Yes, you heard right. I fully believe that Zack Snyder, figurehead and pariah – the guy that a fair portion of Internet denizens and journalists insist ruined Superman, or at the very least, severely needed to course-correct after the ‘dark’ and ‘grim’ Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice – is the guy who saved the Man of Steel.
Superman is the superhero. As the first of his kind in American comics, everyone seems to have a horse in the race. People project their own ideas of what Superman should be, even when they don’t otherwise care about the character. As such, when Superman doesn’t fit with that image, they claim someone like Snyder is portraying him wrong.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice deals heavily in that very concept, after all. Snyder’s portrayal of Superman hinges on the idea that the core of the character is not what people project on him. He makes Superman a man, not merely an icon or blank slate for us to project our ideas onto.
Given that good characters are people before they’re anything else, I believe that this take on Superman is the best way to update the character for the modern era while differentiating him from every other franchise out there right now. In short, Zack Snyder saved Superman, and laid out here is the evidence for why that is. Feel free to agree or disagree, but I think I make a compelling case.
