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The softness at the heart of DC's Man of Steel revealed by the new Superman teaser trailer

A Superman who doesn't fight back, but saves the day? That's the Superman we need in 2025

Published on Thu Dec 19 2024

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While it might be a little too early to say for sure that writer/director James Gunn fully gets Superman based on just one teaser trailer, I think we can definitely say that whoever cut the teaser trailer for next year’s Superman does. To wit: while he might be the Man of Steel, the trailer celebrates something else entirely — the softness at the heart of Superman.

It’s not just that the first we see of Superman is that he’s battered and bruised and bleeding; we’ve seen a bashed-up Superman before, after all. It’s what happens next that’s important: he asks for help. Calling in Krypto is just the (entirely adorable) start, though, because it should be noted that at no point in the trailer do we see Superman do the traditional superhero fight thing. Sure, other people attack him, whether it’s a crowd jeering at him and throwing cans, or someone pushing him through a football field, but the only times we see Superman actually using his powers are to save people, escape a holding cage, or fly with Lois Lane.

As if that isn’t pushing back on the macho, masculine cliché of a Man of Steel enough, there’s also the brief glimpse of Clark Kent comforting someone who might be his father; withdrawing from conflict with the crowd — and, seemingly, grieving a robot of some sort, as well. This isn’t the Superman of the Snyderverse, or arguably even a Superman we’ve seen on screen before — but it’s definitely a Superman recognizable to anyone who’s read, say, Superman: Birthright or All Star Superman or any of the iconic comic book stories featuring the character from the past few decades.

Superman will be released July 11 2025.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.