Postmodern Realities Podcast Episode 455: A Review of Superman (2025): Up, Up, and Away (Again)

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Cole Burgett  about his article, “Up, Up, and Away (Again): A Review of Superman (2025) “. This also part of Cole’s ongoing column, Cultural Apologetics.[Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers for Superman (2025).] https://www.equip.org/articles/up-up-and-away-again-a-review-of-superman-2025/


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hi everyone, Thank you for tuning in to the Postmodern
Realities podcast, brought to you by the Christian Research Institute
and the Christian Research Journal. I'm Melanie Cogdell, Managing editor
of the Christian Research Journal. It's July twenty twenty five,
and this is episode four hundred and fifty five, which

(00:41):
is going to be a spoiler filled conversation about the
twenty twenty five film Superman, which is now in theaters.
Today's guest is Colbergett. He is a graduate of Dallas
Theological Seminary and the Moody Bible Institute. He teaches systematic
theology and Bible exposition classes and writes extensively about theology

(01:05):
and popular culture. Cole has written a film review for
the Christian Research Journal and his review is called Up,
Up and Away Again, a review of Superman, and you
can read it for free at equipped dot org. That's
e qu ip DOTRG. Cole, it's good to have you

(01:26):
back on the podcast for another movie installment.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Always good to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well. This time we are talking about the Superman movie,
which is a restart I guess to the entire DC universe.
It's been really Superhero stuff has been dominated mostly by
Marvel over the last decade or so, and so Superman,
though it's pretty iconic, it goes back quite a long time,

(01:55):
and I think it's really recognizable to many generations. So
maybe not everybody knows a lot about this character, but
can you give us kind of a high overview of
whose Superman is sure.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
To put it simply, Superman is the foundational superhero. He's
the archetype from which the modern superhero genre really was born.
He's not the first costumed crime fighter to appear in fiction,
but he is the one who crystallized the genre into

(02:33):
what we now sort of recognize as the superhero mythos.
Before Superman, you had characters that are now referred to
as proto superheroes. So these would be the characters from
the Pulps like Zoro, Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Phantom
Flashcoordon Buck Rodgers. These characters who operated, many of them

(02:58):
outside the law, with very colorful persona's secret identities, a
flair for justice, stuff like that. These characters, these proto superheroes,
laid the groundwork. But when Superman debuted in Action Comics
number one back in nineteen thirty eight, something changed. The

(03:19):
premise of Superman is pretty simple, and this is the
story that I'm sure everybody sort of knows. He's an
alien called cal El who is sent from the dying
planet Crypton by his parents. Rocketed to Earth as an infant,
he lands in the American Midwest, where he's adopted by

(03:42):
this kindly old farming couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent, who
raise him with traditional values, humility, compassion, self control, that
sort of a thing. And as he matures, he discovers
he has powers superhuman strength, speed, flight, of vulnerability. He
envisioned all that stuff. But what defines him isn't what

(04:06):
he can do so much as it is what he
chooses to do with that power. And that's where Superman
sort of transcends genre and steps into the realm of
what you know, in literary.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Studies might be called archetypes.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
He's part Moses, part Hercules, part Christ. You know, like Moses,
he's placed in a vessel as an infant, sent away
from destruction. Like Hercules, he possesses incredible strength and faces
these impossible challenges. And like Jesus, he's this figure who
descends not to dominate, but to serve. He doesn't come

(04:46):
to rule over humanity, but instead to live among us,
to protect us, even when we don't really understand him.
There's an archetype there. It's pulling from a very obvious
and rich vein of mythology, Clark Kent. Of course, the
what is often called the mild mannered reporter for the

(05:07):
Daily Planet is his human disguise, but it's also a
vital part of his identity. He's not pretending to be human.
He was raised human. His moral compass was shaped by,
you know, very real and earthy human love. So the

(05:28):
tension that runs through the Superman stories about identity, which
this new film does tap into, what does what does
it mean to be a man who belongs to two worlds,
to have godlike powers but a human heart. That's sort
of a thing. That's the essence of Superman. Not power
without limits, but power tempered by restraint. He's the character

(05:53):
who could do anything and chooses to do what's right.
That's the dramatic engine. He's the ideal, not because he's invincible,
but because he's incorruptible. You know, he's the answer to
the question, well, what if someone with ultimate power chose
to be good? So for someone who's never engaged with

(06:18):
the character, that's the basic premise, But I would say
that also plays into why he endures. I mean, Superman
isn't just another character. Even though today we're saturated with superheroes.
Superman often in his stories is sort of like a
think of it, like maybe a cultural roar shock test

(06:38):
for our view of power and morality and that.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Sort of a thing.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Every generation reinterprets him, but the core always sort of
remains the same.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
So Superman is a character that's been around, I mean
it's twenty twenty five for almost one hundred years, and
so what are some of the maybe defining moments in
Superman's legacy and what is keeping him relevant because we're
still telling his story or a version of his story,

(07:12):
almost one hundred years after he was first created.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, the history of Superman is really sort of fascinating
because it's also the history of the American superhero. He's
the foundation, like we said, the prototype, the character that
turned comic books into a cultural force, and to understand

(07:38):
his evolution, you really do have to look at the
broad movements of comic book history. Now, for people who
study this sort of thing, I know It's sort of
a funny idea, right, people study comic books. Yeah, These
movements in comic book history are often referred to as
the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and

(07:59):
the Model Age because Superman's character has been reinterpreted and
reshaped in each In each one, we'll just sort of
go through them in that order. Then the Golden Age,
So the Golden Age of comic books is generally considered
the late nineteen thirties, when Superman appears and sort of

(08:22):
ushers in this new age of comic books through the
about the mid nineteen fifties. As we said, Superman debuted
in Action Comics number one. It was not Superman number one.
It was Action Comics Number one, a title that still
runs today, if you can believe it, Action Comics number
one in nineteen thirty eight. He was created by Jerry

(08:44):
Siegel and Joe Schuster. At the time, he wasn't quite
the cosmic powerhouse we think of today. He couldn't fly,
He just jumped really, really far. He was more of
a sort of a crusading social avenger, and those very
early issues Superman would tackle corrupt landlords, wife beaters, war profiteers.

