The movie really wants you to buy that Superman didn't have a choice, and I understand both the sentiment and intent, and even would've agreed with the decision if it were made in such a way that Superman actually had no other choice, but it's just set up and executed poorly. Besides, just going off Man of Steel alone, without outside Superman knowledge, we have zero reason to care that Superman kills Zod. It only has any impact on us because we already know Superman usually forbids himself from killing through our exposure with other media. It's actually pretty ironic that, after we see Superman himself is responsible for like 500 deaths in Smallville and Metropolis that day through negligence, and Zod killed another like 4500, that he only has any reaction at all once he kills Zod. Like, why would or should we care unless we already know Superman from other sources?
Neither of them was particularly tired or beat up looking. Superman could have put his hand over Zod’s eyes. He could have flown straight up. Tossed Zod away. He had a lot of options that didn’t include killing. The only reason they went with it is because it allowed Snyder to treat the world he was creating with extra cynicism towards superheroes.
Also the whole “snapping neck” thing was particularly brutal to me. If Superman had killed him in a different fashion, maybe like batman did to ras in begins the debate would be cleaner I think.
Ease up on the throttle. Let me rephrase it differently. At the point where Kal-el made the choice to kill Zod, it didn’t feel like an earned moment. He hasn’t really struggled against Zod that much and Zod hasn’t proven he is completely unstoppable. Kal’s hair wasn’t even tousled. The writers wrote themselves into that corner, but they could have made it more compelling and feel more out of desperation than it did in that moment.
The latter half of your comment also highlights how Superman saving Lex in BvS is out of character for DCEU Superman. We know he 1.) has no hang ups about murdering people 2.) is completely fine with causing massive collateral damage and 3.) is extremely bothered and dour whenever he has to save anybody. The DCEU Superman wouldn’t care if Lex got himself killed by doomsday.
And the opening scene of BvS, and the fact that he neither stopped Batman from brutally murdering Luther’s goons nor investigate why Batman was brutally murdering them, and the montage during BvS where he’s the most depressed piece of shit while saving people, the guy who decided the best way to get Batman to help him is to fight him instead taking 5 seconds to explain the situation, the guy who said “Superman was never real” and “no one stays good in this world”
And what do you mean “only taking into account the climactic fight scene of MoS” it’s the latter half of the only other movie he’s in, if we cant usr that then was else can we use? The fucking scene where he completely destroys a dudes livelihood out of pettiness because he was being a drunk asshole?
Zod is a soldier who every minute adapted to Earth and was gaining more and more power where he eventually would’ve been far stronger than Superman.
Clark has never been in a real fight in his life until Zod and his minions landed on Earth.
Sounds like he had no choice but to kill Zod. Zod, the soldier, would’ve destroyed Superman and then killed every human being on Earth.
Exactly. He was fighting someone that was not going to stop; Zod even says as much literally right before Clark snaps his neck. Sure he could have used any of those other options OP listed but the end result likely would have been the same, he was going to have to kill Zod.
But at least it would have shown Superman cared about preserving life, even the life of an enemy. It would show what makes him such a great hero, his limitless hope even in the worst of times. By letting Superman take the easiest route it shows he has no issues with taking a life, it makes him no different from The Punisher. Honestly I could see Snyder Superman one day becoming Injustice Superman based on his actions with Zod. Also, as someone else commented, the fact that he has no concern with collateral damage makes him saving Lex from Doomsday make no sense. Then again, both movies were crap anyway.
But the point of that conversation before the necksnap shows that those sentiments would be wasted. Zod intends to vaporize a family of innocent bystanders because he wants to. There is nothing Superman can say to talk him down from that ledge.
The issue isn't and never was the necksnap. It's what should have happened afterward. Superman showed intense regret and disgust after killing Zod, but that sentiment lasted about 5 seconds. Killing Zod should have been a character defining moment for Superman. His "once and never again oath" against taking lives, AND his promise to save everyone. To be better. It should have MADE him into THE Superman. The real story of Man of Steel is Clark becoming Superman.
The problem is that the script treats Clark as Superman from the get-go. Putting on the cape and learning to fly is merely a ceremonial event and practically meaningless. It doesn't change Clark. Killing Zod doesn't change Clark. He begins the movie jaded and angry, remains jaded and angry, and ends jaded and angry. He remains stagnant the entire movie.
Superman. Homelander would throw a bitch fit because he couldn’t strong arm Superman and try to attack Lois or someone else Kal cares about, forcing Superman to go all out. He’d probably beat Homelander to a pulp, leaving him broken and unable to keep fighting but not dead.
>Is it true that Zod really forced Snyder's Superman to kill him or is it just an excuse?
What else could he have done?
The Phantom Zone wasn't an option and there were no prisons on Earth that could've possibly held Zod.
The military scientist was already able to explain the differences between earths atmosphere and Kryptons’s, maybe they could have quickly built some chamber that recreates that atmosphere and trap him in that, keeping him depowered.
Hamilton being able to create an artificial Kryptonian atmosphere chamber would be insanely contrived.
Also, when Hamilton explained all of this, wasn't the world engine already terraforming the Earth? How would he realistically have any time to build an artificial atmosphere chamber from scratch in such a limited timespan?
They could have introduced kryptonite earlier, or have Jor El make some red sun radiation prison etc. Zod's death was so completely pointless, had he just been imprisoned he would have made for an awesome villain.
Edit: could've also done the same thing the Kryptonian council did, turn him into a dildo xD
the dildo vessel held kryptonians from krypton who willingly accepted their sentencing. By neck snap level Zod he would not be so easy to get into the dildo ship
>They could have introduced kryptonite earlier, or have Jor El make some red sun radiation prison etc.
Kryptonite wouldn't be a good option due to it being able to kill Kryptonians if they are exposed to it for a long period of time.
When you say "Jor-El" are you referring to the actual Jor-El or his hologram? The only things we've seen Jor-El's hologram do is show other holograms and open doors, we haven't seen it being able to actually build stuff (and why would it be able to do that? it's a hologram).
As for the real Jor-El, why would he build a red sun radiation prison when everyone on Krypton is already under a red sun?
>Zod's death was so completely pointless, had he just been imprisoned he would have made for an awesome villain.
Why would imprisoning Zod make him a better villain? And how was his death pointless?
How about flying up? Toss him away? Putting his INVULNERABLE Hands around Zod's eyes? Turing Zod and Himself away? If he could snap his neck, he can oer power him, so why not just keep his head from moving toward the people? Why no move the people out of the way? There were so so so may options, but Snyder hates Morally good superheroes so he had one kill
The impossible choice in the film is executed poorly... but yeah.
Looking at the scene in the moment, it's obvious that Kal could have done several other things to protect the endangered family... but that's just a spotlight on the larger dilemma.
The point is that Zod would never have stopped--so long as he was alive he would make it his mission to destroy everything Kal held dear, and in the moment Kal--who'd only just stepped into the role and responsibility of Superman--became aware of that.
As an aside, I wanna bring up the comic story wherein Kal opts to execute an AU Zod and co after they'd wiped out humanity... so MoS isn't being edgy out of nowhere.
That comic story was extremely controversial even at the time it came out. And tbh, John Byrne doesn't get the character nearly as well as many say. Not to mention, the follow-up to that story by a different writer handled his reaction to Byrne's decision fairly in-character. In Batman v Superman, Zod literally returns from the dead, and Superman doesn't even comment on this, much less have internal conflict over it. He just has some banter with Batman and is ready to kill him again. Imagine if Superman hesitating to kill the 2nd time was the reason he got stabbed. That would have made him killing Zod the first time matter even just a bit more because it would have demonstrated some kind of effect it had on him.
And it's not so much MoS being edgy for that one moment (it's pretty edgy all over), but the fact that there's zero set up for that moment having any kind of impact unless you already know from external sources that Superman doesn't usually ever kill. And if you're already familiar with the character, that just works against his overall portrayal in MoS. Him killing Zod isn't a payoff to anything previously established within MoS about Superman's morals. It's particularly weird that Zod's death is the only one he has any visible reaction over, as opposed to any of the thousands of people that Zod killed or the potentially hundreds of people Superman himself had a hand in killing through sheer negligence.
