A controversial moment in “Man of Steel”. Was Superman’s hand forced or did he have an alternative choice to killing General Zod?
In the latest instalment of our “Great Debate” feature, we ask the question…
Should Superman have killed General Zod?
Yes
The ending of 2013’s “Man of Steel” has polarized audiences for nearly a decade. I remember the unending debates online and in comic shops about whether Superman should have killed General Zod. When the film was first released, I wasn’t bothered by it. I’m still not all that bothered by it, despite my belief that Superman should never kill.
In the film, Henry Cavill plays a different kind of Superman than we’re used to seeing. His version is one that’s still learning the rules of being Earth’s greatest protector. We see him discover his abilities, his limitations, his heritage, and the unfortunate truth that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made. When General Zod attacks, the responsibility of protecting the only home he’s ever known is thrust upon Clark. As the film goes on, it becomes abundantly clear that Zod has no intention of stopping. When Emil Hamilton sacrifices himself to take down Zod’s ship, he takes the Phantom Zone option off the table. By the time the climax of the Zod/Superman battle is reached, there are no viable solutions to the conflict. Superman’s hand is almost forced as Zod begins a sadistic attack on innocent people. It’s in this moment that Superman makes the decision to take Zod’s life – something that greatly upsets him.
While I personally dislike when Superman kills, I think the thing that makes me okay with the ending of “Man of Steel” is the context of the film. Over the course of the film, we see Clark learn what it means to be Superman. While it should be a given that he shouldn’t kill, I don’t think that’s the lesson Snyder and company intended for him to learn. Instead, I believe it’s a lesson about impossible situations, and how they sometimes require difficult solutions.
Of course, Superman didn’t need to kill Zod. The loss of the Phantom Zone and any other ways to subdue Zod is, at the end of the day, a means to an end. A tweak to the script could have Clark outsmarting Zod and banishing him to the Phantom Zone. As much as I would like to see that ending, I think it might be a bit too safe and predictable for the story Snyder was trying to tell. That doesn’t mean I want Superman to go around killing enemies going forward.
His decision to kill Zod only works if it’s the furthest over the line he ever gets pushed. That moment has to be the moment that makes him always search for an alternate solution.
If I were to critique the (for lack of a better word) execution of the ending, I would have had Clark talk to Martha about that moment. He could have even talked to Jonathan’s grave. The killing of Zod isn’t a triumphant, heroic thing, and it needs to be shown that Clark takes that to heart. Instead, the audience is taken from a heavy moment to “I just think he’s kind of hot” with no time to let the weight of that decision set in. Then again, Superman does plenty of moping about in the next film. Not over the Zod thing, but moping nonetheless.
No
The debate whether Superman should kill or the question of has he killed has been argumentative. For decades we’ve debated and argued these points with no side winning. While these “discussions” have been ongoing they ramped up to eleven with the climax of “Man of Steel”. This article is not about the Snyderverse pro or con but on that one controversial moment. Superman snapped Zod’s neck. It sounds simple. Hero and villain fight it gets to a crucial moment and at the last second the hero gets the upper advantage and ends up killing the villain. Watch any Schwarzenegger movie. Or Bruce Willis. Even Tom Cruise and the “Mission Impossible” franchise. And there we are as an audience cheering them on. What fun! But this is Superman we’re talking about. Superman apprehends the villain. He does what he can to foil the villain and makes sure he pays for his crime (i.e goes to jail or gets locked up in a safe facility). But kill the villain? Not so much.
“Man of Steel” was the eventual follow up to “Superman Returns”. The former film didn’t make a big splash for several reasons and was not getting a sequel. So Christopher Nolan, David Goyer and Zack Snyder decided it was time to remake the character for “modern” times. He was more contemplative. He was questioning his place on earth. Clark was a kid who had no real control over his abilities. He had to learn to stem his powers. He was faced with moral questions as to whether he should hide his abilities or save people revealing who he his. Traveling the globe in search of his identity, until finally making his debut. There are some parallels to the Christopher Reeve movies in his origin but not many. This was a new hero for a new age. And I for one was leery with this new take but willing to give it a chance and then… Zod is dead at the end of the movie. At the hands of our hero Superman. This was unexpected to say the least.
