, as we discussed, there's probably nits to pick about the costume.  You're all entitled to your opinions.  To me, it looks very, very "action figure ready" and that is not a complaint.  To my eyes, at least photographically, Rachel Brosnahan makes a striking Lois (although she has her work cut out for her after Bitsie Tulloch's performance) and Davis Corenswet looks like a cromulent Superman here amongst the rubble.

We also know this movie occurs in a world littered with super-folk.  

It's not the Justice League you may know, with Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash.  Word is we're getting Green Lantern/ Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, the Engineer (from a fairly obscure team called The Authority), Metamorpho, and - the one I'm pretty jazzed about - Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).

This is Mister Terrific v 2.0, Michael Holt, and his deal is that he's just, basically, smarter and a better athlete than everyone else.  He's basically Batman without the chip on his shoulder and silly hat.

And that is exactly how he looks in the comics.  I can't believe I'm looking at a DC movie that doesn't think they need to re-do a character's look.  

those are his all-purpose drones, the T-Spheres

  

I dig this guy

There's no guarantee that a movie will be faithful to the comic, even with the costume.  The inverse may actually be true based on the ridiculous things I've seen over the years with superheroes starring (parade floats, etc...).

It's a bit odd to ponder how they'll introduce and utilize all of these characters who each could carry a movie on their own, and what the story of the movie will be with so many characters in it - because I've not heard much about a phalanx of villains.  But you never know what they're holding onto til the trailers.  

Less baffling is that Milly Aycock is slated to play Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin.  And get her own movie.  I dig that.  Justice for Kara.

Anyway, we'll see what everyone looks like as more photos leak.

The movie is filming in sunny Cleveland, Ohio at the moment - rightfully doubling as Metropolis.*  It seems some sort of disaster has befallen the streets outside of The Daily Planet (the single most dangerous place to work in the DCU).  The Daily Planet staff has been spotted, so I'm already seeing a glimpse of Superman's in-comics supporting cast.

Superman, Lois, Perry White (Wendell Pierce), Steve Lombard (Beck Bennett), Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), Ron Troupe (Christopher MacDonald) all part of the action.  

Why am I excited about this?

While there are certainly quality Superman tales in the pages of Justice League and his own title that are primarily other super-folk, Superman shines brightest as the one "super" character in everyday Metropolis life (or, alongside Kara and Krypto).  Sure, you can have villains pop up who can emit radiation or whatever, but I think it's key that Superman not just be one among many.  And this is the opposite of the trend on DC's TV shows, and often in the comics.  

In Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, you really never saw, like, normal people around.  You'd see a talking raccoon chatting with a Norse space god or a Spider-Man hanging with a wizard.  And that's fun!  We should have that in comics.  Right now, in the comics, Metropolis is littered with members of the Super Family.  And it can be a lot to keep track of. 

Once your characters only interact with other super characters, the comic, movie or show drifts from relatable melodrama and comedy of humans and their one weird friend and becomes a niche story about people dealing with increasingly nonsensical problems.  The stories can become abstracted without some real work - if the problem is that if you don't stop DarkHat from merging the Alpha Blorbs, the Goofballs of Ikor will spread, and that is bad, all of that is not going to mean anything but to the fanniest fan.  But if Superman needs to solve the DarkHat Crisis and beat a deadline while also making sure Ron Troupe doesn't figure out who he is - then that makes a bit more sense.

Having a pile of superheroes for an event works with Avengers as those movies had two-dozen movies to set up the final conflict.  But if you're dumped into Infinity War as your first movie - it's a lot, no matter how exciting.

Further, and - to me - more important:  Superman in particular is about caring about *everyone*.  He is not a government agent sent on missions.  He's the ultimate first responder, and he's doing it because he can and he cares about *people*, not living weapons that don't need his help.  If we don't have humans around to show why he cares, why does he care?  "Because the comic said so" only works for so long. 

The character's genesis is rooted in teens writing a character who could right wrongs because the bad guys couldn't simply shoot Superman or beat him into submission for crossing them.  And he used his powers to help poor people, people unjustly accused of crimes, and to deal with a series of maladies in his first appearances before he was met with science-fiction to meet the science-fiction character he was.  

Superman was built to exist just outside of humanity. But he lives among us.  He's in love with a human.  And while he works as a friendly swiss- army knife of powers amongst other folks with a few powers - like I say, he just seems like a quarterback on a team.  Among his fellow reporters, he has a vested interest in humanity.  He is one of us.  He pays taxes and goes to work.  As both Clark and Superman, he pals around with Jimmy Olsen.  He has a boss in Perry White.  He has colleagues in Ron Troupe, Cat Grant and Steve Lombard.  When he's thinking about humanity, it's not just the woman he loves, it's all of these people, flawed and goofy as they may be.

We have Clark's adoptive parents and, of course, Lois - but ultimately, surrounding him with humans is how we better understand Superman.  And, indeed, Lex Luthor is part of that.

Now, DC has spent almost 90 years teeing this one up.  But that doesn't mean bad decisions can't be made.  I'm speaking largely in generalities.  And within DC Comics, we see again and again that writers new to Superman often get so distracted by the world of Metropolis and their storylines, they forget that it comes with characters that have a function and are fun to have around.  

Oh, and by the way, they were filming in Cincinnati at a location that should have been used forever ago.  But I guess we have our clubhouse.

*Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are from Cleveland and created much of the early phase of Superman in their studio in Cleveland, commuting to New York as needed for meetings