What Does Superman Stand For?
James Gunn’s Superman is exactly the movie Warner Bros. needed a decade ago. Unfortunately, Zack Snyder helmed the DC cinematic universe during the 2010s.
Beginning with Man of Steel in 2013, “the Snyderverse” attempted to deconstruct and subvert the defining attributes of each superpowered IP. So, instead of being the embodiment of altruism and paragon of “truth, justice, and the American way,” Snyder’s Superman (Henry Cavill) was a mopey Randian hero who hems and haws over whether humanity deserves his protection, and if doing so would come at a personal cost.
Snyder boldly eschewed simple notions of morality to reflect a more conflicted view of American society and human nature. His creative endeavor would’ve been interesting had the movies themselves not been as dull as they were pompous, with all the razzle-dazzle of a funeral dirge.
While “the Snyder-verse” remains ill-conceived and horrendously executed, I can’t help but wonder if it was ahead of its time. Or, perhaps, the issue is that Gunn’s attempt to filter nostalgia into a timeless superhero romp is ill-suited to the present moment.
In 2025, in a sociopolitical landscape where altruism and “the American way” are diametrically opposed, James Gunn’s Superman feels more than slightly oxymoronic.
Considered in a vacuum, Superman is a more than adequate superhero movie that, unlike Snyder's films, fundamentally understands the ethos of the IP. Alas, Superman exists in the context of all that we live in and what came before it.
You Think Superman Just Fell Out of a Coconut Tree?
Q: When was Superman’s original motto of "Truth, Justice and the American Way" established? Was it during the 1940s at the height of World War II?
A: It was, yes. Specifically, in the intro of the Adventures of Superman radio show. But after the war, it went back to “Truth and Justice.”
The 1948 Superman film serial changed the motto to “Truth, Tolerance and Justice.” “American Way” was added again in the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV show with George Reeves, but after that went off the air, the Filmation Superman cartoons of the ’60s had it as “Truth, Justice and Freedom.”
It wasn’t until 1978’s Superman: The Movie that “Truth, Justice and the American Way” became a lasting indelible slogan, up until it was modified to “Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow” for Jon Kent’s debut as Superman in 2022.
-When Did Superman Get His Original “American Way” Motto? by Alex Jaffe, a DC Comics Online Editorial published Wednesday, July 9th, 2025.
Upon announcing this “evolution” to Superman’s ethos in 2021, DC stated Superman’s motto was changed “to better reflect the storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor Superman’s incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world.”1
I’m sure their decision to sever Superman’s association with “the American way” had nothing to do with the previous four years of America’s global debasement under the first Trump Administration. The timing is merely a coincidence, surely.
So, Gunn’s Superman doesn’t have to champion “the American way,” instead it champions “a better tomorrow.” However, what that means within Gunn’s film is intentionally ambiguous. Where Snyder’s films were all too eager to engage with contemporary politics, Gunn is conspicuously coy. The film foregrounds Superman’s intrusion into an international conflict between two fictional countries, Boravia and Jarhanpur.
When we see the humble citizens of Jarhanpur facing invasion by the elite Boravian army, the asymmetry of military power vaguely evokes the spectre of Israel’s violence against the people of Palestine… but not really.
While Superman’s geopolitical aggressor, Boravia, is allied with the United States (much like the state of Israel), the corrupt Boravian President speaks in an unspecified Slavic language that, it turns out, is Croatian. Linguistically, this evokes the spectre of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… but not really.
The U.S. government has a presence within Superman, with a couple of scenes set at the Pentagon. So, in Superman, America exists, but the foreign nations are fictional.2 This isn’t inherently a problem, and I don’t expect superhero movies to function like political treatises. However, as Gunn’s ultra-palatable film unfolded, I was acutely aware that the film wasn’t engaging with real-world conflicts, so my experience was mired in questions about Gunn’s intent and the film’s point of view.
Superman stands for “a better tomorrow,” sure, but what does that actually mean beyond the film’s vague notions of hope in humanity? Unburdened by “the American way,” Superman’s optimism about humanity’s future is contrived in a vacuum, completely untethered to reality.
My faith in humanity as a global collective is akin to my faith in American righteousness: nearly non-existent. And so, the reassurances of Gunn’s Superman are, at best, wishful idealism or, at worst, deluded propaganda. To be clear, it’s okay that Gunn’s Superman film traffics in positivity and hope. It suits the IP well. I, however, just can’t buy it.
Gunn’s slap-happy film feels particularly disingenuous when considered alongside his first entry into the DCEU, The Suicide Squad (2021), a violent and profane film that articulates an unvarnished disdain for American interventionism in Latin America. Gunn channels the moral rot and blatant hypocrisy of American geopolitics via the character Peacemaker (John Cena).
The Suicide Squad is evidence that Gunn has a point of view and the ability to sublimate commentary into superhero cinema. However, he’s better known for his Guardians of the Galaxy films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which coast on quippy dialogue and harmless irreverence.
Superman is cut from the same cloth as Guardians, a creative decision that doesn’t cater to my personal taste and sensibilities, but is better suited to the IP. Ultimately, Superman is an eminently watchable film, sure to please fans, and serves as a solid foundation for the forthcoming slew of superhero movies.
However, I cannot move beyond the fact that Gunn’s Superman and Peacemaker exist in the same universe. If future installments don’t explore their divergent conceptions of American ideology, Gunn’s DC universe will serve no purpose except generating profits and inducting a new generation of movie-goers into the Superman IP fandom — and if that isn’t “the American way,” I don’t know what is.
For more on the DCEU, check out:
Until next week, my fellow film freaks.
https://www.dc.com/blog/2021/10/16/superman-s-new-motto-revealed-at-dc-fan-dome
This trope is somewhat common in superhero cinema. Take, for example, Avengers: Age of Ultron, whose third act battle destroys Sokovia, a fictional Eastern European nation.