(09:08):
It was very grounded, like street level stuff. He was
a kind of New Deal era folk hero, a fantasy
of justice in a world that you know, could feel
deeply unjust, and in many ways this was his most
I guess to use the word radical, This was his
most radical phase. He wasn't fighting aliens yet, he was

(09:32):
fighting us, or at least the worst of us, and
that grounded focus helped him connect with readers who were
trying to survive the great depression of World War Two.
Now the Silver Age which has become there's sort of
been in recent years. I would say a rediscovery of
the Silver Age and what it has done, because this

(09:54):
is some of the stuff that was used to be
sort of laughed off as silly, but people have really
gone back to that, and I would say that the
new Superman film certainly has a great affinity for Silver
Age era Superman. Basically, the Silver Age is going to
run from the mid nineteen fifties to the early nineteen seventies,

(10:17):
that transition from the sixties into the seventies. By the fifties,
Superman had started to evolve, and of course this is
walking alongside the growing interest in science fiction. So This
era of Superman is the era of Kryptonite. It's the

(10:39):
era of the Fortress of Solitude, of Solitude, It's the
era of bizarro, brainiac, the phantom Zone. The stories became fantastical,
even bizarre by today's standards. They're real weird, you know,
Superman as a lion, a baby giant ant. They were

(11:01):
rich in imagination, and it had writers like Auto Bender
and mort Weisinger was the editor then, and they leaned
into this very childlike sense of wonder, and so Superman became,
you know, less of a social crusader and more of
this godlike space dad, perfect moral, even a little remote.

(11:29):
But that version of Superman is crucial to the character's
legacy because it really codified the mythology of the character.
Crypton became a fully realized culture. The idea of Superman
as the last son of a doomed civilization began to
carry a kind of tragic weight. And that brings us

(11:52):
up to the Bronze Age, which runs from the nineteen
seventies to around the mid eighties mid late eighties. The
Bronze Age brought with it a shift toward more serious storytelling.
This is where a lot of the comics of this era,
you know, begin to begin to get us to the

(12:12):
modern age of comic books. So this is where you
had creators like O'Neill, Bates, Elliot Magan. They've began grounding
Superman emotionally. He was still powerful, but his internal life
started to matter more. We began to see stories that
explored his alienation, his loneliness, his struggle with identity. And

(12:34):
of course this era also begins to grapple with larger
questions of relevance, right, I mean, in a world with
Vietnam and Watergate and this rising distrust in institutions, what
does Superman represent? Is he too perfect? Is he too detached?
These are all questions that writers would begin to wrestle

(12:54):
with more directly in years to come. And this brings
us up to the modern Age of which kicked off
in about the mid nineteen eighties. And I would say
the biggest turning point in the character's recent history was
the Man of Still mini series by John Byrne. DC

(13:14):
had just completed what is called Crisis on Infinite Earth's.
This was a line wide reboot which was very new
for its time in the comic book industry, and Burne
was brought into to quite literally reinvent Superman for a
new generation, and his take on Superman was more human,

(13:37):
less omniscient, if you will. Clark Kent became the real
identity Superman was the performance. Krypton was made very cold
and sterile, emphasizing the emotional bond between Clark and Ma
and Paw Kent as human parents, and that shift made

(13:57):
him more relatable, more grounded. And it's also around this
time that Lex Luthor was reimagined as well, not as
this sort of mad scientist, but this kind of corporate tycoon,
a kind of dark mirror to the American dream, and
this more modern Luthor the is still the version we

(14:20):
tend to see on screen. Then, of course, in the
early nineties came the death of Superman, which really was
a cultural phenomenon. In this storyline, Superman fights a creature
called Doomsday in this knockdown, drag out brawl and dies
saving the world. This is the storyline that you saw

(14:42):
adapted in Zack Snyder's movies when Superman is killed fighting Doomsday.
But it was front page news in the nineties. People
lined up at comic shops and the story, of course,
it's not great literature, but it cemented the idea that
Superman still mattered to the public. He came back, of course,

(15:02):
but not unchanged that whole arc. His death, the rise
of the so called Superman in his absence. His resurrection
asked you know what a world without Superman would look like,
and it made the case that we still need him.
In the two thousands, you have writers like Geoff Johns
and Grant Morrison who are offering up some of the
more thoughtful takes on Superman. In particular, Morrison's All Star Superman,

(15:26):
which ran from two thousand and five to two thousand
and eight, if I remember correctly, is often cited as
one of the best Superman stories ever told. It's very strange,
it's deeply mythic, it's poetic, it's one of the stories
that clearly inspires this new film, and it's also deeply moving.

