It’s a great time for Superman fans, with the Man of Steel soaring into movies, TV, animation and comics. To help us stay on top of it, writer Tim Beedle shares what's grabbed his attention and why in this monthly Super-Family column.
 

“I’m always around,” says a flying Kal-El a number of times in 2006’s Superman Returns. But the truth is that at the time of the movie’s release, the Man of Steel hadn’t been around. At least when it came to the big screen.

When Superman Returns landed in theaters, it had been nearly twenty years since Superman’s previous live action movie—1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Released two years after Christopher Reeve’s death, Superman Returns was meant to be both a continuation and a soft reboot of his previous series of films.

So, it’s quite ironic to say that watching it directly after Reeve’s four Superman movies really doesn’t do it any favors at all.

To be fair, it’s not that Superman Returns is a bad movie—it’s just not a very interesting one. For all the issues that Superman III and The Quest for Peace may have, they’re not boring. Much of this is due to the always welcome presence of Reeve, who grounds everything with an underlying warmth and goodness that can’t help but make you smile.

To be clear, I do like Brandon Routh. I thought he was a complete delight as Ray Palmer in the Arrowverse, and I loved seeing him put on a different version of the Superman suit in its “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event. But his performance as both Superman and Clark Kent in Returns is subdued, somber and quiet. That might have been okay if he were playing a new version of the character (as Henry Cavill would do six years later), but Routh is supposed to be the same Superman that Reeve played, and Reeve would have never turned in such an unhappy performance. Sadly, the same can be said for just about all of the classic characters who appear in the film—Lois Lane, Perry White, Lex Luthor, even Ma Kent. (The sole exception is Sam Huntington’s Jimmy Olsen, who does his best to liven things up.)

I can’t blame the actors here. I suspect they were playing their roles as they were instructed. Rather, I think that more than anything, Superman Returns is a victim of its era.

Some of you younger readers may not remember what the early 2000s were like for superhero movies, but the genre was very much still in development then. This was well before the MCU and DCEU, and the idea that comic book movies weren’t just for kids was one that had only recently taken root. And it had come about as a result of taking the material very seriously.

2000’s X-Men started in a concentration camp. Two years later, Spider-Man began with Peter Parker warning viewers that the story of his life was not for the faint of heart, and that “if somebody said it was a happy little tale…somebody lied.” In 2005, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins gave us our first truly adult take on the Dark Knight, one in which Batman didn’t kill, but didn’t need to save the villains of Gotham either.

All of these movies were big hits, so when it came time to bring DC’s original superhero back to cinemas, decisions were obviously made to tone down some of his more colorful, silly and hopeful characteristics. The result is a movie that now feels oddly lackluster—as if everyone in it is afraid of giving too much, so they don’t give nearly enough to make any of their performances memorable.

Considering that most comic book fans were just happy to get semi-faithful adaptations of our favorite superheroes back in the early 2000s, none of this would have been quite so apparent back in 2006, but now, two decades later, it’s glaringly noticeable.

That said, Superman Returns isn’t entirely without appeal. Personally, I’ll never get tired of seeing the citizens of Metropolis erupt into cheers for the Man of Steel when he saves people from disaster. We get a great example of this early on in Returns. I’d also forgotten that John Ottman’s score makes use of John Williams’ iconic Superman theme, and getting one final chance to hear it accompany the Man of Steel as he flies off to do something heroic is an absolute joy.

But the most interesting thing—and this is a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t seen Superman Returns, so consider yourself warned—is the way the movie seems to foresee Jon Kent. While Clark Kent and Lois Lane had been love interests going back to the Man of Steel’s very beginning, it wasn’t until 2015 that their son Jon was introduced to comic book readers.

Jon isn’t in Superman Returns, of course, but near the final act of the movie, we learn that Lois’ son, Jason, is actually Superman’s child and has powers similar to his father’s. The movie never really has time to build up the relationship between Clark and Jason, but presumably, had it gotten a sequel, that’s something it would have focused on.

At the time, giving Superman and Lois a child was a pretty radical idea. There had been debate among fans over whether the couple could even safely have children, so the fact that they made Superman a father is an undeniably big swing. And yet, it makes a lot of sense for the character. If the story of Superman is the ultimate immigrant story, then for Kal-El to make Earth his home, he needs to settle down. And traditionally, that means starting a family. Otherwise, Earth really isn’t his new home and he’s not really one of us. He’s still an outsider who’s lost and forced to live away from his home. That’s very much the Superman we get at the start of Returns.

Despite being one of 2006’s biggest movies, Superman Returns never got to finish the story of Superman and his son, but it undoubtedly paved the way for the introduction of Jon about ten years later. Whether you prefer Jon as a kid or a young adult, there’s no denying that his introduction has opened up all new realms of storytelling and character exploration for Clark Kent and Lois Lane, something that’s not easy to do with 87-year-old characters. It’s reinforced the importance of legacy within the DC Universe and inspired a stronger live action take on Clark as a parent in Superman & Lois.

If Superman Returns helped to give us that, then perhaps for all its flaws, it’s earned its cape.

With James Gunn’s Superman landing in theaters this summer, “Super Here For…” is revisiting the Man of Steel’s earlier live action big screen forays. Click below to read Tim’s thoughts on…

Superman (1978)
Superman II (1980)
Superman III (1983)
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Tim Beedle covers movies, TV and comics for DC.com, writes our monthly Superman column, "Super Here For...", and is a regular contributor to the Couch Club, our recurring television column. Follow him on Bluesky at @TimBeedle and on Instagram at @notabard.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Tim Beedle and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.