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Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This article features plot details of Superman.
Superheroes are always in a state of reaction. One way or another, every artist who picks up the brush is responding to previous iterations, elaborating on ideas they like and retconning those they don’t. Superman is no exception. Throughout his 87 years on the job, his powers have expanded and contracted as often as his appearance, going from curlicue to mullet faster than a locomotive. One generation’s Superman opens the Fortress of Solitude with a giant key, another’s uses Kryptonian DNA. The same is true on film. 2013’s bombastic Man Of Steel was a reaction to 2006’s muted Superman Returns, and 2025’s Superman sees Big Blue (David Corenswet) reckon with a personification of the murderous, mindless, and punchy juggernaut of the Snyderverse.
In the climax of the new film, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) plays his trump card: His silent, masked Ultraman (Corenswet), is nothing more than a clone of Superman. Luthor’s Ultraman is an automaton devoid of personality or agency. Luthor created the ultimate weapon, an invulnerable pseudo-Kryptonian that emphasizes physical strength over truth and justice. Their final fight, set in a drab Metropolis sewer, might as well take place in Zack Snyder’s world, Ultraman pounding on the superhero as Luthor commands his proxy to repeatedly punch Superman in the face: “A1, A1, A1.” Ultraman is the weaponized Superman that the Snyderverse is so terrified of.
Superman has faced himself plenty of times over the years. For one, the Ultraman of the comics isn’t a clone, but a malevolent version of Superman from Earth-3. Of course, there’s also Bizarro, which the films have always avoided, despite him being one of the more recognizable villains in Superman’s limited rogues’ gallery. One would be forgiven for assuming Gunn’s Ultraman was Bizarro, with Corenswet’s drooping eye, shaggy mane, and hunched posture teasing an inconsistent backward speech pattern that never comes.
Much like Lex Luthor’s real estate schemes, Evil Superman is well-tread territory on film, too. The high point of Richard Lester’s Superman III is a junkyard brawl between Christopher Reeve’s Superman and his hotter, unshaven doppelgänger. More recently, in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, after Henry Cavill’s Kryptonian is resurrected, he goes rogue and uses his powers against his Super Friends.
This Superman‘s mirror version is the personification of a cynic’s interpretation of Superman, a character who can pack a punch but whose dopey optimism and commitment to morality make him a cornball character from a bygone age. “Brains over brawn,” Luthor sneers as he commands Ultraman, revealing how his Genius Level Intellect understands the Last Son Of Krypton.
The last time this interpretation of Superman hit the big screen, WB was reacting to the primary criticism against Superman Returns: A criminal lack of punching. Snyder was primed to correct it, spending the second hour of Man Of Steel letting Superman light up General Zod (Michael Shannon) from a desaturated Smallville to Metropolis. He’d follow it up with Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, a movie devised for Batman to kick Superman’s ass. But say what you will about Superman Returns, at least its hero has an ethos. As has been debated for the last 12 years, Snyder’s Superman kills more people than he saves, and even when he decides to do some rescuing, he has to snap Zod’s neck first. Snyder was playing with action figures, essentially shouting “A1, A1, A1” at Henry Cavill as he crafted a version of Superman in Luthor’s vision—one who doesn’t inspire hope, but fear, and whose Super Obedience to his father’s wishes gets Pa Kent (Kevin Costner) killed.
Gunn’s hero makes his own choices, rejecting his parents’ Kryptonian Supremacist wishes. Gunn created a Man Of Steel that’s a big softy, a physically and emotionally vulnerable Superman, one who values kindness over violence. It’s not “brains” that Superman has over Luthor and Ultraman. It’s heart. (And the foster dog that’s always a whistle away.)