(15:48):
It strips Superman down to his essence, a man who
always finds a way to save someone, even when he
himself is dying. And then Jeff John's meanwhile wrote definitive
arcs like Brainiac and Origin, which helped to re establish
a clear continuity and emotional center for the character. And
then in more recent years, the Superman Rebirth run by

(16:09):
Peter Toamassi and Patrick Gleeson has been pretty well received.
It introduced Superman as a husband and a father raising
a son John Kent with Lois Lane. That gave the
character a new dynamic. Still an alien, still a hero,
but also a family man trying to raise a child
with the same values that he was raised with.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
It was a.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
Fairly elegant way to modernize Superman without losing what makes
him time was. There are some really big names and
comics right now who've had goes at the character. Brian
Michael Bindis as one of them. But Tamassi and Gleason's
run has been well received but sort of unsung as
far as the critical reviews go, And it's one of
the runs I like the most so as far as

(16:50):
what keeps the character going through all of that. To
answer that question, it's not just power fantasy. If that
were the case, he'd have faded into the background.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Now.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
What keeps him going in the public imagination, I think
is largely his restraint, his moral clarity, the idea that
someone with all the power in the world would rather
serve than rule. That's still compelling to us, especially in
an age that is increasingly distrustful of power. Superman endures

(17:23):
as a man who could be a God, but chooses
not to be so. Across the decade, Superman has been
reinvented again and again. But whether he's this social crusader
in the thirties or a struggling dad in the twenty twenties,
the idea behind him stays the same, strength under control,

(17:45):
power in the service of compassion, and that idea clearly
still matters.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
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(18:15):
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(18:36):
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(18:58):
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(19:18):
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of the Eastern Lightning Cult. Well, now back to my
conversation about the new twenty twenty five Superman film with Colbriguett. Well,

(19:41):
moments ago you were talking about the various different ages
of this character in comic book history, and one of
the things you touched on was there was a series
in which she dies and is resurrected. So there are
some you know, messianic connections when it comes to this character,
and you talk about this in your article. So why

(20:02):
do you think that those kinds of themes are there,
and you know, is that something that makes people fascinated
with this character to have those kind of Messianic thematic
things that define Superman.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, it's a good question, because it's it's sort of
obligatory at this point that I think any Christian, any
any Christian who touches Superman in any sort of public capacity,
they have to have like the obligatory Messianic imagery or

(20:39):
touch on it as something like that. But I really
do think it's worth pointing out that the Messianic connections
when it comes to Superman's character is less about deliberate
theology and more about cultural intuition. Superman was created by

(21:00):
two Jewish immigrants in the thirties, and his story, you know,
draws vary deeply from that well of longing and for justice,
for deliverance, for someone to stand in the gap, that

(21:21):
inevitably takes on Messianic tones. He's sent by his father
Jorell from the heavens. He grows up in obscurity, he
reveals his strength in a time of need, he suffers
to protect others. But what's important in this particular discussion

(21:44):
is that none of this feels like a forced allegory.
A lot of times when when you do a messianic story,
it can come across as a forced allegory, and Superman's
very importantly, I don't think does it resonates because it

(22:09):
taps into the immoral imagination of Western culture, particularly American culture.
Superman is a very American character, and that actually some
reviewers critics have pointed out that that's probably why the
new Superman film is not performing as well internationally as

(22:32):
it is domestically, because Superman has always been such a
thoroughly American character and his story taps in to the
moral imagination of the West, the moral imagination of America,
which has been so profoundly shaped by the Christian story.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Do you think it's more American than Batman? Where Gotham
City is like the Ark, his earthly parents being in
Kansas being like, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Folk, it's a different kind. So the question of Batman
and Superman is interesting here. Batman, so I'm actually gonna
take this back to the proto superheroes for just a second.
Batman is the the next evolution of a very particular
flavor of proto superhero. Batman is the next iteration of

(23:25):
a character called the shadow of a character like the
Phantom Superman. He pulls from that well, but is gonna
have more in common with a Doc Savage or something
like that. But there's another strand of proto Superhero that
Batman is the fruition of. Now, why do I say that?

(23:49):
Because what Batman is doing, I'm gonna say it's a
little more metropolitan. The kind of Batman's story that Batman
hat really isn't like the Superman story that Superman inhabits.
If if you're wanting to talk about it in the

(24:09):
strands of visit more American than Batman, I don't know.
If it's more American, I would certainly say it's a
different flavor of American.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
I mean the American, Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Mean Batman is this gritty, sort of street level in
the city urban. I guess it would be the better
way to say it. It's very urban in its storytelling,
and you know, Batman is always stalking, you know, gangsters
and stuff like that, whereas Superman's story it's just different.

(24:39):
So it's a different flavor. I would say it's a
different facet of American mythology.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
So I was wondering about the film itself, so like,
I don't really know that much about Superman as a
comic book character. And then, of course, you know, seeing
the Superman films I was exposed to was the Christopher
Reeves version back in the day, and I guess was
that the eighties. And I want to find out more

(25:11):
about the film. But first of all, like I always
ask you, is is this a movie that's appropriate for
Christian art audiences in particular?

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:23):
I think.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
I think there's nothing spiritually problematic or theologically suspect, you
know about the film. It's not preachy. It doesn't really
gesture toward any religious system, and it's not trying to

(25:49):
be a sermon in a cape.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Now, there are some.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Very i would say intentional, you know, political motifs throughout
the film, and it sort of is. It's paid off
in a very funny line towards the end of the
movie about the only thing conservatives and liberals can agree on.
But it's not overtly preachy in the sense of again

(26:17):
gesturing toward anyone religious system. But it does do I
would say, what these kinds of stories are very good at,
which is it lifts the moral imagination, it presents goodness
as admirable. It suggests that self restraint and compassion are

(26:40):
more impressive than domination, and I would say that that
actually would make it potentially fruitful for conversation for the
Christian to see it and be able to have those
conversations with others who see it. I think think it's
a film that teenagers could could very comfortably see. I

(27:05):
don't think there's anything in the film that would turn
people off from that. Now, if the question is just
you know, taste, I think different people will get, you know,
different mileage out of this movie because it's a very
quirky film. But other than that, I mean, yeah, I
think it's a film that Christians can see.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
I'd really like you to unpack the film and you
know what is going on. As I mentioned at the
top of this podcast, it's going to be spoiler filled
because when I saw it first of all, I said,
I don't know that much about superhero things in general,
and I feel like it was dropped into the middle
of this action. And then I'd like you to also

