James Gunn has been speaking all issues DCU as of late and, simply weeks in the past, he overvalued followers when he formally introduced Man of Tomorrow, the follow-up to his Superman reboot. Whereas Gunn’s first Supes flick (now streaming with an HBO Max subscription) is sort of sunny, it sounds just like the sequel shall be totally different. The following installment leans much less “four-color spectacle” and can function Superman and Lex Luthor sharing the movie’s focus. That shift alone is promising, however it’s Gunn’s view of Lex that has me most excited.
Gunn unpacked the tonal pivot whereas showing on the podcast The Home of R (shared to their YouTube) with Mallory Rubin. Whereas he joined the present to speak about Peacemaker Season 2, Gunn finally pivoted to the Kryptonian of all of it. If you’d like the products straight from the supply, that episode is the one to cue up. In terms of his imaginative and prescient for Kal-El’s subsequent big-screen outing, Gunn had this to tease:
The story in Man of Tomorrow, it’s barely tonally totally different from Superman… Superman’s extra comic-booky in some methods than Man of Tomorrow, and it has to do with the twin characters of Lex and Superman on the heart of Man of Tomorrow and different issues.
Superman did certainly really feel like a comic book ebook come to life in all the perfect methods. Nonetheless, I am intrigued by the notion of James Gunn scaling again on that for his follow-up. What’s attention-grabbing, although, is that Gunn then went full character-study mode on Lex. The previous Guardians of the Galaxy helmer continued:
I feel I am simply extra involved in stepping into the center of Lex and seeing how he matches into all of this. I feel attending to know extra of Lex as a human being. I feel we noticed quite a bit concerning the evil a part of Lex. He is fairly evil… I feel he, as a personality, is absolutely attention-grabbing. There’s one thing, regardless of every part, that’s extremely heroic about Lex. Take apart morality, which is difficult to do, however right here is that this man who’s saying, ‘You’ll be able to maintain up a constructing. You’ll be able to shoot down planes along with your eyes. Fuck you, I’ll kick your ass as a result of I am higher than you.’ I am unable to assist however admire his tenacity and his ego. I imply, his ambition is past evaluate.
That framing needs to be catnip for longtime DC followers. We already know Man of Tomorrow goes to lean right into a “twin protagonists” lens, permitting the Final Son of Krypton and his longest-running nemesis to have a conflict of beliefs, and never only a rematch of brawn.
I am notably fascinated by this idea as a result of in the event you’re a fan of recent DC motion pictures, you already know that, for essentially the most half, throughout most media, Lex usually is portrayed as a really one-dimensional character with out a lot depth. For depth, it’s a must to go to TV variations like Smallville or the unbelievable Superman: The Animated Sequence.
Gunn isn’t essentially getting down to redeem Lex however is making an effort to make him a human character. The purpose isn’t to excuse the villainy, it’s to present the person below the bald head definition and depth. A human who seems at a flying god and says, “I’m higher” is inherently dramatic. If MoT goes the place I feel it is going to go–cough, Brainiac, cough–then I feel we’re in for a very distinctive movie within the pantheon of greatest Superman motion pictures, the likes of which we’ve got by no means seen earlier than.
If Superman is the bright-eyed thesis of the primary chapter of the brand new DCU, then Man of Tomorrow sounds just like the antithesis—we is likely to be in retailer for our “Darkish Knight” of Massive Blue motion pictures. And, with Gunn speaking this manner about Lex, I’m formally bracing for a sequel that treats Luthor not as a prop, however as a personality worthy of our full consideration, simply as a lot as he Man of Metal himself.