This article contains spoilers for Superman.
Superman’s origin was first revealed on a single page during his debut in 1938’s Action Comics #1. In the eighty-plus years since then, the story has shifted and changed but the broad strokes have stayed the same: As the dying planet Krypton implodes, aliens send their infant son to Earth to save him. It’s an archetype as old as Moses that got a sci-fi twist from iconic creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and has been enchanting readers and viewers ever since. But in James Gunn’s Superman, that origin is given a twist, one that sees what we know about Superman upended. But as writer/director Gunn explained to IGN at a screening of the film on the Warner Bros. backlot in Los Angeles, there’s precedent in both the comics and some long-running television shows, and it fits into the new, more vulnerable and human Superman that his film centers around.
We spend a decent amount of the film believing that it’s business as usual when it comes to Superman’s biological parents, as does the Man of Steel. He has his traditional loving relationship with Ma and Pa Kent (played by Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince respectively), but it is Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan) that he turns to when he needs inspiration or soothing. The message that was sent with Kal-El to Earth is, he believes, what drives his central ethos of protecting Earth and all of its creatures. Problem is, that message is fragmented. Kal-El knows that Jor-El and Lara’s message is broken, but he believes that it continues on offering loving missives to the son they gave up so that Earth can be safe and the Kryptonians can live on. Unfortunately for our hero, that belief couldn’t be more wrong.
Jor-El and Lara’s real mission for their son is revealed after the Engineer hacks into the Fortress of Solitude’s super snow computer. Soon we learn that the end of the transmission — one which Kal-El never heard until it is publicly released by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Holt) to smear him — showcases a different side of the El family, who actually chose Earth due to the perceived weakness of the human kind in the hopes that their beloved Kal-El would spread his Kryptonian seed among Earth’s women and eventually rule Earth with an iron fist as the so-called “Last Son of Krypton.”
For Gunn, it was his love of the character that inspired the surprising twist. “I’m a huge Superman fan, so first of all I had to trust myself that I was going to honor the pieces of Superman that we needed to keep the same and also allow myself to make changes where changes might work and wouldn’t go against the integrity of who the character is,” he told IGN.
I had to trust myself that I was going to honor the pieces of Superman that we needed to keep the same and also allow myself to make changes. -James Gunn
Gunn seems to have never wavered in that trust in himself, at least not so far as Kal-El’s origins are concerned. Taking such a risk in the first film of the new DCU might seem like a big swing, but Jor-El and Lara’s nefarious intentions were in the script from the earliest days of the project. “It was in James’s first draft,” DC Studios co-chairperson and co-CEO Peter Safran shared with IGN. “The story hasn’t changed at all. It’s exactly what he initially pitched and wrote. James was always very specific about the story that he wanted to tell,” Safran continued. “What you see is the movie that he genuinely wanted to make.”
So how does Safran feel about the change? “I love it. I never questioned it,” he told IGN. “I thought it was an incredibly effective thing. I just love the idea that family is about bond, not necessarily about blood. And that’s his family. These people are his family and they’re there for him when he’s down, and then they’re what bring him back up as well at the end. So I loved that in the script and I love it even more in the movie because I think the performances are so strong.”
We’ll get to the “bond, not necessarily about blood” bit in a moment. In the meantime, let’s take a quick look at canon.
Have Superman’s Kryptonian Parents Been Evil Before?
In the words of Gunn, making the Els essentially antithetical to who Superman becomes was “simply allowing ourselves to change part of the story in a way that was interesting for the DCU but wasn’t something that went against who Superman was.” It allows for some of the film’s most powerful emotional moments and gives Clark an impressive amount of agency over his heroic legacy. Gunn is aware of the impact of the choice, but correctly points out that “it’s something that has been played with in the comics before.”
Fans of Superman’s television outings know that it’s not just the comics either.
A similar plot development occurred on Smallville.
Eagle-eared Smallville fans were likely the first to notice a similarity between the film’s representation of Jor-El and Gunn’s. On the cult WB coming-of-age Superman series, Jor-El is introduced as an AI representation of Kal-El’s father made of his memories and experiences that exists within the walls of the Fortress of Solitude. In his early days, he was known as a harsh taskmaster who once uttered the immortal and now familiar sounding words, “on this third planet from this star Sol, you will be a god among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength, my son. That is where your greatness lies.” It’s incredibly similar to the recording and message that Cooper’s Jor-El gives to Kal-El in Superman, pre-dating it by around 20 years.