(27:47):
tell our listeners a little bit of the backstory of
how this film came to be with a new studio
focusing on DC, just as we had studios focusing on
Marvel because there's so much that's going to be coming out,
and I think that kind of informs what they've done
or their emphasis here. And I, just as the person
who doesn't know that much about superhero things, I was

(28:09):
confused because it felt like it was introducing a whole
bunch of different characters that I'm supposed to know about
that I don't know who they are, and putting them
in these various different settings and it doesn't really it
didn't particularly answer who these people were. They just exsumed
some knowledge on my part perhaps, But I really would
like you to take your time to unpack this for people,

(28:31):
because I think unless you're a comic book nerd or
in that you know sphere, maybe the average person Christian
or not going to it might not really know the
full scope of this story and what the context of
all these other characters are in the film.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
We'll start by just saying this isn't an origin story,
which is, you know, a smart move. Superman already exists
in this world, this world being the world that that
gun is creating for this new era of DC films,
which we'll talk about in just a minute. Anyway, Superman

(29:10):
is established, people know who he is, but he's he's
still figuring out how to be both Superman and Clark Kent,
how to belong to two worlds and serve both. The
broader story involves Lex Luthor played by Nicholas Holt, as
this very powerful tech mogul with deeply cynical views about

(29:36):
humanity and power. There are threats to the world, of course,
but the real drama of this story is centered on
Superman's character, who is Superman in a world that doesn't
quite know what to do with someone who chooses to

(29:59):
do good for it its own sake. That's the tension
that Gun explores, and it really is sort of gives
the film a surprising amount of depth. I said before that,
and I think I may have put this in the review,
that it's sort of the most sincere film that Gun
has made because it's not a story that's interested in

(30:23):
power levels. So many people try to make Superman story
about that, and it sort of tries to mind drama
from that sort of a thing, and this movie sort
of establishes at the outset Superman is the most powerful
meta human on the planet. That's it. It's stated right
there at the beginning. It takes care of that and

(30:44):
it's more interested in what he chooses to do. You know,
he chooses to do good for its own sake, and
that sort of throws the world because it's a very
I would say, you know, a lot of people would
characterize the times of which we live a cynical and
there's some truth to that. I would say, there's a
lot of truth to that, and Superman is a not

(31:05):
a cynical character. He looks very naive to the rest
of the world and it minds a lot of its
dramatic tension from that. Now, as far as these other
characters that you've mentioned, this is what's maybe unique about
Gun's approach.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
To this.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Is, you know, he's he has built a sort of
fully fleshed out world behind the scenes, and this is
just viewers not their first I guess the first would
technically be Creature Commandos, which is a TV show on
HBO Max. But this is the first, you know, widely

(31:53):
publicized film for popular, you know, popular audiences. This is
their first introduction to that world that he's building, and
that comes as a result of James Gunn and his
producing partner Peter Saffron.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
And is it because he was so successful with The
Guardian's Marvel films.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
That was part of it. He also did a film
for DC before he and Saffron were brought on board.
He did the film The Suicide Squad, not David A
or Suicide Squad, but The Suicide Squad. I think in
twenty twenty one. James Gunn did that movie and it

(32:37):
was it was a hit. I mean, the critics liked it,
people liked it. It's very different. It's sort of James
gun unhinged. It's actually very vulgar and crass and all
of that. And again that's sort of what makes Superman
as a movie even more interesting, at least to me,

(32:59):
because it's gun restraint. We've seen what James Gunn and
a rated R movie looks like. We've seen what James
gun without with with the you know, with the shackles off.
We've seen what he does, and this is James Gunn restraint,

(33:21):
holding back, telling a different kind of story. And I
think that's important. You know, gun has sort of built
his career Guardians of the Galaxy, the Suicide Squad. He's
built his career in this superhero world. Telling these stories
about losers and misfits and these out of sorts people
who don't belong. And here with this story, he's given

(33:44):
the most recognizable superhero of all. If there is one
character that belongs in the discussion of superheroes, it is Superman.
And so that the story that he tells is different
from what he is is usually telling. And you know this,
this movie is sort of pulling double duty. It's a
Superman film, but as I said, it's also the introduction

(34:08):
to the broader DC Universe or what's being called the
DC Universe.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
And again that's that's something that Gun is spearheading. So
Gun is co chairman and co CEO of DC Studios,
and under d C Studios, he co produces and executive
produces every film and television series under the DC Universe

(34:34):
media franchise. And the DC Universe was sort of conceived
as a kind of a reboot, if you will, of
the uh what used to be called the d C EU,
the d C Extended Universe. The d C Extended Universe,

(34:55):
of course, is the spade of films that began with
Man of Steel back in twenty thirteen under Zack Snyder.
It continued with twenty sixteens, you know, Batman v. Superman,

(35:15):
and there were I think something like twelve or thirteen
other movies that came out in that time that all
sort of shared continuity with what was going on in
the DCEU. So the Wonder Woman movies, Justice League, Aquaman,
those films, the Shazam movies, those were all part of

(35:39):
the DCEU.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Even James Gunns.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
The Suicide Squad was part of the DCEU. But then
once he was brought in to sort of spearhead DC
Studios and you know, reconfigure everything, all of that has
sort of changed, and it's sort of obvious to see,
you know, Henry cavill is no longer Superman.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
It's now David corn Sweat.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
And even though Matt Reeves is doing his Batman stuff
that is separate from the Batman that will be introduced
to the DCU and stuff like that. So that's that's
sort of why there is a very wonky in the
last you know, ten years we've had We've had Superman movies,
but there are different kinds of Superman movies and it's

(36:20):
a different actor. And now you've got this one and
it's a completely new sort of thing that's creating a
new world that's fully realized, and you know, audiences are
just sort of coming into it. To describe it the
way that one of my filmmaker friends did who saw it,
he said, this is the first time I've really seen
a movie start with an opening crawl since Star Wars,

(36:40):
and we laughed about that, but he's right there. There's
sort of a there's a need to introduce the world
that has been established in this film for audiences, and
so when this movie begins, there's a little bit of
a crawl this you know, these these words that appear
on the screen that orient h to this version of

(37:02):
the world that Gun has created. And it's it's not
it's it's very much a comic bookie in this way,
and that the world he has created is, uh, it's
like ours, but it's not quite ours. It's it's different.
It's a it's a world with you know, fantastical uh technology.