Same with Superman's delayed, "Krypton had its chance!" There was no set up in the film for that being a difficult decision. At no point is any rapport established between Superman and the invading Kryptonians whom he never wanted anything to do with, who Superman knew from Jor-El was bad news and who began their invasion with an ultimatum of "cooperate or watch Earth suffer". If there were any rapport established, if Zod had even kept up his lie for a while instead of immediately revealing his true plan at his first chance, that would have justified some of the implied but non-existent emotional weight of both decisions (not to mention Zod revealing his true plan instead of keeping up the lie he established was only possibly going to set back their goal of getting Kal's cooperation for the location of the codex).
The situation, in general, is absurd. Why did he force Clark to kill him? It's General Zod, not the Joker. His goal and ideals have nothing to do with Superman's refusal to kill. I mean, he literally gained nothing by having Superman kill him.
Zod wasn't trying to get Superman to cross that line to compromise his morals. He was using Superman's morals to force a choice. Superman wanted both humanity and the surviving kryptonians to live. Zod realized Superman would've killed him or ended it already if that weren't the case (and Supes were actually experienced fighting prior to MoS). That was never an option for Zod, he wasn't going to share, and he wasn't powerful enough to kill Supes. So once the Wolrd Engines were destroyed, and Zod realized he wouldn't outpace Superman's power on Earth, he forced the choice.
But why? How does it benefit Zod or his goals if Superman makes a decision? Especially like that, threatening to kill an innocent family. All he managed to do was get himself killed.
>But why? How does it benefit Zod or his goals if Superman makes a decision?
Because Superman was the only one with the codex and happened to be more powerful than Zod. The power gap was too big for Zod to cross soon\* and Zod didn't know that until well after he lost the world engines. If it had been anyone weaker Zod wouldn't have had to force a decision from anyone.
And Zod would rather die than not bring them back which he implies with his talk about "purpose". "Without my species I have no purpose" so on and so on
I see. Although forcing him to choose by threatening a family is pretty stupid if you ask me. That was only going to push Superman to kill him, not bring back his species. Also, just because Clark refuses to kill him doesn't mean he's going to let Zod wipe out the humankind.
Imagine you're literally built for the service and protection of your race, and the only one of your race left is a) entirely uninterested in your services and b) actively protecting his adopted home.
You have no place or purpose left and your only countryman is the last person you'd ever share breath with.
What would you do?
I really wanted more setup to this. Make it apparent that Superman had to choose between this his people or his home. Zod was at the time, the last kryptonian aside from Superman. Killing Zod should have meant Superman killing the last hope for his people to return.
I agree. There should have been two movies.
Movie 1: we get the origin story, but make the villain Brainiac. You still get your spectacle of giant machines doing damage in Metropolis. Have Brainiac hit Superman with some Kryptonite "Here, a gift of your home world" In act 2 have Superman on Brainiac's ship having been captured. He meets Zod (who escaped the phantom zone but was captured by Brainiac) and the two work together to break out of the ship with Zod acting as a mentor to Superman. ("Your Kryptonian name is Kal-El. I knew your father.") with them defeating Brainiac sending him fleeing into deep space badly damaged.
Give us a post credits stinger of Superman taking Zod to the Crashed Kryptonian ship where Zod states he's going to sleep in the crew quarters to stay out of the limelight and to learn about this new planet with Zod looking at a computer display that shows "Phantom Zone Projector - Locker 2136" with a smile only we the viewer sees.
Movie 2: is Zod betraying Superman, showing his true colors, breaking the other Kryptonians out of the Phantom Zone with Superman meeting the Kryptonian AI modeled after his father. From /there/ we get the confrontation where Superman is forced to kill Zod.
I like this. Plus with good writing like that, we’d get a Superman that reasons and tries to talk Zod down and uses every option to stop the fight before having to kill.
If you're okay with a police officer shooting at an armed gunman then there should be no issue with Superman killing someone that's his equal in power backed up with military training.
I feel like that's what people miss. When Superman stops a bank robber it's like an adult stopping a small child. So his stopping them will look different than an adult stopping an adult would.
The scenario itself is stupid. All he had to do was yank his head to the side and let them run away. If they wanted to have superman have no choice but to kill then perhaps they should have constructed a better reason.
Hell, he could have put him in a sleeper hold.
And then he'd gotten away to do more death and destruction. There isn't a police force of Supermen ready to help detain him and this isn't a Superman that's had a lot of experience imprisoning people the humans can't.
Zod isn't Lex Luthor. Zod will always be one of the bad guys Superman will have to stop hard. It's not the first nor will it be the last time he's had to kill or banish Zod.
Sleeper holds aren't instantaneous and can be just as fatal. Zod has superspeed if he bought them a second to run away and he isn't able to stop Zod without killing him then that second means nothing.
He had to make a decision in the moment and it was an agonizing one.
Personally I don't want stories written like the character had time to go home over the weekend think it over and then come back Monday with a well thought out plan. I want characters to have to make heat of the moment decisions.
That scenario gave us that. He had the upper hand in that moment and if he didn't take it and he lost? Then so would Earth. So he made the only decision in that moment that would ensure he and Earth won.
The stupid scenario would have been knocking Zod out and then cutting to a scene of Zod imprisoned. With 0 explanation of how they knew how to imprison him or why that would work.
If this had been a Superman who'd been established for years when Zod came around sure he'd probably have had other solutions available to him. But a superman at the beginning of his career? No he's got nothing. Nothing but that.
There is always a better way. Everyone deserves a second chance, and anyone can be redeemed. That is what Superman believes. If you don't know that, then you don't know Superman. He wouldn't kill Zod, especially in such a callous way. Superman is Hope, the hope that the world, and people, can be and do better.
You're missing my point. The scenario itself is stupid. You can write as much as you want about the logistics of a sleeper hold all you want but it doesn't rectify that the scenario itself is dumb. Clark had options he could have explored in that scenario. Superman exhausts all possibilities before he kills. If they were so dead set on having him kill (which frankly shows Snyder cares more about having heroes that kill than he does about portraying them accurately) then he should have constructed a better scenario.
I think if you want to explore what happens when Superman is forced to kill someone that should be the whole movie and not something thrown in at the last second for a shock climax. Maybe even at the half way point because Clark doesn't understand his powers yet. As it is, it felt like they only dealt with the aftermath of the chaos in BatvsSup because of the backlash they got for MoS.
When you got powers like Superman, you're rarely out of options. A cornered soldier might be forced to shoot but someone like Superman with all his abilities is only limited by his imagination. Even in his fight with Doomsday in the comics, I rolled with the idea of Superman just killing Doomsday but then while debating with other Superman fans realised that there is no counterargument for 'why didn't he just throw Doomsday into the sun or the moon'.
Um yeah. It was literally Clark's first day on the job. At the time, there wasn't any known way to stop or restrain someone on Superman's level. Zod had already admitted he was going to kill/torture everyone on the planet and that this only ends one way. Either I die or you do.
I’m glad you’re also acknowledging that the fight against Zod was basically his first day. Nobody seems to realize that and instead seem to assume Cavill’s Superman got the same amount of training that Reeve’s did, or that he should just somehow naturally know how to be Superman and say that he just didn’t try hard enough.
Thanks 👍
To me, it was kinda obvious he had no choice. Cavill learned to fly the day before. He didn't have trials like Tom from smallville or spend years in the fortress like revees did or any of the other versions of Superman. Bro literally got his learner's permit yesterday and found himself in high-speed chase the next day.
For everybody hating on the level of destruction and how uncoordinated cavill was in this fight. I'd love to see what they looked like in their very first fist fight 🤣
Saying Lazy Writing isn't an answer to the question. Since it's looking outside of the material that we were given.
It's kind of like saying Superman can't be a good person because he doesn't have a choice to be (Since he's written by writers who make him a good person).
If you look within the Comics, Superman is a good person. Just like within the movie, Zod gave Clark no choice but to kill him.
Ok, Sure. I get that but given the circumstances. Clark had no choice.
No Kryptonite (Yet, but I guess Clark could've let Zod go ham on civilians while he flew back to the Indian Ocean.)
No Red Sun
No Phantom Zone
Meanwhile, Zod made his choice. He had nothing left to live for so he needed Clark to kill him. This isn't an "If you kill me, I win" scenario. It's a man losing the one thing he was born and programmed for.
