Right now, Warner Bros. apparently has zero interest in making another Superman movie. If the ending of Batman v Superman didn’t make that point abundantly clear, the utter lack of any direct sequels to any non-Justice League DC movies until at least 2020 seems to confirm it. But sooner or later, Superman will get another movie, and perhaps it should deal instead with Supermen. (Spoilers from this point forward.)
For those who haven’t seen it yet, Superman dies heroically at the end of Batman v Superman after spending the entire movie struggling with guilt over the civilians he couldn’t save. Superman’s inability to save everybody is really what drives the plot: Early in the movie, Bruce Wayne tries to find a little girl’s parents, only to have her point at a building that was punched through when he asks where her mother is. That more or less cements Bruce’s belief Superman is one bad day away from murdering humanity, and Superman’s failure to spot another disaster ahead of time, the Capitol bombing, further confirms it.
It’s a fascinating idea, if one that’s only partially explored, that being Superman would be a hard if not an almost unbearable responsibility. Superman is stuck with the impossible choice of deciding who lives and who dies, with his incredible power only magnifying his mistakes, and all he can do is live with the fallout of these no-win situations. It’s an interesting take on the guy, but that’s also only one aspect of Superman, and Batman v Superman has opened the door to explore other sides of Superman, specifically with some Supermen.
A little comic book history is in order: Doomsday — the hulking villain of Batman v Superman‘s final act — and Superman killed each other on comic book pages in 1992, and after a brief hiatus, the Superman comics returned, with four Supermen: The publicity hound Metropolis Kid; the armor-clad, sledgehammer-swinging Man of Steel; the grim anti-hero The Last Son of Krypton; and a mysterious cyborg calling himself The Man of Tomorrow. The open question, of course, was whether any of these guys were Superman, and if they weren’t, just who they really were.
That’s perfect for the themes of responsibility these movies have been exploring. Because instead of one Superman struggling with the responsibility of ultimate power, you’ve got a team of Supermen who each have a different angle on what it means to be a hero and how you make those tough choices. Some aspects of the comic would need to be tweaked, of course; Cyborg Superman turns out to be astronaut Hank Henshaw, who holds a grudge against Superman for a space disaster and ultimately wants to turn Earth into the Death Star. But it would allow whoever might direct Men of Steel to deal with everything from the light, cheery side of the character to the tough moral conundrums without compromising. (It’d also have the useful side effect of redeeming poor Steel, victim of one of the worst comic book movies ever made.)
The reason Superman is so grim in his movies is that he has to go at it alone and make the hard choices; the buck quite literally stops with him. By bringing in the Supermen, we’d have more humor some audiences missed and the ability to better explore just what it means to be the guy, or team, everyone counts on without being quite as serious as one person alone shouldering the burden really demands. Besides, if they stick to the comics, they’ll have to let Superman lighten up. How seriously can you take anybody’s brooding when they’re wearing the supermullet?