(37:26):
It's a world where you know, these superhero characters called
meta humans have been around for several hundred years. So
it's it's it's it's it's very much its own self
contained uh world that is similar to ours, but it
is actually quite different and it requires that sort of introduction.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
For for audiences.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
At the beginning, you just use the word comic bookie.
And also in your article as opposed to like the
movies the exposition we find out about superheroes and all
the movies that we've watched, especially if people are into
the Marvel series, no matter what character, it's just like
it's a movie after movie about the same character, like

(38:12):
Thora for example. But in your article you describe Superman,
this particular iteration of it as a Saturday morning cartoon
brought to life, and you just use the word comic bookie,
which seems to more cartoony to me. Can you unpack
what sets this film apart from all the other superhero

(38:33):
movies that we've seen in recent years, especially in the
Marvel universe.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yeah, this is one of the most distinctive aspects of
gun Superman, and I can't take singular credit for that.
I actually think a lot of reviewers made this connection.
They talked about it as if it's a Saturday morning cartoon,
and it's one of the things that certainly makes the

(39:05):
film stand out. Back I want to say in June,
the link is in the review In an interview with
Entertainment Weekly, Gunn directly cited the super Friends cartoon. Super
Friends was an old cartoon of DC characters that had Superman,

(39:26):
Batman and others in it that ran from the seventies
to the eighties, and he directly cited super Friends as
one of the foundational influences on his vision for the movie.
He said, I grew up reading DC and Marvel comics
and having worlds and universes of superheroes who were interacting.

(39:48):
I grew up watching super Friends on Saturday mornings. And
you really feel that, I think in the dna of
the film, not in a not in a campy or
not nostalgic way, but in the spirit of how the
world is built. And this, you know, sort of goes
to your point about it's there's all these characters, and

(40:12):
there's all these superheroes, and they're all very colorful, and
they're all interacting in this movie. And that's sort of
I think what everyone is picking up on when they say,
you know, a Saturday morning cartoon. Feel it's less about aesthetic.
I mean, it looks great. There was a huge budget
attached to this movie. It doesn't look like a cartoon
in the sense that it looks cheap, but it's more

(40:33):
about tone and world building logic. This version of the
DC universe isn't interested in, you know, greedy realism. This
is not Nolan's Batman. It's not interested in origin story realism.
It starts from the assumption that superheroes exist and that

(40:58):
the audience is okay with that one. So you have
Green Lantern in this film, you have Hawkgirl in this film.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
You don't get.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Three acts of backstory for each one. They're just there
and it's not a big deal. That's very much how
super Friends operated. You'd turn on the TV and Superman
was flying around with Aquaman and Batman and Wonder Woman,
and nobody pause to ask, wait, how does this work.

(41:34):
It wasn't about plausibility. It was about possibility in that sense.
So James Gunn embraces that logic, that particular kind of logic,
a big, colorful world of superpowered beings operating on some

(41:57):
understood but unspoken rules, and he does it without irony.
That's the key. This isn't a meta, tongue in cheek
take on superheroes. It's not trying to be the Boys
or even Peacemaker and Peacemaker is a James Gunn show.
It's earnest. There's a sincerity here that almost feels a

(42:24):
little counter cultural to the superhero to the culture that
has grown up around the superhero movies that gun himself
helped to institute, especially in a genre that has become
has gotten so self conscious and self aware, and that
sincerity is part of what makes the film feel almost

(42:47):
retro in the best sense, not in a visual design
sense necessarily, but in its clarity.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
It's moral clarity.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
The other piece of the Saturday Morning Cartoon comparison is
that the film embraces the idea of good versus evil
without apology.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
It's it's not simplistic.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Lex Luthor, for example, was complex and philosophically challenging, but
it also isn't bogged out in ambiguity. Superman is good
not because he's perfect, but because he chooses to be.
And that kind of clarity is something that kids cartoons
used to lean into.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Apologetically.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Gun revives that but for an adult audience and with
a little more nuance. And I mentioned this a second ago.
I think what makes this especially notable is that James
Gunn is one of the people responsible for saturating the
superhero landscape. Guardians of the Galaxy, the Suicide Squad, Peacemaker.

(43:53):
Those projects are funny, they're chaotic, they're self aware. They
helped def find the era of the postmodern Quippi superhero.
So the fact that he is the one, and you know,
he's producer, writer, director of this film, I mean so
of all the big you know, creative decision makers, that's

(44:15):
all three in one. So the fact that he's the
one dialing back the tone and delivering something this sincere.
I think it's sort of meaningful. It feels like an
intentional counterpoint. Gun Superman isn't interested in trying to outdo Marvel,
It isn't interested in trying to outdo the DCEU previously.