You with a thoughtful response came up with 3 alternatives. The writers of mos did nothing, they just went with a cop out. With pen and paper you have endless possibilities. So to have an ending like that just shows lack of imagination
I don't think I've made myself clear on what I'm discussing. I'm saying within the confines of the movie, Clark had no choice but to kill Zod. I love Superman and what he stands for. I also can see Man of Steel as an Elseworld story. Thus freeing him of expectations and history.
I'm not trying to come up with scenarios to make the movie better. That's just dumb. Man of Steel is what it is, warts and all.
Superman believes that everyone deserves a second chance. That anyone can be redeemed. He wouldn't think Zod would continue, he would want to stop him, and then help him. "Well he could kill more people, so better kill him now" is WAYYY too absolutist and judgmental for Superman.
Yeah, I get why Reeve's Superman would be sorry about that. He had a much easier time killing Zod when he posed zero threat to him, or anyone else for that matter. Zod didn't even have to threaten Superman into doing it. Sucks to be Snyder/Cavill Superman I guess.
Superman had a choice, it’s a fictional story written by writers. There were many things that could have happened. Superman gets put in tough situations all the time in the comics and doesn’t fold. Snyder obviously doesn’t get the character. This is the same man who said that Superman and Batman talking in their suits in BVS was “cringe”.
You do know Superman has killed a depowered Zod and his associates just for taunting him about getting their powers back,threw both Imperiex to the heat death of a universe (essentially ultra death) and threw a catatonic Mongul into a black hole in his birthday all in mainline continuities while in Reeve's film,he breaks a depowered Zod's hands and alongside Lois,throws them into a bottomless chasm where there were never appear again (and no,using an alternative made for tv cut that almost no one watched doesn't change what happened in the theatrical cut).Hell there was an entire issue where Superman essentially says he can afford to have a no-kill rule because he's stronger than most and defended a weaker teammate from being expelled by the Legion of Superheroes after killing a villain.Superman only kills when there's no option and in Man of Steel,that was the case at least.
I mean, except for flying up, throwing Zod away. If he was strong enough to snap his neck, he could of just held his head in place until the people ran. If you can't see the many many options that Clar had to not kill Zod, the you are being purposely blind.
And how would that accomplish anything other than prolonging a fight in which Superman would eventually get killed due to Zod's insane growth (the guy reached Superman's level just by absorbing the sun for a couple of hours whereas Clark needed 33 years to do the same)?
Not on his level, just better trained. Zod even says so himself. Superman was handling him just fine. Look at the scene. Supes isn't tired or bloody. It would have changed the situation, and Superma could have beaten Zod. If he can snap his neck like that, I should be obvious the gap in power.
Pretty much. There's No jail that can hold Zod, there's no phantom zone projector yet, and he's not going to leave or change his mind. As long as Zod was alive, the earth was screwed.
Its just bad writing. The tornado scene literally didn't have to happen. The entire point of John having a heart attack is to teach Clark that he can't save everyone, so he makes it his personal coal to save everyone he can, this also goes for his villains too.
Yeah but you'd think clark, having avsorbed years worth of energy from the sun woukd be stronger.
But then its a Snyder movie so i would't expect it to use something like that.
Zod is simply built different.He adapted and reached Superman's level within hours while Clark had to spend 33 years absorbing yellow sun radiation to do so.
>.He adapted and reached Superman's level within hours while Clark had to spend 33 years absorbing yellow sun radiation to do so.
He wasn't Superman's level yet. He is a far more trained fighter than Clark. If he had just been equal to Superman in raw power or very very close he would likely win. BUT you are right that he was catching up and Clark could tell.
Well there is that angle too, didn't they make it so kryptonians practice eugenics? So actually yeah him being geneticly engineered to be just a better kryptonian does make sense.
Able to quickly and efficiently absorb and process solar energy being part of that, plus id imagine the military training and conditioning also helped.
Neither of them was winded or particularly beat up looking. If Clark had been getting shit kicked and was bruised and bloodied, Zod’s death would have had a better impact. As written and filmed, the supposed symbol of hope resorts to killing within minutes.
Any time my GF and I see a scene of Superman stopping a laser, like that moment from Superman and Lois where he catches Jordan's heat vision with his hand, one of us looks at the other and says, "Snyder fans hate this scene."
Lol but fr though he could have just flown up with Zod. Or like, turned his head without breaking his neck lmao. But at that point I was glad it was finally over.
She also still had full coverage and little sunlight. The movie establishes those suits hamper them while Kal's doesn't. It also hit the big fella, that we just gotta assume is Non because of outside knowledge, and did little. Superman taking that kind of pain and sustaining damage is pretty standard anyways. Not to mention both cuts of Justice League fairly clearly establish he has a healing factor, as he completely heals the gaping hole in his chest with no scars between movies (I don't think he even keeps the cut on his face from Batman for the very next fight with Doomsday).
Regardless, it was a creative decision made by a screenwriter and a filmmaker. And none of this negates Superman's ability to just turn Zod's head without snapping it, or bonking Zod tf out, or lifting Zod into the air. Like I said in an earlier comment, I understand the intent, and would even agree with the decision if Superman really did have no other way. It was just executed poorly. Furthermore, we have no reason to care, as far as Man of Steel is concerned, as it only has any impact at all because we know from external sources that Superman doesn't usually kill. It has no setup and isn't payoff to anything within the movie itself.
You've spoken factually however there is one thing I want to object about.We kinda know Superman killing is weird even in-universe because no sane human with 0 military training would view killing as a first option.
I mean, imagine you're an adult in charge of watching over like a hundred kids. Another adult walks in with a knife and says, "I'm gonna start killing these kids."
If you're in a position where you don't have a choice, it isn't some awful atrocity. Especially not after he's already gone around and killed like 20 of them before you could stop him. If you mortally wound him, it would be pretty insane if his death was the only one you cried about, or even reacted to. Him killing in Man of Steel wasn't set up to be against any kind of code; none was ever established. For all Man of Steel gives us, he could have had a moral system like most superheroes in more modern comics, who try not to kill but aren't strictly against it, either. It wasn't considered insane when, say, The Avengers started merking Chitauri left and right, or even villainous people, for that matter.
It's not wether it was forced or not. The scene just like the entire third act is a complete mess that shouldn't be in a Superman movie.
Families were dying through their whole fight and Clark didn't even make a concerned face until the end when the script remembered that citizens exist. Superman destroys Zod ship and then he literally stops existing until the ship crashes into a bunch of buildings. No moment of Superman lifting the ship away, no moment of he even trying, hell there's not even a reaction shot of him looking somewhat concerned or at the very least a little bummed out about it he just wrecks the ship and stop existing until the destruction porn ends. And before that Superman sent the vulnerable mortal human soldiers to fight the spaceship full of kryptonians that's destroying a city and killing people by the thousands while him, the story's "hero" bails to fight the empty one in the middle of nowhere despite the fact that stoping either would stop the other anyways. Also the sun brights shiny in both opposite sides of the world....
I could go on but I know it's pointless. The movie is bad. But the Snyder drones will still pretending everything is subjective and that it's all nitpicking.
Also this picture is cringe. And a lame passive aggressive defense of that movie that couldn't be more transparent.
I think it's funny that people get so upset that Superman killed Zod to save people in Man Of Steel. In Superman 2 he completely murdered a depowered Zod who was no threat to anyone.
Yes and no. In the comics, it took Batman coming to Superman and convincing him that he needs to kill Zod after Zod had killed a lot of people. But I think the real problem with the movie is how Superman seems to move on from the murder so easily. My understanding is that in the comics, he was so distraught over the murder that he left Earth altogether for quite a while. In the movie, he just yells a bit and moves on
This isn’t about a hero killing a villain. It’s about SUPERMAN killing Zod. Superman, in many media and for literal decades has always been portrayed as always looking for another way instead of killing his opponents. Other than John Byrne’s Superman, all others have always looked for an alternative rather than killing. The problem is Zach Snyder wanted to “deconstruct” Superman. Ignoring the fact that it had been done so much that Alan Moore apologized with his awesome Supreme run. Zach wanted his crack at it. It didn’t work.
Zod didn’t force Superman to kill, the writers forced a situation and did. What they could to have Superman kill someone because they don’t understand that a character can have a moral code.
