Castle Azure

In Superman Returns and in pretty much every DC Snyder movie, Superman spends a lot of time brooding and staring into the distance (or staring at an unsuspecting Lois, in the case of Superman Returns), and even when he’s saving people or confronting supervillains, he’s generally pretty quiet. He even has fewer lines than Lois and Lex in Batman V Superman, which has his name in the title.

In contrast, the 1978 and 2025 versions talk in pretty much every scene they’re in, whether it’s reassuring the people they save, engaging in hero-villain trash talk, or calling out other heroes for being careless with collateral damage (Heck, David’s Superman talks to dogs).

Just Ultraman listening to his Japanese heavy metal playlist while sitting around waiting for Lex to give him orders.

Instead his Lex was one of the most vile, hateable, straight up evil versions of Lex put to screen, and Nick Hoult pulled it off beautifully.

James Gunn clearly didn’t want anyone to pull any Draco in Leather Pants “Thanos was right” stuff with this Lex, which I absolutely love.

As much as I like Magnificent Bastard Lex, I also love it when stories show how pathetic and prejudiced he really is.

I just keep imagining Battinson gliding awkwardly and crashing with his flight suit and the camera panning up to Mr. Terrific hovering on his chair, shaking his head in disapproval.

David Corenswet once talked about how Superman’s trunks looking silly shows how he doesn’t want to look cool or intimidating, how he’d rather be silly and approachable. And that’s one of my favorite things about Clark, how he’s so unapologetic about being earnest, sincere, and corny. Which makes the times he suddenly does care about being cool even funnier.

When Lois describes herself as punk rock he calls himself punk rock as well (and gets a little miffed when Lois goes all fandom gatekeeper on him). He also listens to music he thinks is edgy even if it actually isn’t, and tries to act cool and nonchalant during the interview scene (“Superman doesn’t have time for selfies”). And of course we can’t forget how he smoothly invites her for another interview only to break into the biggest, goofiest smile when she says she loves him.

Of course, he also drops bangers like saying kindness and trust are the real punk rock and makes being sincere and corny the coolest thing ever, but it’s fun to watch him stumble over himself too.

It's been nearly a month and this movie still has me in a chokehold, so here's some more Clois (ft. the bestest boy Krypto) doing the pose from Gary Frank's Superman #700 cover to tide me over before my inevitable rewatch.

The man used his boss’s desire for world domination as an excuse to start his own boy band and did an absolutely stellar job at it.

Abandoning his family for his singing career is the source of his greatest shame, but he keeps singing four hundred years later.

Finally, during the “Your Idol” number, Jinu’s grinning and enjoying the performance way too much for someone who’s being emotionally tortured by his boss and who just publicly humiliated his love interest.

If Ultraman ever returns in a sequel as Bizarro and gets a redemption arc, I’d imagine him being Clark’s broody little brother who blasts his music throughout the Fortress of Solitude. This would especially annoy Clark because according to James Gunn on the description of his playlist, he enjoys music that he thinks is edgy but isn’t actually as edgy as he thinks it is, so Bizarro being into heavy metal would force him to rethink his definition of edge.