(44:42):
It's not even trying to comment on the genre. It's
just trying to be a good superhero story. It's trying
to be a good Superman story. And that's that's what
makes it stand out at a time when so many
superhero films feel like they're either dragging themselves toward this

(45:03):
you know, gritty deconstruction. We're desperately trying to juggle the
building blocks of what we're now calling a multiverse. Superman
just tells a story about a man who chooses to
be good and builds a world of superheroes around him
that makes space for his choice to matter. And so

(45:28):
in that sense, I would say that the Saturday Morning
cartoon energy isn't isn't nostalgia. It's as as far as
superhero movies go, it's a bit of a reset.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
It sort of is.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Very happy to remind us what these stories used to
be about and suggests that they can be that again.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
That's really interesting that just in its uniqueness in that way,
I guess I would say, now we you know, you
started talking about just James Gun everything. He's He's the
person all rolled into one, writer, director, producer. Was there
any other kind of controversy in the making of this

(46:13):
film or bringing the studio to life? That wasn't you know,
kind of surrounding what's happening now with his studio and
DC reset and all that kind of thing. Uh?

Speaker 3 (46:25):
Sure, Yeah, A Gun has he has a bit of,
let's call it, a complicated public PERSONA years ago, he
was temporarily fired from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy over

(46:46):
some old tweets that resurfaced now now, these tweets were offensive,
and I would say they were clearly meant to be
seen as shock humor. At the time, he was affiliated

(47:07):
with a studio, if I remember this correctly, At the
time that he made those tweets, he was affiliated with
a studio that sort of specialized in that sort of
you know, shock offensiveness type thing. He you know, made
the necessary meacoulpas and was later reinstated and did the
uh the third.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
More recently, as he's taken the reins of DC Studios,
there there's been some pushback from online communities in particular.
I mean, everything's pushed back from online communities today, but uh,
and it's they're either they distrust his moral views, where

(47:49):
they disliked the tone of his previous work. And you
know what, I would say, not liking the tone of
his previous work is fair. I enjoyed Superman. I have
never been the biggest admirer of James Gunn's work because
it is so meta, it is so self aware, it's

(48:10):
so ironic, and I always found that to be quite
eye roll inducing, right. I always sort of interpreted that,
and I usually interpret work like that to be a
And maybe this is me being a little harsh, but
this is just how I see it because we're so
saturated with it today. I see it as a very
lazy excuse to tell a good story.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
It's being accused of being preachy in this film. Would
you say that those accusations are correct or people are
missing the mark on what the film?

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Well? I think that.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
It's part of this conversation of his approach to tone
and things like that. This film is its sere and
as a result of that, I don't think it's it's
it's a it's a light switch, is my point. I

(49:07):
don't think it's a one. Uh, it's one or the other.
It's a sincere film, but it's still James Gun making it.
There are still going to be traces of that quirky,
offbeat humor that that's in there. And one of the
big things that has come out about this film and
and this is the whole you know, where they say

(49:28):
that this is a this might be a little preachy
with the political issues, is uh. Before the movie came out,
Gun made some comments to a reviewer about how you
know Superman is an immigrant and obviously that is a
very you know, controversial topic today. Now, I, for one,

(49:50):
for the life of me, could never I can't get
my mind around that statement being controversial because if you
know Superman's orgin story, it's it's like, yeah, okay, I
guess if you want to say it that way, sure,
that's that's exactly what happens. But of course, given the
current political climate in this country and the current issues

(50:11):
surrounding it, that that surges to the fore, and you know,
maybe guns should.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Have kept his mouth shut about it.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
But suddenly this kicks off this fire storm online and
there are people who you know, previously played Superman who
were like, you know, I, why are we making this
a political thing? And so on and so forth. And
and in the story there there is a in the
story of the film, there is a I don't even
know if you want to call it the subplot, because

(50:39):
it's not really a subplot. It's it's it's kind of
it's part of the plot of the movie. Uh, there's
this one nation that is invading another and Superman, you know,
sort of goes flying in to stop this, and without
really thinking about the political fall or the ramifications of

(51:01):
that or anything of the sort now on a very
surface level. You know, if you were you can look
at that and go, oh, this is a very political movie,
and it's a very preachy movie, and it's very you know,
guns trying to make some type of political statement. Okay, Well,
by the time it's all over with, Lex Luthor has

(51:23):
has manufactured all of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
This is all his doing. You know.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
This is not some gritty documentary style film about well,
what would happen if there was a Superman who flew
to Ukraine or who flew to Gauza or something like that.
It certainly draws from real world happenings, but it doesn't
necessarily I would I didn't watch the movie and go

(51:51):
I feel as though I am being preached at. If
there's anything that is preachy in the movie, it is
it is Superman desire for for for goodness for you
know it, no matter what's going on, you know, kind
of like this is his conversation with Lois the earlier

(52:12):
in the film. You know, at the end of the day,
people were going to die. You know, why did you
fly over there and not think about you know, the ramifications?
Why did you do this? Did you check with you know,
the necessary powers that be.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Now, I just did it.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Why because people were going to die that kind of
self sacrifice. If that's what's preachy about the movie, so
be it. I don't necessarily understand why someone would have
a problem with that, but I'm sure that there are
people who are, you know, looking very very deeply into
this sort of thing. And you know, because of Gun's

(52:47):
comments about it. You know, even other actors were being
asked about this at their premieres, other actors in the movie.
And I, you know, think what you want of Nathan Fillion,
but I thought his response was fairly telling because he
was asked pretty directly about this, you know, what do
you think about these comments and all of that stuff,
and he just sort of rolls his eyes and says,

(53:07):
it's a movie, guys, and keeps walking. And I think
that's probably how most people look at this, right. It's
just a movie. Yeah, it's got you know, a little
bit of real world influence in there to flavor it,
to ground it in the here and now. But other
than that, I mean, you're talking about a movie with
people who wear very colorful costumes, fly around and fight

