The DCEU kicked off with Man of Steel in 2013 and quickly proved to audiences that they were not following the typical interpretations of their main characters. The Justice League members that have appeared in the DCEU are nearly unrecognizable.
While having different stories told about beloved characters can be fun and interesting, it is unfortunate when those story decisions are made at the expense of the character’s true traits. While Man of Steel isn’t a bad movie, it did change Superman drastically, in many ways. In fact, there were many times that Man of Steel basically just completely ignored everything that Superman stood for.
10 Clark Never Learned How To Use His Powers When He Was Young
When Clark Kent was a child, he was often depicted as slowly learning how to wield his superhuman powers for good. He may have been an alien, but he was still a little boy being raised in Smallville, Kansas, by human parents. His upbringing was not unlike many other children in the same location.
However, in Man of Steel, Clark’s adoptive parents, Martha and Jonathan— or Ma and Pa— Kent, actively encourage him to suppress his powers. They fear what could happen to Clark if he loses control or if somebody finds out about him, but, in doing so, they inadvertently teach him to deny his own nature.
9 Pa Kent Died Because Clark Had To Keep Himself A Secret
Over the years Clark Kent has existed in the comics, he has drawn inspiration and taken advice from a fair number of people. Even Superman is not infallible, and he needs support from others in his life. There are few people that Clark trusts more than his parents. Often, Clark will return to Smallville just to seek guidance from his parents.
However, in Man of Steel, Clark actually loses Jonathan at a young age. Not only does Jonathan Kent die, but he dies because he doesn’t want Clark to reveal his powers. This seems like such the antithesis of Pa and Clark in the comics that it’s almost glaring in the film in its difference.
8 Clark’s Trajectory Follows The Christ Figure Narrative Rather Than Superman’s
Rather than spending his early life building himself up as Clark Kent and as Superman, the Clark Kent of the DCEU spends his young life completely off the grid. He feels such guilt over his father’s death that he basically drops off the face of the Earth.
Rather than finding himself, this time is spent hiding under false names, occasionally helping people in the process. It takes Clark a long time to choose to come back and try to help, and he doesn’t even really want to, at first. He’s still finding himself, but a Clark who doesn’t even know he can fly by the time he’s an adult is rather startling for DC fans.
7 Superman Is More Alien Than Human— And Expresses It
While characters like Clark Kent and J’onn J’onzz, or Martian Manhunter, may not be human, they have basically adopted Earth as their home planet. There are no Martians left, nor are there any (or, many) Kryptonians left. However, Clark and J’onn both feel that Earth has become their home-planet-away-from-home-planet.
The Clark Kent present in Man of Steel is not deeply connected to his Earth heritage, however. In Man of Steel, Superman feels more alien than ever. He is othered in a way he almost never is by humans. Even more than that, Clark himself seems distanced from humanity, and he sees himself more as their savior and guide, as Jor-El wanted him to be, than being one of them.
6 Clark Turns Himself Over To The United States Government
An ongoing problem that franchises like the MCU and the DCEU have is the excessive involvement of the American government in everything that happens. After General Zod has his broadcast in Man of Steel where he demands that Kal-El surrender himself, Clark does actually choose to surrender.
However, rather than surrendering himself to Zod to actually deal with this, Clark instead turns himself over to the United States Government as a show of good faith. He’s basically turning himself over so that he can show he’s on their side, but the government is not an entity that Superman should seek the approval of. In fact, more than anything, he’d probably have to fight the actions of the government in an actual story about Superman and the government.
5 Superman Causes Immense Destruction, Used To Paint Him As The Bad Guy To Batman
Many superhero movies deal with the real-world impact of the destructive battles superheroes fight in. The MCU had to deal with the destruction caused during the Battle of New York at length in order to make it seem more realistic for the audience, apparently. Similar events transpired in the DCEU.
While trying to stop Zod, Superman and the other Kryptonian inadvertently cause untold amounts of damage. There are several casualties, as well. All of this serves for Batman to later use to paint Superman as the bad guy, so he can have excuses to fight him in the next movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
4 People Don’t Trust Superman— Or Even Really Know Who He Is
Because of the shift in Clark Kent’s early life story, Superman has barely any presence in the world in the DCEU. While it’s established later in the franchise that Batman has been active in Gotham for around twenty years by this point, Clark Kent is significantly younger, and hasn’t spent any time as Superman on Earth.
While he has helped some people, it was always whenever he came across issues under his aliases. Man of Steel found Clark still discovering his powers as an adult, and so he still has to create and establish Superman as a hero. As a result, in this film, nobody even knows who Superman is, and it makes it impossible for anyone to trust him as anything more than an extraterrestrial threat.
3 Clark Is Immediately Forced To Kill Zod As One Of His Very First Actions
Superman is many, many things, but one thing he consistently tries not to be, much like Batman, is a killer. If heroes like Superman kill people, it defeats the whole purpose of their symbolic image, and drags them down to the human level everybody else is on. Despite this, the movie Man of Steel decided to force Clark to kill Zod as one of his first actions as Superman.
When Zod went too far and was trying to kill cornered innocents in cold blood, Clark had no choice but to snap Zod’s neck. While the decision was posed as necessary in context, the fact that the plot necessitated Superman murdering another Kryptonian so quickly seemed like a massive jump for Clark so soon in his story.
2 Superman Has To Get The Government’s Permission To Be Superman
The involvement Superman has with the government in Man of Steel continues even past his surrender to them after Zod’s threatening broadcast. After Zod has been killed, Superman basically has to agree to the government’s terms if he wants to keep being a superhero. Clark establishes his alter ego of Clark Kent as a journalist at the Daily Planet easily enough.
However, he has to actually convince the government to let him be a superhero — and, when they agree, it’s on their terms. All this involvement with the United States government is completely unnecessary in the film as a whole. The fact that Superman bows to the government is more frustrating to fans than many other aspects of the film.
1 Being Superman Came Before Being Clark Kent In The DCEU
In order to be a superhero like Superman, one first needs to understand and truly value humanity. Clark Kent may see himself as the hero of humanity in Man of Steel, but he’s more Kal-El than Clark. He’s an alien first, and humans are not quite connected with him. A large part of this comes from the fact that Clark has never really gotten to be Clark Kent in the DCEU.
Hopefully, over time, Clark Kent will come to have a concrete personality and persona. However, because Kal-El was Superman before he was ever concretely Clark Kent in Man of Steel, the man feels less steady as a hero than he typically does.
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