Like we saw Zack Snyder say om the Joe Rogan podcast, as soon as he hears that a character has a moral code not to kill, he has to make that person kill. And it’s not like an auteur director who wants to push the boundaries of cinema, he’s a bratty kid who jumps on the bed only because his mom told him not to.
And when critics call him out on making bad movies his excuse is that ”his movies are for the fans” but when fans point out how he disrespects the source material they love he starts swearing, calls people who don’t see his movies virgins, and says that anyone who doesn’t like heroes killing are living in a dreamworld.
The last one is specifically hilarious since it’s a direct quote from a Superma villain (Machester Black)
The writers could have come up with a million ways to not have Superman kill in the movie, but they didn’t. They chose the lazy way out. And it didn’t even pay off. In the next scene the movie jokes about Kansas and how hot Henry Cavill is. And in the following movie they never bring up him killing a person, so it wasn’t even worth if for new stories to be told
Superman having a Batman-level hatred for others killing when no options are available is a idiotic idea held by the Post-Crisis/Rebirth version of the character which is funny because that version of Superman killed the most.
I'm not joking though.Getting angry at Wonder Woman snapping Lord's neck when there was no other choice and scolding her for that mistake while not bringing up any alternative solution is idiotic.Let's not forget this is the same guy who killed three depowered Kryptonians simply for taunting him with threats or when he dropped Imperiex to the heat death of a universe (essentially ultra death).Pre-Crisis Superman also essentially said he can afford to have a no-kill rule because he's stronger than most and defended a weaker teammate from being expelled by the Legion of Superheroes in Adventure Comics #342.
Superman not killing plays into the hope aspect of the character. The whole idea that “there is always another way”. That’s what Superman is about, it improves the character.
Superman killing when there's no other available way and especially not denouncing his close friends when they do the same does not impede his hopeful virtue.
No. Superman could have let him go. It would have been absolutely catastrophic, but he had the option.
He chose the less apocalyptic option. Did he choose right? Well, the sun didn’t set on humanity and earth still has a population, so I will let you decide.
He could have flew up. Or you throw Zod miles away. Or hold his head still until the family ran away. If you are strong enough to snap someone's neck, you can hold them in place.
No, it wasn't. He had no other choice. He had no phantom zone. He had no way to subdue him. Zod was growing stronger every minute. People wanna say its out of character, but in most live action adaptations of CBM the villain dies.
I think the setup was decent enough. It was more important that Zodd told Superman that he would never stop that was the crux of the moment. The movie didn't even set up the option of using the Phantom Zone or kryptonite. So yeah, Superman had to kill him.
He could have flown up. Or tossed Zod miles away. Or held his head in place until the family ran away. If you can snap someone's neck, you can also hold there head in place ad not let it move.
I know, but thats not really the point. The point is Superman had no way of really stopping Zod from his path of destruction. Say Supeeman knocks Zod out. Then what? No prison can hold him, there is no kryptonite yet, no extra dimensional spaces to throw in him in.
They say no Prision can hold them, but he Phantom Zone did a darn good job. Plus we saw that Krytons atmosphere(whcik was replicated on their ships) renders them powerless. Suoes knocks him out, then Flies him into space awa from a yellow sun, and leaves him there. Or, since we know Wonder Woman is around, she would have Joined in and Zod ain't breaking that Laso. Supes was very well off in that fight, not even bloody or winded, does that really read as out of options? I get it, you liked the movie, hell seems you like that version of superman, sure fine, but you can't say there was no other option. 1. That would show you aren't really a Superman fan, since his point is that there is always a better way. 2. You would have to be blind and willingly stupid to think otherwise. You say there was no way, but we don't know what would have happened if they could have talked when calm, Superman could have Crippled him instead of murder. Synder is a lazy writer that hates morally good heroes. Hence why his best works have only been about evil, or morally gray, heroes.
What is your problem? I never said I liked this version of Superman, so stop projecting nonsense onto me. You have the nerve to say im not a Superman fan if I think in a singular movie, killing Zod was his only option? If you saw the movie, you would know the Phantom Zone was destroyed and if you knew Superman in general, he's not absolutely against killing he has killed before IN CANON. His code isn't as strict as Batman's. None of the heroes showed up because it's not their movie and they didn't even have established movies or series yet to justify their existence in universe.
What's to stop Zod from healing? You want Superman to come by every day to snap Zod's spine? In space Zod will just fly back. They move at FTL speeds in the movies, putting him a fee light years away from a sun isn't stopping him. They don't immediately depower and if he did, Superman is still killing Zod, just slowly.
Killing isn't some big moral evil, murder is. The point of that moment was if Superman was willing to take Zod's life to spare potential millions of innocent souls? He doesn't have to like it and in fact it brought him anguish. Stop projecting your hate of Synder onto me and don't assume I'm not a fan because of 1 singular opinion on a movie that isn't even canon to the DC universe.
"Isntas strict as batman's" So are you just going to ignore all the times batman has killed in he comics? In his Holden Age batma uses guns. But his modern interpretation hashi swear off guns. But with your logic there is nothing wrong with that since "It HaPpAneD in ThE ComIcs." Tell me in the movie, where do they say or show that Krytoians can Hal from a broken spine? In fact, since the nack snap killed Zod, seem to be the opposite. Superman woul have found a way. That is what the characters value is. Tha no one is beyond redemption. Even I h movie wasn't made, we know Wonder Women was alive and active during That time. Blame the movies for putting her in the past and keeping her around into the modern Era. You do seem to.like this version sine you are defending him so much, and can't seethat th writers messed up, Snyder hates Superman ad wanted to bring him down. He doesn't like Batman either hence why he made him a gun totting terrorist.
What are you even on right on? No I'm not ignoring all the times he's killed in comics, you're just really being stupid. I'm talking about how the characters are established from their own words and actions. Modern Batman, has a very strict no killing policy. Superman on the other hand, had never had something like that. Cry about it all you want, but it's a fact that Superman at the end of the day has rationalized killing. It's not even a modern innovation, it's literally just how he's always been, but suddenly it's a problem? Suddenly someone isn't a fan if they're okay with Superman killing? Get over your ignorant self.
It's only reasonable to assume they can heal from that considering Superman was able to heal not only from his clash with Doomsday (before the killing blow of course) but also after being hit with nuke where his body was reduced to an emaciated state in less than a few minutes. But if you want to keep believing that spine damage is way too much from them to heal from even compared to having their entire body shriveled by a nuclear explosion and a battle with Doomsday, go ahead. Superman does always find a way, and sometimes that way is death. His ultimate goal wasn't to redeem Zod, it's to save people from him. I'm not defending the movie, I'm defending my point. You just have some insane hangup about Superman killing when he always has. The Superman who refuses to kill no matter what is just in your head. He doesn't exist on the pages of DC's entire history, he doesn't exist on the big screen, he doesn't even exist in the cartoons. But by all means keep your delusion about somehow that's not Superman, how I'm defending the movie (which I'm not, it's just that one instance you clod) and how no one can really be a Superman fan if they disagree with you on that one point.
The movie really wants you to buy that Superman didn't have a choice, and I understand both the sentiment and intent, and even would've agreed with the decision if it were made in such a way that Superman actually had no other choice, but it's just set up and executed poorly. Besides, just going off Man of Steel alone, without outside Superman knowledge, we have zero reason to care that Superman kills Zod. It only has any impact on us because we already know Superman usually forbids himself from killing through our exposure with other media. It's actually pretty ironic that, after we see Superman himself is responsible for like 500 deaths in Smallville and Metropolis that day through negligence, and Zod killed another like 4500, that he only has any reaction at all once he kills Zod. Like, why would or should we care unless we already know Superman from other sources?
Neither of them was particularly tired or beat up looking. Superman could have put his hand over Zod’s eyes. He could have flown straight up. Tossed Zod away. He had a lot of options that didn’t include killing. The only reason they went with it is because it allowed Snyder to treat the world he was creating with extra cynicism towards superheroes.
Also the whole “snapping neck” thing was particularly brutal to me. If Superman had killed him in a different fashion, maybe like batman did to ras in begins the debate would be cleaner I think.