(53:31):
geniuses who orchestraate wars and also open you know, portals
to pocket dimensions, and it's just you know, you have
to be very careful when trying to make this stuff
matter more than it does.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
And also just I don't know if people know that much,
you know, if they're just thinking about historical context. When
this character was invented, it was right during the time
leading up to World War Two, so they were already
in you know that that could be part of the
warp and woof of some of the things that have
been a part of this in the background. And I

(54:09):
don't know if any of the comic book writers are
thinking about that in particular over over the almost one
hundred years. So, I mean, given that this superhero has
been around for a long time, do you think it's
endured because he has that goodness that was portrayed that

(54:30):
he is out there fighting crime for the people, et cetera.
And he's an average you know, he has this alter
ego personality that's this you know, salt of the Earth
guy that just is a newspaper reporter kind of thing.
Is that's what's been appealing over generations because it was
a character invented in the late thirties, nineteen thirties.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Oh absolutely, that's that's a huge part of the appeal.
It's worth it's. Having said all of that, I do
want to say this, I can completely understand why conservative
audience members would be understandably skeptical. I was skeptical of

(55:16):
James Gunn doing Superman, especially given how caustic his other
works can be. But having watched the film, I can
say Superman really does feel like a different animal. It's
not interested in snark or subversion.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
It's much more family friendly than it is.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Gun And you know, and I'll just give him credit
where credits due. Gun seems to be writing here not
as a provocator, and he all of his other work,
even in some ways Guardians of the Galaxy, it's very provocative,
But this this does feel as like someone who genuinely
admires this character and wants others to admire him to so,

(55:56):
you know, credit where it's due. That's That's sort of
the last I'll say about that. But as far as
why the character endures, yeah, I mean, like you said,
part of the warp and woof of these Superman stories
from its inception has been that he's he grows alongside
the modern world I mean, this is this is just

(56:17):
comic books in general, and you know, this has created
problems for comic book writers even where you know, it's
fair to ask the question, why is it that after
you know, eighty years Superman still looks like a thirty
five year old dude? Does he not age? Why does

(56:37):
Batman not age? That sort of a thing? And that
has led to you know, DC, you know, trying to
explain it as multiverses and all that sort of stuff,
and the crisis events and all of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
But all of that is.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Done in service to the fact that these characters have
grown and evolved throughout history. They have grown alongside the times.
It's very it's very like James Bond in the cinema landscape,
where you know, every Bond film is set in the

(57:13):
time that it's made. When Roger Moore takes over for
Sean Connery, it's not a reboot, it's not a relaunch,
it's not a reset, it's just the new Bond. And
comic books are very very much sort of the same
way when new creative team comes on, and you know,
continuity is is a very it's something that we've only

(57:34):
recently become obsessed with cannon and continuity, making all the
little pieces fit together. I actually think that stuff. While
it's interesting in theory, I think it ties the hands
of people creatively. It makes it very difficult for a
new creative team to come onto a legacy character when
you have to saddle them with eighty years worth of

(57:56):
history that they may not care about the great storyteller
with good ideas.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Do you think that's only because of the rise of
the Internet. In other words, before you would have had
these forms where fans would unmatter and go into the
comments section and start comment bombing a film's trailer or
any kind of press that's been done about it. There
was nothing to have that before, where it's this appeasement

(58:23):
of every single you know, fan podcast out there with
each reach, etc.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
Yep, you're exactly right. The rise of the Internet and
has has changed the landscape. And I would say this
doesn't just apply to comic books. It applies to any
entertainment medium, film or anything like that. Any type of
what is today called IP intellectual property. You know that'd

(58:52):
be Superman, Batman, anything like that. Any type of IP
today comes with a built in audience. That's that's why
these stories keep getting remade because they're safe bets. It's
not a new thing where you have to go find
an audience for this character. You have to go find
an audience for this story. You make a Superman movie,
people are going to turn up. Even if it flops

(59:14):
and gets horrible reviews, You're still going to make a
lot of money at it because people know who Superman
is and they want to go see a new Superman movie.
That being said, there is a much greater pressure now
on creatives to appease many people. I think you can
actually see this in the the I want to be

(59:36):
careful how I characterize this, because Ryan Johnson just just
gave an interview where you talked about this quite a bit.
You can sort of see the the desire to appease
different parts of a broad fan base. With the recent
Star Wars films, which many people have criticized and you know,

(59:59):
whether or not it's fair not, it's a different story,
but many people have criticized as being very hirky jerky
and wishy washy in what it set out to do,
and a lot of people attribute that to, you know,
fan backlash, that sort of a think, and so there
is that pressure on creatives to do this. But as
for why Superman in particular endures beyond all of that,

(01:00:23):
to your point, it's not that he's just relatable, but
he's also something aspirational. We sort of live in a
time that likes to flatten our heroes into reflections of
our flaws, because we think that makes them relatable. If
you give us a flawed hero, we are supposed to

(01:00:46):
find that relatable and therefore like him more. And so
in this time that flattens our heroes, Superman still points upward.
He doesn't mirror our brokenness back to us. Instead, he
gives us a picture of of what we might become

(01:01:09):
if we learn to use you know, strength with mercy.
That idea never really goes out of style. And this
is actually that that I that concept is worth pointing out.
I remember, I'm we've talked before. I'm a very big
James Bond fan. And in many ways, you know, Bond
was sort of my my childhood heuro type thing for

(01:01:32):
better for worse. But I grew up on on the
Bond films and comic books like this. But but Bond
was sort of the cinematic shadow if you will. Uh
and Barbara Brockley, who used to be the person who
ran the Bond movies alongside Michael Wilson. She once said

