Zack Snyder knew he was going to take flak for his take on Superman with Man of Steel. To his credit, he tried something different, although in a recent interview on the Hall of Justice podcast [via THR], Snyder claims he was actually staying true to the character, and that true fans of the comic recognize this:

"I knew that we were really updating a beloved character. I don't think 'changing him' — People are always like 'you changed Superman.' If you’re a comic book fan, you know that I didn’t change Superman,” says Snyder. “If you know the true canon, you know that I didn’t change Superman. If you’re a fan of the old movies, yeah, I changed him a bit."

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Image via Warner Bros.

That’s a bit misleading. What does it even mean to say “If you’re a comic book fan?” The character has passed through countless writers and iterations over 75 years. It’s tough to nail down a “true” Superman, and we even can argue over his basic personality traits, but Snyder was more than cognizant of how he wanted his take to stand out.

That’s fine if you want to stand by your take, but don’t act as if there’s a true Superman we’re all missing that only he and comics fans who agree with him were able to see. He had an extraterrestrial (not an immigrant, but an alien) with a muddled Christ-complex (already, Snyder misunderstands the character’s origins since Superman was created by a couple of Jewish guys) who then proceeds to punch a lot rather than save people.

Even if you want to argue that Superman’s appetite for destruction was in his original comics, that kind of mayhem plays very differently on the page than it does on the screen, especially when you’re using 9/11 imagery for entertainment value.

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Snyder went on to say:

"I feel like I tried to create a Superman that would set a tone for the world," he continued, going on to say that he feels that the DC movies will be faithful to their comic book incarnations. "My point is that, if you know anything about the actual characters… what we've done is create a place where they can really be the mythological characters as designed in the comic books. If you're a fan of them in the comic books, you'll get a great opportunity to see what they look like, and how they move, [that] they're real."

Again, we’ve come to a place where I’m not sure Snyder has the talent to reconcile the two. If you’re playing with myth, then reality becomes a much tougher place to dwell. He’s right that the DC pantheon bears some resembles to mythology (Superman = Zeus, Batman = Hades, Aquaman = Poseidon, etc.) but that has nothing to do with how “they’re real.” Those two elements can work at cross-purposes, and the results can be frustrating and incomplete. For example, it’s how a “realistic” Superman grows up to be a hero, but lacks the realism of a father who provides a moral compass to act heroically in the first place. It’s feints at reality, but is torn towards its mythological side, a side that plays more into the blockbuster destruction that Snyder enjoys.

Snyder concludes by saying that when it comes to the Justice League, don’t expect to see much of them in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. "As far as the other Justice League characters go, they play a very small role [in BvS]," Snyder said. "It’s really just a whisper they exist. Except for Wonder Woman, we see her pretty well. But really the movie is about Batman and Superman."


Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens March 25th.

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Image via Warner Bros.