More recently during the Rebirth relaunch, the Superman comics resurrected Jor-El under the alias Mr. Oz. This version of the alien father figure escaped Krypton, landing on Earth. But his time on our planet made him bitter, violent, and furious at the horrors that he watched humankind enact. This twisted version of Jor-El became both an antagonist and ally to Superman, despite the fact that he’s desperate to destroy Earth and its inhabitants. The short-lived Syfy series Krypton played with the idea that the El’s were just as culpable as the Zods in the planet’s decline. More recently theMax animated series My Adventures With Superman, it’s revealed like in Superman (2025) that Jor-El was far from a benevolent father and instead a wannabe conqueror of Earth and had planned to use Kal-El and Kara to do it. So, as you can see, this is hardly a massive break from canon and it’s a key part of why the movie works.
Does Superman’s Origin Twist Work For the DCU?
At its core, James Gunn’s Superman is a story about the choices we make and the power of those choices to change not only the lives of others but also ourselves. The change in the Man of Steel’s classic origin inspires a crisis of conscience that allows Superman to showcase his humanity, vulnerability, and fear. And, most importantly, it reminds the audience that no matter where or who you come from, you can be the person that you want to be. Clark chooses to be the kind, loving, and open hero that he had already become without his Kryptonian parents thanks to the nurturing of Ma and Pa Kent.
Gunn has spoken about how his take on Krypton’s most famous son is that Superman is the edgiest and most punk superhero because he goes against the grim, gritty, and violent grain that is the current mainstream of comic book storytelling. As the film ends, we’re reminded of just that as Gary the Superman Robot plays images of Superman’s parents to soothe him, but instead of the Kryptonian hologram we saw earlier it’s home video footage of Clark as a child with Ma and Pa Kent at Christmas, summer vacation, and numerous other major moments throughout his life. As Clark heals and watches the films, the fictional band that he loves, “The Mighty Crabjoys,” — previously introduced in a blink and you’ll miss it moment in Creature Commandos — plays over the credits with lyrics about being punk rock. In Gunn’s DCU the most punk thing you can do is love your chosen family,help out those in need, and care about your fellow man while the rest of the world labels such things as “cringe” or “twee”. That focus feels like a pretty radical take, especially for a film coming out in 2025.
Superman has — for the most part — always been a symbol of hope, to the point that in different on-screen and page adaptations the S on his chest represents Krypton rather than Ma Kent’s impeccable eye for graphic design and influence on her son. That influence is writ large here as Clark’s midwestern upbringing is the foundation of the compassion and generosity that he shares with the world. No longer is he an alien on a mission; he’s an illegal immigrant learning what it means to be a giving, caring member of his community.
This all establishes some deeply interesting themes and threads for the DCU to explore. Anyone who has read the comics will know that Clark isn’t the only survivor of Krypton, and we even meet another intergalactic straggler, Kara Zor-El (Millie Alcock), at the end of Superman, setting up the upcoming Supergirl film. Historically, many other Kryptonians end up making their way to safety, and in this universe we’d imagine they’re less than happy that Clark became a friend and hero to the people of Earth rather than the alien conqueror he was supposed to be.
Just within the confines of this first DCU film, we experience contrasts to Superman’s righteous self-empowerment that show how personal choices define us. The Engineer has been enhanced by Lex Luthor’s nanotech upgrades, and instead of choosing to use her fantastical abilities to heal or help others she would rather hunt and hurt. Clark’s clone, seen both as the Hammer of Boravia and Ultraman, has been replicated by Lex to cause damage and disgrace the hero of Metropolis. He doesn’t make choices that counter his flawed programming, submitting to the will of his creator instead of forging forward with his own intentions. Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific is immediately highlighted as the most sympathetic member of the Justice Gang (they’re not calling themselves that) despite avoiding most human emotion because unlike Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl and Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, he chooses to help Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane save Superman when doing so comes at great personal risk.
Whatever happens next, Gunn has returned the on-screen depiction of Superman to its roots, once again depicting a kind and hopeful hero who values those core tenets above anything else. This new world will feature all kinds of heroes with many different creeds, but it seems to be intended that Superman remains the new franchise’s beating heart. Superman (2025) is another story for the outsiders who maybe don’t have it all together but are always trying their best, proving that you’re not defined by the past expectations of your ancestors but by the choices and community you make in the present.
Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.
