The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is alive and thriving with the third installment of their universe coming this August, in the form of Suicide Squad. Currently, the Justice League cast are on the set cutting scenes and preparing for the long shoot they have ahead of them. With Justice League already filming it got me wondering, what is the next step in the Superman arc that is currently playing out in the DCEU?
There are some of you that believe Director Zack Snyder does not know how to portray Superman and is failing badly on that score.
Think about this.
The current Superman in the DCEU is already two movies deep into his own story and will complete the arc in the Justice League movies. You may be asking, what is that story arc?
The path that Superman is on right now is broken into three parts; the birth of Superman, the death of Superman, and the resurrection of Superman. Each one of these parts are placed within each of the movies in the DCEU so far and are being used to develop Superman into the true hero that has the world looking to him.
In Man of Steel, we as an audience, got to experience the “Birth of Superman”. In this movie we got to watch as Clark Kent found himself and became the most iconic superhero in pop-culture. However, we got to see a character that didn’t know exactly what was expected of him in every situation, who allowed emotion to take hold and believed focusing on the enemy was the best solution to try and save everyone else. Clark Kent learned he must be something bigger and decided to begin his career as Superman.
In Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, fans got to experience the “Death of Superman”. In this edition to the Superman story arc we get to see Superman begin to struggle with a world that is struggling to accept an alien as a their hero. Throughout the movie you see the world, and Superman himself, struggle with the thought of what he should be.
The second part of this story is for Superman to deal with things going wrong for him. The world is 50/50 on him. There’s a villain dedicated to destroying his image and a hero convinced that he cannot be trusted and must be eliminated to keep the world safe. We even see an amazing moment when he himself gives up and sees himself as a failure. This is the most vulnerable moment for Superman as he begins to believe that the ideal he has been fighting for is a lie. Finally we begin to see Superman understand that he can not be perfect and that by saving someone you can be letting someone down and that he has to try his best but can not expect everything to go perfectly. His ascension into the hero we have all been waiting for occurred in the Doomsday fight. He did everything correctly; bringing Doomsday into space in an attempt to keep him from hurting anyone else. We also see Superman fight to the bitter end even sharing an amazing moment where he admits that “This is my world” and he is willing to do anything to save it. In this moment he becomes the Superman from the comics and animated shows because he sacrifices himself to keep everyone he loves and the world he loves safe. In a way his death is the catalyst that turns the world from being 50/50 on whether Superman is their hero to fully believing in him as their hero. The one quote that seems to be overlooked is a very powerful one in my eyes. “If you seek his monument, look around you” this quote is a powerful one because it shows the world have come together to mourn this hero.
