James Gunn’s film Superman has made a controversial change (but it is not the first time)

This article contains major spoilers For “Superman”.

Superheroes have existed as a genre to themselves for almost a century, so naturally, they have undergone permutations of narration. There is a big difference between the open sincerity of the golden age of comics and the postmodern deconstructionist like “Watchmen”, the “Dark Knight” trilogy, and “Man of Steel”. During the first decades, the character of Superman was a dark of good faithfully. If it came temporarily to this path, it was generally a form of kryptonitis which was to blame, and not of defect of character. In Richard’s “Superman” giving in 1978, not only Kal-el (played by Christopher Reeve) was portrayed as a real blue guy who never lies in a post-waergate and Vietnam America, but his parents Jor-El (Marlon Brando) and Lara (Suzannah York) are portrayed as pseudo-religious, the last people on their entire board true. This gives an easily understandable explanation to explain why Kal-El reveals himself as he does (not to mention his election by another set of parents just as heart in Smallville, Kansas), allowing the film to continue presenting other elements, like making Superman look like if he flies.

James Gunn’s “Superman” does not have the burden that the film to give made. With almost 50 years of superhero cinema, “Superman” 2025 is in a rare place to detach from decades from the cinematographic tradition and comics in its version of the character, and choose it. The film offers lots of songs from “Superman” Past Ventures, from the theme of John Williams of the film ’78 to the Roma atmosphere of “Lois & Clark” on television. However, Gunn is making a series of daring new choices in the film, the most controversial of which is that Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara (Angela Sarafyan) prove to have reasons far from idealistic to send Kal-El (David Corenswet) on Earth. It is a shocking revelation, but not for the twist of the plot itself, because a version of it appeared in Prior Superman Media. Everything is in the way Gunn uses the torsion and engages that appears in “Superman” so controversial and convincing.

Superman’s Kryptonian biological parents are generally described as benevolent personalities, but that has changed thanks to the mini-shop of comics from the writer John Byrne “The Man of Steel”, reorganizing the origin of Superman to involve a Jor-El and Lara more strange and coldly distant. This series ended with Superman choosing to embrace his human education on his Kryptonian heritage, letting him bear knowledge of the extinct Kryptonian race. In the limited series of Mark Waid in 2003 “Superman: Birtright”, Superman shares a brief moment with his biological parents before the Krypton explosion. While the general lack of superman of knowledge of his past helps him to favor the earth in relation to Krypton, the question of kissing his inheritance is treated metaphorically by the series “ `taking Lex. It has been revealed that he came from Smallville, Kansas, with Clark, but he refuses to recognize him, rather choosing to try to deceive humanity by believing that Krypton is a malicious race with a bad stranger, a plot that Superman Foils, of course.

The revelation on Superman’s parents in Gunn’s film mainly combines elements of Byrne and Waid, as well as the Giving film and a intrigue of the “Smallville” series of TV. In the latter, a teenager Clark (Tom Welling) has to face the interpretation of the personality and intentions of Jor-El, because the man could not transfer his brain waves to an AI which was sent with Kal-El on Earth. At one point, Clark and other characters thought that Jor-El had sent his child to Earth to conquer him, only to discover that it was more the wishes of this AI version of Jor-El rather than those of the man who has long died himself.

This concept is referenced in Gunn’s film by the point of Superman’s intrigue with a short video message stored in the fortress of loneliness as its only link with Jor-El and Lara. During his education on Earth, Kal-El / Clark used video as a totem, appeased by the idea that his biological parents saved his life for love, as we see in the clip. Later, Lex and his group invade the fortress, and the engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) finds a way to unlock the rest of the message. Lex publishes the message to the media, in which Jor-El and Lara declare in the images they sent Kal to conquer the earth as the last son of Krypton, Superman assumes that it is Luthor’s thing, something that the public also supposes. But the message is legitimate, forcing Superman to face hard truths on his parentage as well as on the kind of man – not to mention the metahuman – he wishes to be.

The biological parents of Kal-El having despicable intentions for the earth seem deconstructionist or even controversial out of character on paper, but Gunn does not just seek to shock or stir things. Instead, torsion acts as a perfect encapsulation of the themes of the film to be your own person and choose to do the right thing, even if it is unpopular. Gunn’s point of view on Kal-El is a continuation of themes of his entire career, but in particular those seen in his “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy. In these films, several characters that make up the team holding space heroes have serious problems with their families. The notion of characters with a complex mercurial morality also appeared in Gunn’s films, not only with Nebula (Karen Gillan) in “Guardians”, but also with the titular peaceful (John Cena), and, yes, even “Superman”.

Gunn plays voluntarily with gender tropes and the expectations of the subsequent public, but the film does not summarize the conflict within Superman to the good parents against evil parents. Instead, the whole film revolves around the evolutionary ideas of Kal-el / Clark / Superman on whom he is, who he wants to be and what he wants to contribute to the world. His parents of the earth, PA and my Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell), are not represented as saints; These are only honest and savory types of the earth whose advice for Clark are not to follow their traces, but to take the tools they have given it as parents and to forge its own path. This idea is just as radical (or “punk rock”, as the film would have) for Superman as the Kryptonian message. Most of the Superman versions see him actively trying to honor the wishes of his parents, usually the two sets of them. This version of Superman consists in giving the character freedom of choice, something much more American to his heart than all the preconceived “values”.

This helps to make this superman a multidimensional character without having to use anything as histrionic as to slam the neck of an enemy. People who have a good relationship with their families can be proud of Clark’s love for his Kansas parents, while those who find strength in their families found or simply themselves can relate to the way Kal-El follows his own path, tirelessly by his problematic past. If the 1978 film underlined the value of integrity in a nation that had lost it, and “Man of Steel” of 2013, “Superman” of 2025, “Superman” is for our current isolationist age.

We do not have to obey without thinking about the wishes of our elders; We have the freedom to think for ourselves and the choice to help others is available to all of us.