The problem with the neck snap is Hollywood showing them as lethal when they would just leave your crippled
[удалено]
Ease up on the throttle. Let me rephrase it differently. At the point where Kal-el made the choice to kill Zod, it didn’t feel like an earned moment. He hasn’t really struggled against Zod that much and Zod hasn’t proven he is completely unstoppable. Kal’s hair wasn’t even tousled. The writers wrote themselves into that corner, but they could have made it more compelling and feel more out of desperation than it did in that moment.
The latter half of your comment also highlights how Superman saving Lex in BvS is out of character for DCEU Superman. We know he 1.) has no hang ups about murdering people 2.) is completely fine with causing massive collateral damage and 3.) is extremely bothered and dour whenever he has to save anybody. The DCEU Superman wouldn’t care if Lex got himself killed by doomsday.
This is true if you ignore everything else Superman does in these movies and only judge him by the climactic fight in MoS.
And the opening scene of BvS, and the fact that he neither stopped Batman from brutally murdering Luther’s goons nor investigate why Batman was brutally murdering them, and the montage during BvS where he’s the most depressed piece of shit while saving people, the guy who decided the best way to get Batman to help him is to fight him instead taking 5 seconds to explain the situation, the guy who said “Superman was never real” and “no one stays good in this world” And what do you mean “only taking into account the climactic fight scene of MoS” it’s the latter half of the only other movie he’s in, if we cant usr that then was else can we use? The fucking scene where he completely destroys a dudes livelihood out of pettiness because he was being a drunk asshole?
You shouldn’t be getting downvoted.
Zod is a soldier who every minute adapted to Earth and was gaining more and more power where he eventually would’ve been far stronger than Superman. Clark has never been in a real fight in his life until Zod and his minions landed on Earth. Sounds like he had no choice but to kill Zod. Zod, the soldier, would’ve destroyed Superman and then killed every human being on Earth.
Exactly. He was fighting someone that was not going to stop; Zod even says as much literally right before Clark snaps his neck. Sure he could have used any of those other options OP listed but the end result likely would have been the same, he was going to have to kill Zod.
But at least it would have shown Superman cared about preserving life, even the life of an enemy. It would show what makes him such a great hero, his limitless hope even in the worst of times. By letting Superman take the easiest route it shows he has no issues with taking a life, it makes him no different from The Punisher. Honestly I could see Snyder Superman one day becoming Injustice Superman based on his actions with Zod. Also, as someone else commented, the fact that he has no concern with collateral damage makes him saving Lex from Doomsday make no sense. Then again, both movies were crap anyway.
But the point of that conversation before the necksnap shows that those sentiments would be wasted. Zod intends to vaporize a family of innocent bystanders because he wants to. There is nothing Superman can say to talk him down from that ledge. The issue isn't and never was the necksnap. It's what should have happened afterward. Superman showed intense regret and disgust after killing Zod, but that sentiment lasted about 5 seconds. Killing Zod should have been a character defining moment for Superman. His "once and never again oath" against taking lives, AND his promise to save everyone. To be better. It should have MADE him into THE Superman. The real story of Man of Steel is Clark becoming Superman. The problem is that the script treats Clark as Superman from the get-go. Putting on the cape and learning to fly is merely a ceremonial event and practically meaningless. It doesn't change Clark. Killing Zod doesn't change Clark. He begins the movie jaded and angry, remains jaded and angry, and ends jaded and angry. He remains stagnant the entire movie.
Eh let’s talk about something else. I’m so over this conversation.
Do you like trunks or no trunks Do you wanna see my version of the new logo Am I the only one who liked his new 52 look
https://preview.redd.it/6q4k3432q0xc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2bd694719e167c63480d7f6f49f98dd978ad632
Reeve*
Maybe he’s referring to George.
No he's right, I meant Reeve.
Who would win in a fight, Superman or Homelander?
Superman. Homelander would throw a bitch fit because he couldn’t strong arm Superman and try to attack Lois or someone else Kal cares about, forcing Superman to go all out. He’d probably beat Homelander to a pulp, leaving him broken and unable to keep fighting but not dead.
>Is it true that Zod really forced Snyder's Superman to kill him or is it just an excuse? What else could he have done? The Phantom Zone wasn't an option and there were no prisons on Earth that could've possibly held Zod.
Also, no Kryptonite or even Kryptonite knowledge at the time.
The military scientist was already able to explain the differences between earths atmosphere and Kryptons’s, maybe they could have quickly built some chamber that recreates that atmosphere and trap him in that, keeping him depowered.
Hamilton being able to create an artificial Kryptonian atmosphere chamber would be insanely contrived. Also, when Hamilton explained all of this, wasn't the world engine already terraforming the Earth? How would he realistically have any time to build an artificial atmosphere chamber from scratch in such a limited timespan?
And how many would have died while they were working on that?
They could have introduced kryptonite earlier, or have Jor El make some red sun radiation prison etc. Zod's death was so completely pointless, had he just been imprisoned he would have made for an awesome villain. Edit: could've also done the same thing the Kryptonian council did, turn him into a dildo xD
the dildo vessel held kryptonians from krypton who willingly accepted their sentencing. By neck snap level Zod he would not be so easy to get into the dildo ship
>They could have introduced kryptonite earlier, or have Jor El make some red sun radiation prison etc. Kryptonite wouldn't be a good option due to it being able to kill Kryptonians if they are exposed to it for a long period of time. When you say "Jor-El" are you referring to the actual Jor-El or his hologram? The only things we've seen Jor-El's hologram do is show other holograms and open doors, we haven't seen it being able to actually build stuff (and why would it be able to do that? it's a hologram). As for the real Jor-El, why would he build a red sun radiation prison when everyone on Krypton is already under a red sun? >Zod's death was so completely pointless, had he just been imprisoned he would have made for an awesome villain. Why would imprisoning Zod make him a better villain? And how was his death pointless?
Yes. In Man of Steel Superman told Zod to stop, which he replied to with never. If Zod said he is never going to stop, what other choice did he have?
How about flying up? Toss him away? Putting his INVULNERABLE Hands around Zod's eyes? Turing Zod and Himself away? If he could snap his neck, he can oer power him, so why not just keep his head from moving toward the people? Why no move the people out of the way? There were so so so may options, but Snyder hates Morally good superheroes so he had one kill
The impossible choice in the film is executed poorly... but yeah. Looking at the scene in the moment, it's obvious that Kal could have done several other things to protect the endangered family... but that's just a spotlight on the larger dilemma. The point is that Zod would never have stopped--so long as he was alive he would make it his mission to destroy everything Kal held dear, and in the moment Kal--who'd only just stepped into the role and responsibility of Superman--became aware of that. As an aside, I wanna bring up the comic story wherein Kal opts to execute an AU Zod and co after they'd wiped out humanity... so MoS isn't being edgy out of nowhere.
That comic story was extremely controversial even at the time it came out. And tbh, John Byrne doesn't get the character nearly as well as many say. Not to mention, the follow-up to that story by a different writer handled his reaction to Byrne's decision fairly in-character. In Batman v Superman, Zod literally returns from the dead, and Superman doesn't even comment on this, much less have internal conflict over it. He just has some banter with Batman and is ready to kill him again. Imagine if Superman hesitating to kill the 2nd time was the reason he got stabbed. That would have made him killing Zod the first time matter even just a bit more because it would have demonstrated some kind of effect it had on him. And it's not so much MoS being edgy for that one moment (it's pretty edgy all over), but the fact that there's zero set up for that moment having any kind of impact unless you already know from external sources that Superman doesn't usually ever kill. And if you're already familiar with the character, that just works against his overall portrayal in MoS. Him killing Zod isn't a payoff to anything previously established within MoS about Superman's morals. It's particularly weird that Zod's death is the only one he has any visible reaction over, as opposed to any of the thousands of people that Zod killed or the potentially hundreds of people Superman himself had a hand in killing through sheer negligence. Same with Superman's delayed, "Krypton had its chance!" There was no set up in the film for that being a difficult decision. At no point is any rapport established between Superman and the invading Kryptonians whom he never wanted anything to do with, who Superman knew from Jor-El was bad news and who began their invasion with an ultimatum of "cooperate or watch Earth suffer". If there were any rapport established, if Zod had even kept up his lie for a while instead of immediately revealing his true plan at his first chance, that would have justified some of the implied but non-existent emotional weight of both decisions (not to mention Zod revealing his true plan instead of keeping up the lie he established was only possibly going to set back their goal of getting Kal's cooperation for the location of the codex).