(01:01:54):
she was asked about Bond's appeal, and she once said
an interview, heroism will never go out of style. That
is why Bond will never go away. There will always
be a new Bond. There will always be a new
Bond movie. Even when it looks like there's a lull
or whatever, Bond will always come back. And her response
or justification of that is because Bond is a hero,
and heroism never goes out of style. That's that's sort

(01:02:17):
of I think can be applied to Superman. Uh, that idea,
the hero never really goes out of style, even if
it feels countercultural now maybe especially because it does, people
still want to believe that goodness can be strong, that
power can be restrained. I mean, you don't They even

(01:02:38):
say in the movie that, you know, maybe even maybe today,
if you really want to be you know, quote unquote
punk rock. It's treated as a sort of a little
gag in the movie, this punk rock idea, but you know,
be kindness. Kindness is real punk rock and that that
that can sound so sentimental, but it's delivered in the

(01:02:59):
film in not a very sentimental way. That's what makes
this kind of story difficult to tell, and that's what makes,
you know, a Superman's story difficult to tell. People are
always complaining. I mean, I feel like all of my
comic book friends are always complaining that no one can
tell a Superman story. Superman just isn't compelling, He's not

(01:03:19):
that interesting. Well, I don't know that he's not interesting.
I just think it's difficult to tell a Superman story
well because the subject matter of this of goodness makes
it so easy to slip into sentimentality and what you
really have to do and I think there's you know,
there are serious theological connections to this. What you really

(01:03:41):
have to do is make goodness appealing and not sentimental.
Goodness really is the harder choice to wake up in
the morning and to not give in to that cynical
part of you, if you to put it in theological terms,

(01:04:02):
to get up in the morning and think about someone
else other than yourself is actually the more difficult thing
to do.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
But that's not what our culture is doing. I mean
our culture. I'll point everybody back to, especially Star Wars fan,
since he mentioned Star Wars and Ryan Johnson. I'm going
to point everyone back to the review that Cole did
recently on the and Ors series. It's like it's got
so many just accolades for its greediness, for the grind

(01:04:33):
of just trying to be against the Empire. But what
it was trying to do is recast the good and
evil story that from nineteen seventy seven into something else
that Star Wars hasn't been. And so, like you're saying,
we're kind of far fling, and so people are like, well,
where's the gritty, kind of you know, angst of Superman

(01:04:56):
that's culturally relevant.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Exactly, and and this film it just embraces something very different.
And you know, I will be the first one to
stand up and say that I was. I really was
impressed with what Gun was able to do with this material.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
I was one of the naysayers when I heard that
he took took over d C Studios, because I you know,
I'm maybe a little biased here as far as the
comic books go. I've always been far more of a
DC guy than a Marvel guy. I've read d C
comics for years I have. You know, this is telling
on myself, but I actually have a subscription at a

(01:05:35):
brick and mortar comic book shop. Yes, I'm a I'm
a nerd and d C d C. Those those titles
are what I pull. And when I heard that Gun
had taken over DC Studios, I thought, you know, this
is a this is a really terrible decision. I think
his movies are very vulgar. I think they're very caustic.
I don't think he's the right pick, especially not for Superman,

(01:05:59):
and very happy to have seen the film and see
the restraint that he put into that. So yeah, I
think you're right. People still want to believe that goodness
can be strong, that power can be restrained. That's and
this is, I think, is what it comes down to.
That someone might show up simply because it's the right
thing to do. And that's why I think Superman lasts

(01:06:24):
and ultimately why we still need a character like Superman.
It's why we still need heroes. I think Barbara Brockley
is very right about that, it's something that never goes
out of fashion.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Well, there's a lot there for the Christian apologists to
think about, especially the themes in this in this film.
Although I do sense that especially in the first Guardians
of the Galaxy film. Some of the more poignant parts
of that just in moments of that film made its
way into this film more fully fledged, I think, especially

(01:06:57):
when you're thinking about you know, origin and parents and
things like that. But on a lighter note, I wanted
to ask Cole, of all the various different incarnations of
Superman on film, what are the films that you could
recommend or would you say skip all of them and
start with this one.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
That's a good question, I would say very quickly, I
would say this is a good film to start with
if you've never encountered Superman. Before that being said, I
have great affinity for the nineteen seventy eight superhero film
just called Superman, the movie which was directed by Richard

(01:07:36):
Donner and stars Christopher Reeve as Superman. If you've never
seen that film, because it was such an important film
in terms of movie history. If you have never seen
the nineteen seventy eight Superman, I would say that's definitely
one to check out. You could check out that one
and then of course this one.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Well. Thanks Cole for being a guest again on the
Postmodern Realities podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Always a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Thank you you've been listening to episode four hundred and
fifty five of the Postmodern Realities podcast. Today's guest was
Colbergett and we were talking about the new film Superman.
Cole has written a film review for the Christian Research Journal.
His review is called Up, Up and Away Again, a

(01:08:24):
Review of Superman, and you can read it for free
without a paywall at equipped dot org. You won't want
to miss out on subscribing to the other podcasts from
the Christian Research Institute. We have the Bible answer Man podcast,
which is published Monday through Friday, with the best of
the week on Saturday. It's hosted by CRI president Hank

(01:08:47):
Handagraph and is available wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
In addition, Hank has a podcast called Hank Unplugged. Hank
takes you out of the studio and into his study
to engage in free flowing, essential Christian conversations on critical
issues with some of the most interesting, informative and inspirational

(01:09:07):
people on the planet. And you won't want to miss
out on the brand new podcast from the Christian Research Journal.
Christian Research Journal Reads presents audio versions of Christian Research
Journal articles. It was a print incarnation of almost forty
five years. It's now on the web as you know,
with new articles every single week, so you won't want

(01:09:31):
to miss these audio articles of some of our most
popular and most accessed articles on our website equip dot org.