We can discuss the exact reason why this happened. The circumstances. But to me that’s not the issue. The issue is that the filmmakers thought for Henry Cavill’s first outing as Superman that he would kill the villain. They tried to say it made sense. It was Clark’s first time in the suit. He was still learning. So now he learned killing the villain may not be the way to solve that problem. Next lesson. No I’m sorry, I don’t buy into that. Was Superman killing the villain the way to start a franchise? Were they telling us this is not your father’s Superman? We’ve seen Superman fight villains thousands of times and very rarely has it ended in death. Golden Age Superman had killed whether he was throwing wife beaters out windows or inadvertently causing a villain’s death. George Reeves Superman made some questionable decisions. The infamous John Byrne story were Superman played executioner and killed the Kryptonian villains from the pocket universe. And of course Doomsday. I know there are other examples (“Superman II” left the fate of the Phantom Zone villains a bit ambiguous) but these standout. I point to these examples to show that other than a few extreme times early in his career Superman did not kill his villains. He certainly didn’t kill in cold blood. And while his killing of Zod may not have been cold blooded it seemed to be a quick decision, feeling he had no choice… it was shocking. Is this what the filmmakers wanted? To shock the audience? I believe it was. Is that a good reason for Superman to kill? No, it is not.
This was Cavill’s first outing as the character. Not that I’d be happier if they waited to do it for a later movie, but they really wanted to begin this new franchise with this shocking death. I’m sorry I will not be okay with that. It was a bad decision, plain and simple. This does not reflect my feelings of Henry Cavill, who I think can be a great Superman or reflect my feelings on the subsequent movies. But it seemed one bad decision could cause a chain of events that may set the tone.
Should Superman kill? That is a difficult question that’ll be debated for the remainder of the character’s history. But should it have been done in “Man of Steel”? No.
Many thanks to our Great Debaters – Mario Bennese and Marc Lax.
No, no he shouldn’t have (and I don’t even think it’s the worst thing he does in the movie), and the “he’s just learning” argument doesn’t hold much water either. 1. He explicitly says he’s 33 years old, as I’m getting further and further north of that age, I can say that I learned long before then right and wrong. 2. There were alternatives, just last week the web reviewer Linkara did a video review of Man of Steel on YouTube in which he presents several alternatives. Personally, I’d have had Superman fight Zod (who is so blinded by his… Read more »
Yes. The movie makes it clear that he had no other choice on the matter. Any second he spends trying to find another solution is a second he gives Zod to keep terrorizing helpless humans.
A better question would have been, should Superman have killed the three Kryptonians in Superman #22. Byrne’s story presented a more complex moral dilemma, and the unresolved guilt and the betrayal of his core principles tormented Superman for some time. ` The real problem is that MoS was created by people who don’t understand Superman. Like BvS, it appeared to be pieced together with different scenes and lines from disparate comics but without the original context. We saw little to nothing of what shaped Superman’s basic idealism, and too many long fight scenes showing Smallville and Metropolis being demolished. And… Read more »
Glad you raised #22, because it’s well worth reminding people that Superman HAS killed in the comics. In a lot of ways, what he did then was far worse than what he did in ‘Man of Steel’. In ‘MoS’ it was an instantaneous decision in the heat of battle to stop the clear and present threat of Zod murdering an innocent family, plus the longer-term threat of Zod murdering the entire human race. In the John Byrne story, it was a cold, calculated execution of three criminals. Yes, the motivation was the same – to prevent further loss of innocent… Read more »
Some of those elements were there in MoS, but the character also had a habit of reminding people of how much power he had, or was holding back, just to intimidate then. Specifically the interrogation scene and the destruction of the spy satellite. Those actions seemed un-Superman, almost like he was trying to remind the puny humans that he was their superior. (Maybe that’s what critics of Zack Snyder mean when they accuse him of flogging Randian ideas in his films.) Contrast that to Adventures of Superman #525, where Superman is surprised to learn that his appearance in a small-town… Read more »
Wow, this old chestnut again … I believe now what I believed then: that Kal-El killing Zod was absolutely justified in the context of the movie. It was an obvious choice (one which regular law enforcement officers face regularly): either end a murderous rampage in an instant, or allow more innocents to die while you faff around trying to find a cleverer solution that will keep the mass murderer alive and risk him escaping and killing even more people in the future. The choice is a tough one, but if your priority is preserving life, then the choice between causing… Read more »
In the story and universe that they told this story in, then yes, it makes sense that Superman should’ve killed General Zod. If this was “All Star Superman” then I say, “NO!” ~ ~ If this was in the storyline of “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and The American Way” then I would say, “NO.” ~ ~ However, in this universe that they created with Superman, then it makes sense that this “result” happened the way that it did. Now, what happened after that was never really touched upon because they threw in Batman and Wonder Woman and then… Read more »
No. He shouldn’t. And to be just a tiny bit cheeky for one second, we do have an answer to “For decades we’ve debated and argued these points with no side winning.” While that’s true in a moral sense, I suppose.. as far as business sense? That answer has been given: if you want a Superman franchise that will last, don’t go there. Because regardless of whether or not Henry gets to reprise the role (and I do hope he does, frankly), it seems fairly certain now that Snyder’s direction for the DCEU won’t continue. Superman #22 was a mistake… Read more »