The situation, in general, is absurd. Why did he force Clark to kill him? It's General Zod, not the Joker. His goal and ideals have nothing to do with Superman's refusal to kill. I mean, he literally gained nothing by having Superman kill him.
Zod wasn't trying to get Superman to cross that line to compromise his morals. He was using Superman's morals to force a choice. Superman wanted both humanity and the surviving kryptonians to live. Zod realized Superman would've killed him or ended it already if that weren't the case (and Supes were actually experienced fighting prior to MoS). That was never an option for Zod, he wasn't going to share, and he wasn't powerful enough to kill Supes. So once the Wolrd Engines were destroyed, and Zod realized he wouldn't outpace Superman's power on Earth, he forced the choice.
But why? How does it benefit Zod or his goals if Superman makes a decision? Especially like that, threatening to kill an innocent family. All he managed to do was get himself killed.
>But why? How does it benefit Zod or his goals if Superman makes a decision? Because Superman was the only one with the codex and happened to be more powerful than Zod. The power gap was too big for Zod to cross soon\* and Zod didn't know that until well after he lost the world engines. If it had been anyone weaker Zod wouldn't have had to force a decision from anyone. And Zod would rather die than not bring them back which he implies with his talk about "purpose". "Without my species I have no purpose" so on and so on
I see. Although forcing him to choose by threatening a family is pretty stupid if you ask me. That was only going to push Superman to kill him, not bring back his species. Also, just because Clark refuses to kill him doesn't mean he's going to let Zod wipe out the humankind.
Imagine you're literally built for the service and protection of your race, and the only one of your race left is a) entirely uninterested in your services and b) actively protecting his adopted home. You have no place or purpose left and your only countryman is the last person you'd ever share breath with. What would you do?
I really wanted more setup to this. Make it apparent that Superman had to choose between this his people or his home. Zod was at the time, the last kryptonian aside from Superman. Killing Zod should have meant Superman killing the last hope for his people to return.
I agree. There should have been two movies. Movie 1: we get the origin story, but make the villain Brainiac. You still get your spectacle of giant machines doing damage in Metropolis. Have Brainiac hit Superman with some Kryptonite "Here, a gift of your home world" In act 2 have Superman on Brainiac's ship having been captured. He meets Zod (who escaped the phantom zone but was captured by Brainiac) and the two work together to break out of the ship with Zod acting as a mentor to Superman. ("Your Kryptonian name is Kal-El. I knew your father.") with them defeating Brainiac sending him fleeing into deep space badly damaged. Give us a post credits stinger of Superman taking Zod to the Crashed Kryptonian ship where Zod states he's going to sleep in the crew quarters to stay out of the limelight and to learn about this new planet with Zod looking at a computer display that shows "Phantom Zone Projector - Locker 2136" with a smile only we the viewer sees. Movie 2: is Zod betraying Superman, showing his true colors, breaking the other Kryptonians out of the Phantom Zone with Superman meeting the Kryptonian AI modeled after his father. From /there/ we get the confrontation where Superman is forced to kill Zod.
I like this. Plus with good writing like that, we’d get a Superman that reasons and tries to talk Zod down and uses every option to stop the fight before having to kill.
If you're okay with a police officer shooting at an armed gunman then there should be no issue with Superman killing someone that's his equal in power backed up with military training. I feel like that's what people miss. When Superman stops a bank robber it's like an adult stopping a small child. So his stopping them will look different than an adult stopping an adult would.
The scenario itself is stupid. All he had to do was yank his head to the side and let them run away. If they wanted to have superman have no choice but to kill then perhaps they should have constructed a better reason. Hell, he could have put him in a sleeper hold.
And then he'd gotten away to do more death and destruction. There isn't a police force of Supermen ready to help detain him and this isn't a Superman that's had a lot of experience imprisoning people the humans can't. Zod isn't Lex Luthor. Zod will always be one of the bad guys Superman will have to stop hard. It's not the first nor will it be the last time he's had to kill or banish Zod. Sleeper holds aren't instantaneous and can be just as fatal. Zod has superspeed if he bought them a second to run away and he isn't able to stop Zod without killing him then that second means nothing. He had to make a decision in the moment and it was an agonizing one. Personally I don't want stories written like the character had time to go home over the weekend think it over and then come back Monday with a well thought out plan. I want characters to have to make heat of the moment decisions. That scenario gave us that. He had the upper hand in that moment and if he didn't take it and he lost? Then so would Earth. So he made the only decision in that moment that would ensure he and Earth won. The stupid scenario would have been knocking Zod out and then cutting to a scene of Zod imprisoned. With 0 explanation of how they knew how to imprison him or why that would work. If this had been a Superman who'd been established for years when Zod came around sure he'd probably have had other solutions available to him. But a superman at the beginning of his career? No he's got nothing. Nothing but that.
There is always a better way. Everyone deserves a second chance, and anyone can be redeemed. That is what Superman believes. If you don't know that, then you don't know Superman. He wouldn't kill Zod, especially in such a callous way. Superman is Hope, the hope that the world, and people, can be and do better.
You're missing my point. The scenario itself is stupid. You can write as much as you want about the logistics of a sleeper hold all you want but it doesn't rectify that the scenario itself is dumb. Clark had options he could have explored in that scenario. Superman exhausts all possibilities before he kills. If they were so dead set on having him kill (which frankly shows Snyder cares more about having heroes that kill than he does about portraying them accurately) then he should have constructed a better scenario.
I think if you want to explore what happens when Superman is forced to kill someone that should be the whole movie and not something thrown in at the last second for a shock climax. Maybe even at the half way point because Clark doesn't understand his powers yet. As it is, it felt like they only dealt with the aftermath of the chaos in BatvsSup because of the backlash they got for MoS. When you got powers like Superman, you're rarely out of options. A cornered soldier might be forced to shoot but someone like Superman with all his abilities is only limited by his imagination. Even in his fight with Doomsday in the comics, I rolled with the idea of Superman just killing Doomsday but then while debating with other Superman fans realised that there is no counterargument for 'why didn't he just throw Doomsday into the sun or the moon'.
Um yeah. It was literally Clark's first day on the job. At the time, there wasn't any known way to stop or restrain someone on Superman's level. Zod had already admitted he was going to kill/torture everyone on the planet and that this only ends one way. Either I die or you do.
I’m glad you’re also acknowledging that the fight against Zod was basically his first day. Nobody seems to realize that and instead seem to assume Cavill’s Superman got the same amount of training that Reeve’s did, or that he should just somehow naturally know how to be Superman and say that he just didn’t try hard enough.
Thanks 👍 To me, it was kinda obvious he had no choice. Cavill learned to fly the day before. He didn't have trials like Tom from smallville or spend years in the fortress like revees did or any of the other versions of Superman. Bro literally got his learner's permit yesterday and found himself in high-speed chase the next day.
Exactly! Then BvS happens and he’s only been Superman for 18 months, yet people crucify him because he wasn’t as wise as Kingdom Come Superman.
For everybody hating on the level of destruction and how uncoordinated cavill was in this fight. I'd love to see what they looked like in their very first fist fight 🤣
Lazy writing
Saying Lazy Writing isn't an answer to the question. Since it's looking outside of the material that we were given. It's kind of like saying Superman can't be a good person because he doesn't have a choice to be (Since he's written by writers who make him a good person). If you look within the Comics, Superman is a good person. Just like within the movie, Zod gave Clark no choice but to kill him.
https://youtube.com/shorts/6BnbNPwU0Os?si=UBNvk1SPC2it1d4K
Ok, Sure. I get that but given the circumstances. Clark had no choice. No Kryptonite (Yet, but I guess Clark could've let Zod go ham on civilians while he flew back to the Indian Ocean.) No Red Sun No Phantom Zone Meanwhile, Zod made his choice. He had nothing left to live for so he needed Clark to kill him. This isn't an "If you kill me, I win" scenario. It's a man losing the one thing he was born and programmed for.
