Superman: James Gunn’s Ending Speech Shows Two Artists Who Truly Get the Character

This article contains spoilers for Superman.

For decades creators across various media, and even many audiences, have had the same opinion about Superman: “He’s just too powerful.” Creators couldn’t figure out how to write compelling stories about a man who cannot be hurt. Audiences couldn’t figure out how to relate to a guy who lifts buildings.

In some ways, James Gunn got around the problem in his Superman by depowering the central character. After all, the movie opens with a battered Supes crashing into the arctic, having lost his first battle. Throughout the rest of the picture, we also see him nearly suffocated and temporarily blinded by eye lasers. This isn’t the stoic Superman who smirks while letting bullets bounce off his impervious skin. However, Superman’s most important, most devastating vulnerability is under the skin, something which only finally becomes clear during the character’s climactic speech at the movie’s end.

It’s interesting to note, too, since a recently released behind-the-scenes video showed Gunn and star David Corenswet disagree on some of the speech’s specifics while shooting the scene last year. Perhaps unsurprisingly this peek behind the curtain led to some easily excitable folks on social to take this as evidence that the director fundamentally misunderstands the character. Yet we’d argue the video instead demonstrates Gunn intuitively understands Superman because he is focused on Kal-El’s vulnerable and love of humanity.

Man of Feelings

Superman builds to a thundering crescendo with the Man of Steel battling the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) and Clark’s own brutish clone with nothing less than the fate of the planet at stake. But that’s not really the climax of the film. The climax comes when Superman confronts Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor in the evil billionaire’s headquarters.

Of course the human Luthor cannot physically compete with the Kryptonian Superman, a point that Lex brings up in one final, sputtering declaration that ends with him spitting the word “alien” as if it were a slur.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Luthor!” Superman forcefully responds. In a surprisingly emotional rejoinder, Superman explains how he tries to do his best and often fails, and that makes him just as human as anyone else. The confession doesn’t stop Luthor—for that, Superman had to rely on the ever-unruly Krypto—but it does remind the audience, and possible some of the LuthorCorp employees, how much we all have in common.

The speech underscores a theme running throughout Superman: this guy truly loves humanity and wants to be a part of them. Rather than reveling in the elements that make him Superman and the power he can exert over those weaker than him, Clark Kent longs to connect with others.

The desire to be with humanity obviously sets Gunn’s Superman apart from that of Zack Snyder, who imagined the Man of Steel as a god who resented those who needed him. It also differentiates Gunn’s take from the one in Superman Returns, which treated Superman as a Christ figure come to inspire humanity, but who must ultimately remain separated from it—as demonstrated in the somewhat creepy scenes of Superman watching Lois Lane from a distance. By contrast, Gunn’s humanist Superman goes even beyond the iconic Christopher Reeve version of the character. That beloved iteration definitely put on a show as Clark Kent and certainly had his emotional connections to Margot Kidder’s Lois, but he was also ultimately an alien with amazing powers. He couldn’t be with Lois in Superman II, because his abilities also made him destined to be alone and elevated above we mere mortals.

Gunn’s Superman wants so badly to be part of humanity that Luthor’s claims that he isn’t actually human hurts his feelings. It’s a genuine hurt, one that goes deeper than the various cuts and breaks that Superman sustains throughout the movie. And its a hurt that not everyone initially understood.

A Climactic Clash

In the recently released behind the scenes video, we see Corenswet and Gunn slightly butt heads while shooting the aforementioned speech. By his own admission, Corenswet had trouble following Gunn’s instruction. Frustrated, he pulls the director aside and questions Superman telling Luthor that he’s human, claiming that it feels like he/Superman is “trying to prove it still instead of [showing] I really know it.”

Corenswet’s confession sets off a lightbulb in Gunn’s head, and the director gets up to speak directly with his actor. “That’s exactly right,” says the excitable Gunn. “There are feelings and there are thoughts. Your feelings about feeling bad are okay. It’s not wrong for you to feel that way.” In other words, Gunn tells Corenswet that it’s not just human for Superman to have his feelings hurt when Luthor and others reject him. It’s also human for him to not understand his feelings and to have conflicting emotions.

Some viewers certainly take Corenswet’s side in the debate. They aren’t used to seeing their heroes feel conflicted, at least not during the final showdown and at least not when it’s Superman. They want a hero who is strong, determined, and confident, especially when contrasted against the clearly insecure baddie. But as so many people have observed, a completely invulnerable Superman is boring. To de-power Superman too much is to make him redundant, just like any other of the hundreds of superheroes who already exist. So Gunn found the perfect solution: he made Superman into a person, someone who is hard to hurt physically but is much more vulnerable emotionally, precisely because of the way he feels about the people who lives with.

The Neverending Internal Battle

The fact that people are debating Superman and Gunn’s decision proves that the question isn’t settled. And Superman is the type of character who can certainly stand up to different interpretations, as demonstrated by the many alternate reality takes in comics and other media.

But Gunn certainly shows that he’s found a solution for Superman, one that works for our time. Much has been said about Superman’s kindness is punk ethos. However, more needs to be said about his insistence that to be human is to be vulnerable, that we all deserve kindness and care. Such vulnerability may not make Superman godlike, but it certainly makes him heroic.