Superman 2025: Krypto, The Superdog

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Today, James Gunn announced that, yes - after a year of playing hide-the-ball with the issue - Superman's canine companion, Krypto, will appear in 2025's Superman.  

Full disclosure - a full subset of my Super comics and paraphernalia collection is Krypto-related.  My house is littered with white dogs in capes.  There's like 7 of them in the room I'm in right now.  I am also a grown man who spends 45% of his waking time talking to a 128 pound dog with zero manners.

If you think a Super Dog is a dumb thing and superheroes can't have pets... I would like to introduce you to DC Comics' longstanding tradition of Super-Pets and related animals.  Krypto was a mid-1950's addition to the Superman canon, showing up less than twenty years after Superman first showed up in 1938.  But after the insertion of Rex the Wonder-Dog into DC's world of action-adventure, sometimes in military comics.  Batman has Ace the Bathound.  Wonder Woman has had a variety of pals, but Jumpa, her kangaroo, is probably most famous for nerds.  Robin has a Batcow.  Here's an encyclopedia of them.

It's important to remember that one of the biggest stars in movies through the late 1920's was Rin-Tin-Tin, a German Shepard. Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie enjoyed stardom in movies and television through the 1990's.  Dogs as characters just wasn't a weird idea to people in media.  And especially when you're trying to rope in a younger audience, as comics were intended through the 1980's.

The first appearance of Krypto was an odd turning point as it also marked a story where Superboy met a fellow Kryptonian - a piece of his homeworld, and, in fact, the family dog from his infancy with Jor-El and Lara - used as a test subject with a rocket as Jor-El had to hide their scientific work (and two years before Laika was launched).  

Krypto has appeared in live action, in the Max TV show Titans, but also appeared in cartoons going back to the 1960's.  He had his own cartoon series in the 00's, and a movie during Covid, for which a poster hanging up in my house (thanks, Stuart!).

Over the years, Krypto -as he appears in the comics - has had many forms, many personalities, and often reflects the writer and artist's concepts of what a good dog should look like.  And, no less here, as this Krypto looks less like the mutt/ retriever I think of him as, and more like a pound-mutt with some terrier in him, which is what James Gunn owns.

He can also reflect the mandates of DC Comics at any given time.  Note the Dire Wolf inspired version that was part of the New 52 during DC's edgelordy reboot of the DCU in 2011.  He was missing for almost 15 years in the comics - from post-Crisis to about 2000, when he came back as a sort of alternate-dimension version of Krypto.  Which the comics slowly made into "nah, that's original formula Krypto" and just stopped talking about his origin.  He was just around.

And, of course, we all love the Alex Ross take on the subject.

I think the character is fundamentally underutilized in favor of Too Many Super-Family Members.  It's a problem at DC in general that the writers can't figure out how to write a dang dog into a comic book, like it's any more silly than a billionaire hoarding teens as sidekicks.

The inclusion of Krypto in no way means we aren't getting a drama in our 2025 Superman, but what it does indicate, to me, is that Gunn understands what makes Superman tick, probably better than most of the DC comics staff, who likely haven't read way too much Silver-Age Superman.  And absolutely better than anyone involved with the DCEU.  

The point of Superman is to exist in a world where bad things happen, but you try to be a pal to everyone and help out, while also stopping people from being bullies and hurting other people just because they can.  What better way to demonstrate the spirit of Superman than through the relationship of a man and his unruly dog?

From his first appearance, Krypto has been a handful.  

But was always a good boy at heart.  In the "maybe this is real, maybe it's not" story, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Krypto is the ultimate good boy, protecting Superman and Lois.

click on image for full-size sadness

Sorry - didn't mean to make you cry while reading a cheery post about Krypto.  But how dogs are as pals, our constant companions, our non-judgmental roomie, our loyal buddy, and brave protector - should mean a lot to us.  It sure does to Superman.

Who knows how much Krypto will be in the movie?  But I love the fact he's there.  

My hope is - he doesn't talk (I doubt he will, and if he did, it would be Alan Tudyk or someone doing a growl).  But that he's the curious, smart fellow (whom is always underestimated) with a golden heart that is my favorite version of Krypto.

Gunn gets how this works and isn't embarrassed of the idea of a wackier world of Supermen and their dogs.  And that rights the wrong that was the last 12 years of DC movies, which saw what Marvel was doing and went 100% away from what's made DC resonate since 1938.

Here's to a very good boy!