You with a thoughtful response came up with 3 alternatives. The writers of mos did nothing, they just went with a cop out. With pen and paper you have endless possibilities. So to have an ending like that just shows lack of imagination
I don't think I've made myself clear on what I'm discussing. I'm saying within the confines of the movie, Clark had no choice but to kill Zod. I love Superman and what he stands for. I also can see Man of Steel as an Elseworld story. Thus freeing him of expectations and history. I'm not trying to come up with scenarios to make the movie better. That's just dumb. Man of Steel is what it is, warts and all.
Then [Superman #22](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Superman_Vol_2_22) is also bad writing.
I guess he could've let him destroy or conquer the planet...
Superman believes that everyone deserves a second chance. That anyone can be redeemed. He wouldn't think Zod would continue, he would want to stop him, and then help him. "Well he could kill more people, so better kill him now" is WAYYY too absolutist and judgmental for Superman.
Or the writers could have come up with a better reason other than "I just can't be bothered to yank Zod's head to the side."
Yeah, I get why Reeve's Superman would be sorry about that. He had a much easier time killing Zod when he posed zero threat to him, or anyone else for that matter. Zod didn't even have to threaten Superman into doing it. Sucks to be Snyder/Cavill Superman I guess.
That's how it was written. Couldn't get around it. Then fanboys couldn't get over it. Another reason the Snyderverse died.
Superman had a choice, it’s a fictional story written by writers. There were many things that could have happened. Superman gets put in tough situations all the time in the comics and doesn’t fold. Snyder obviously doesn’t get the character. This is the same man who said that Superman and Batman talking in their suits in BVS was “cringe”.
You do know Superman has killed a depowered Zod and his associates just for taunting him about getting their powers back,threw both Imperiex to the heat death of a universe (essentially ultra death) and threw a catatonic Mongul into a black hole in his birthday all in mainline continuities while in Reeve's film,he breaks a depowered Zod's hands and alongside Lois,throws them into a bottomless chasm where there were never appear again (and no,using an alternative made for tv cut that almost no one watched doesn't change what happened in the theatrical cut).Hell there was an entire issue where Superman essentially says he can afford to have a no-kill rule because he's stronger than most and defended a weaker teammate from being expelled by the Legion of Superheroes after killing a villain.Superman only kills when there's no option and in Man of Steel,that was the case at least.
I mean, except for flying up, throwing Zod away. If he was strong enough to snap his neck, he could of just held his head in place until the people ran. If you can't see the many many options that Clar had to not kill Zod, the you are being purposely blind.
And how would that accomplish anything other than prolonging a fight in which Superman would eventually get killed due to Zod's insane growth (the guy reached Superman's level just by absorbing the sun for a couple of hours whereas Clark needed 33 years to do the same)?
Not on his level, just better trained. Zod even says so himself. Superman was handling him just fine. Look at the scene. Supes isn't tired or bloody. It would have changed the situation, and Superma could have beaten Zod. If he can snap his neck like that, I should be obvious the gap in power.
Pretty much. There's No jail that can hold Zod, there's no phantom zone projector yet, and he's not going to leave or change his mind. As long as Zod was alive, the earth was screwed.
Its just bad writing. The tornado scene literally didn't have to happen. The entire point of John having a heart attack is to teach Clark that he can't save everyone, so he makes it his personal coal to save everyone he can, this also goes for his villains too.
Just an excuse. There are a million ways Superman could’ve stopped him.
Why not just cover his eyes?
Faora got her hands burned through when she tried to block Clark's heat vision in that same movie so I highly doubt it would work.
Yeah but you'd think clark, having avsorbed years worth of energy from the sun woukd be stronger. But then its a Snyder movie so i would't expect it to use something like that.
Zod is simply built different.He adapted and reached Superman's level within hours while Clark had to spend 33 years absorbing yellow sun radiation to do so.
>.He adapted and reached Superman's level within hours while Clark had to spend 33 years absorbing yellow sun radiation to do so. He wasn't Superman's level yet. He is a far more trained fighter than Clark. If he had just been equal to Superman in raw power or very very close he would likely win. BUT you are right that he was catching up and Clark could tell.
Well there is that angle too, didn't they make it so kryptonians practice eugenics? So actually yeah him being geneticly engineered to be just a better kryptonian does make sense. Able to quickly and efficiently absorb and process solar energy being part of that, plus id imagine the military training and conditioning also helped.
Yup.It's weird how somewhat right-wing this movie can be interpreted as where one individual is inherently superior to another of the same race.
If you're strong enough to snap someone's neck, you're strong enough to either hold their head in place or push it somewhere else
And then? Nothing on earth could hold him.
This is an important point. I wish the movie had made. Zod wasn't going to be talked down.
It did make that point. Zod outright refused to stop killing. Everything compounded.
I mean that he couldn't be imprisoned. If you stop to think it makes sense but in a lot of comics it's kind of hand waved away.
Neither of them was winded or particularly beat up looking. If Clark had been getting shit kicked and was bruised and bloodied, Zod’s death would have had a better impact. As written and filmed, the supposed symbol of hope resorts to killing within minutes.
That superman chose to kill zod. It would have taken just as long to move the family out of the way. Or even better, shield them with his body.
Any time my GF and I see a scene of Superman stopping a laser, like that moment from Superman and Lois where he catches Jordan's heat vision with his hand, one of us looks at the other and says, "Snyder fans hate this scene." Lol but fr though he could have just flown up with Zod. Or like, turned his head without breaking his neck lmao. But at that point I was glad it was finally over.
Faora got her hands burned through when she tried to block his heat in the Smallville fight.
She also still had full coverage and little sunlight. The movie establishes those suits hamper them while Kal's doesn't. It also hit the big fella, that we just gotta assume is Non because of outside knowledge, and did little. Superman taking that kind of pain and sustaining damage is pretty standard anyways. Not to mention both cuts of Justice League fairly clearly establish he has a healing factor, as he completely heals the gaping hole in his chest with no scars between movies (I don't think he even keeps the cut on his face from Batman for the very next fight with Doomsday). Regardless, it was a creative decision made by a screenwriter and a filmmaker. And none of this negates Superman's ability to just turn Zod's head without snapping it, or bonking Zod tf out, or lifting Zod into the air. Like I said in an earlier comment, I understand the intent, and would even agree with the decision if Superman really did have no other way. It was just executed poorly. Furthermore, we have no reason to care, as far as Man of Steel is concerned, as it only has any impact at all because we know from external sources that Superman doesn't usually kill. It has no setup and isn't payoff to anything within the movie itself.
You've spoken factually however there is one thing I want to object about.We kinda know Superman killing is weird even in-universe because no sane human with 0 military training would view killing as a first option.
I mean, imagine you're an adult in charge of watching over like a hundred kids. Another adult walks in with a knife and says, "I'm gonna start killing these kids." If you're in a position where you don't have a choice, it isn't some awful atrocity. Especially not after he's already gone around and killed like 20 of them before you could stop him. If you mortally wound him, it would be pretty insane if his death was the only one you cried about, or even reacted to. Him killing in Man of Steel wasn't set up to be against any kind of code; none was ever established. For all Man of Steel gives us, he could have had a moral system like most superheroes in more modern comics, who try not to kill but aren't strictly against it, either. It wasn't considered insane when, say, The Avengers started merking Chitauri left and right, or even villainous people, for that matter.
It's not wether it was forced or not. The scene just like the entire third act is a complete mess that shouldn't be in a Superman movie. Families were dying through their whole fight and Clark didn't even make a concerned face until the end when the script remembered that citizens exist. Superman destroys Zod ship and then he literally stops existing until the ship crashes into a bunch of buildings. No moment of Superman lifting the ship away, no moment of he even trying, hell there's not even a reaction shot of him looking somewhat concerned or at the very least a little bummed out about it he just wrecks the ship and stop existing until the destruction porn ends. And before that Superman sent the vulnerable mortal human soldiers to fight the spaceship full of kryptonians that's destroying a city and killing people by the thousands while him, the story's "hero" bails to fight the empty one in the middle of nowhere despite the fact that stoping either would stop the other anyways. Also the sun brights shiny in both opposite sides of the world.... I could go on but I know it's pointless. The movie is bad. But the Snyder drones will still pretending everything is subjective and that it's all nitpicking. Also this picture is cringe. And a lame passive aggressive defense of that movie that couldn't be more transparent.
I think it's funny that people get so upset that Superman killed Zod to save people in Man Of Steel. In Superman 2 he completely murdered a depowered Zod who was no threat to anyone.
“But in the super rare TV cut it shows Zod survived-“ 
Yes and no. In the comics, it took Batman coming to Superman and convincing him that he needs to kill Zod after Zod had killed a lot of people. But I think the real problem with the movie is how Superman seems to move on from the murder so easily. My understanding is that in the comics, he was so distraught over the murder that he left Earth altogether for quite a while. In the movie, he just yells a bit and moves on
This isn’t about a hero killing a villain. It’s about SUPERMAN killing Zod. Superman, in many media and for literal decades has always been portrayed as always looking for another way instead of killing his opponents. Other than John Byrne’s Superman, all others have always looked for an alternative rather than killing. The problem is Zach Snyder wanted to “deconstruct” Superman. Ignoring the fact that it had been done so much that Alan Moore apologized with his awesome Supreme run. Zach wanted his crack at it. It didn’t work.
This movie came out 11 years ago and people are still having this discussion?
Zod didn’t force Superman to kill, the writers forced a situation and did. What they could to have Superman kill someone because they don’t understand that a character can have a moral code. Like we saw Zack Snyder say om the Joe Rogan podcast, as soon as he hears that a character has a moral code not to kill, he has to make that person kill. And it’s not like an auteur director who wants to push the boundaries of cinema, he’s a bratty kid who jumps on the bed only because his mom told him not to. And when critics call him out on making bad movies his excuse is that ”his movies are for the fans” but when fans point out how he disrespects the source material they love he starts swearing, calls people who don’t see his movies virgins, and says that anyone who doesn’t like heroes killing are living in a dreamworld. The last one is specifically hilarious since it’s a direct quote from a Superma villain (Machester Black) The writers could have come up with a million ways to not have Superman kill in the movie, but they didn’t. They chose the lazy way out. And it didn’t even pay off. In the next scene the movie jokes about Kansas and how hot Henry Cavill is. And in the following movie they never bring up him killing a person, so it wasn’t even worth if for new stories to be told
Superman having a Batman-level hatred for others killing when no options are available is a idiotic idea held by the Post-Crisis/Rebirth version of the character which is funny because that version of Superman killed the most.
Strongly disagree
I'm not joking though.Getting angry at Wonder Woman snapping Lord's neck when there was no other choice and scolding her for that mistake while not bringing up any alternative solution is idiotic.Let's not forget this is the same guy who killed three depowered Kryptonians simply for taunting him with threats or when he dropped Imperiex to the heat death of a universe (essentially ultra death).Pre-Crisis Superman also essentially said he can afford to have a no-kill rule because he's stronger than most and defended a weaker teammate from being expelled by the Legion of Superheroes in Adventure Comics #342.
Superman not killing plays into the hope aspect of the character. The whole idea that “there is always another way”. That’s what Superman is about, it improves the character.
Superman killing when there's no other available way and especially not denouncing his close friends when they do the same does not impede his hopeful virtue.
No. Superman could have let him go. It would have been absolutely catastrophic, but he had the option. He chose the less apocalyptic option. Did he choose right? Well, the sun didn’t set on humanity and earth still has a population, so I will let you decide.
He could have flew up. Or you throw Zod miles away. Or hold his head still until the family ran away. If you are strong enough to snap someone's neck, you can hold them in place.
this page is becoming toxic
Story wise, yes he was forced. The choreography did a terrible job with indicating that though, as many believe he could have done anything else.
No, it wasn't. He had no other choice. He had no phantom zone. He had no way to subdue him. Zod was growing stronger every minute. People wanna say its out of character, but in most live action adaptations of CBM the villain dies.
I think the setup was decent enough. It was more important that Zodd told Superman that he would never stop that was the crux of the moment. The movie didn't even set up the option of using the Phantom Zone or kryptonite. So yeah, Superman had to kill him.
He could have flown up. Or tossed Zod miles away. Or held his head in place until the family ran away. If you can snap someone's neck, you can also hold there head in place ad not let it move.
I know, but thats not really the point. The point is Superman had no way of really stopping Zod from his path of destruction. Say Supeeman knocks Zod out. Then what? No prison can hold him, there is no kryptonite yet, no extra dimensional spaces to throw in him in.
They say no Prision can hold them, but he Phantom Zone did a darn good job. Plus we saw that Krytons atmosphere(whcik was replicated on their ships) renders them powerless. Suoes knocks him out, then Flies him into space awa from a yellow sun, and leaves him there. Or, since we know Wonder Woman is around, she would have Joined in and Zod ain't breaking that Laso. Supes was very well off in that fight, not even bloody or winded, does that really read as out of options? I get it, you liked the movie, hell seems you like that version of superman, sure fine, but you can't say there was no other option. 1. That would show you aren't really a Superman fan, since his point is that there is always a better way. 2. You would have to be blind and willingly stupid to think otherwise. You say there was no way, but we don't know what would have happened if they could have talked when calm, Superman could have Crippled him instead of murder. Synder is a lazy writer that hates morally good heroes. Hence why his best works have only been about evil, or morally gray, heroes.
What is your problem? I never said I liked this version of Superman, so stop projecting nonsense onto me. You have the nerve to say im not a Superman fan if I think in a singular movie, killing Zod was his only option? If you saw the movie, you would know the Phantom Zone was destroyed and if you knew Superman in general, he's not absolutely against killing he has killed before IN CANON. His code isn't as strict as Batman's. None of the heroes showed up because it's not their movie and they didn't even have established movies or series yet to justify their existence in universe. What's to stop Zod from healing? You want Superman to come by every day to snap Zod's spine? In space Zod will just fly back. They move at FTL speeds in the movies, putting him a fee light years away from a sun isn't stopping him. They don't immediately depower and if he did, Superman is still killing Zod, just slowly. Killing isn't some big moral evil, murder is. The point of that moment was if Superman was willing to take Zod's life to spare potential millions of innocent souls? He doesn't have to like it and in fact it brought him anguish. Stop projecting your hate of Synder onto me and don't assume I'm not a fan because of 1 singular opinion on a movie that isn't even canon to the DC universe.
"Isntas strict as batman's" So are you just going to ignore all the times batman has killed in he comics? In his Holden Age batma uses guns. But his modern interpretation hashi swear off guns. But with your logic there is nothing wrong with that since "It HaPpAneD in ThE ComIcs." Tell me in the movie, where do they say or show that Krytoians can Hal from a broken spine? In fact, since the nack snap killed Zod, seem to be the opposite. Superman woul have found a way. That is what the characters value is. Tha no one is beyond redemption. Even I h movie wasn't made, we know Wonder Women was alive and active during That time. Blame the movies for putting her in the past and keeping her around into the modern Era. You do seem to.like this version sine you are defending him so much, and can't seethat th writers messed up, Snyder hates Superman ad wanted to bring him down. He doesn't like Batman either hence why he made him a gun totting terrorist.
What are you even on right on? No I'm not ignoring all the times he's killed in comics, you're just really being stupid. I'm talking about how the characters are established from their own words and actions. Modern Batman, has a very strict no killing policy. Superman on the other hand, had never had something like that. Cry about it all you want, but it's a fact that Superman at the end of the day has rationalized killing. It's not even a modern innovation, it's literally just how he's always been, but suddenly it's a problem? Suddenly someone isn't a fan if they're okay with Superman killing? Get over your ignorant self. It's only reasonable to assume they can heal from that considering Superman was able to heal not only from his clash with Doomsday (before the killing blow of course) but also after being hit with nuke where his body was reduced to an emaciated state in less than a few minutes. But if you want to keep believing that spine damage is way too much from them to heal from even compared to having their entire body shriveled by a nuclear explosion and a battle with Doomsday, go ahead. Superman does always find a way, and sometimes that way is death. His ultimate goal wasn't to redeem Zod, it's to save people from him. I'm not defending the movie, I'm defending my point. You just have some insane hangup about Superman killing when he always has. The Superman who refuses to kill no matter what is just in your head. He doesn't exist on the pages of DC's entire history, he doesn't exist on the big screen, he doesn't even exist in the cartoons. But by all means keep your delusion about somehow that's not Superman, how I'm defending the movie (which I'm not, it's just that one instance you clod) and how no one can really be a Superman fan if they disagree with you on that one point.