Nicolas Cage as Superman cover coming to DC Comics

One of the more surprising things about the new Flash (spoilers incoming), well besides its terrible box office performance, is a cameo by an up and coming actor named Nicolas Cage. At the end of the movie, we see a few different DC worlds in the multiverse, and one in particular where Superman is played by Cage. Now we’re getting a comic book with Cage as Superman. Rejoice!

How did we get here? This requires some backstory. Back in 1996 director Kevin Smith was on a roll. He was coming off the success of both Clerks and Mallrats, so he wrote a draft for a dream project called Superman Lives, where Cage plays the titular character and has to fight a big spider.

The story is documented in the 2015 documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? Basically, Tim Burton was going to direct but it didn’t really get past costume tests. DC Comics, perhaps smelling some money, created a variant cover “Batman/Superman: World’s Finest” #19, by Dan Mora. It’ll come out in September.

It shows the legendary actor in his suit alongside Batman and the real Superman. Take a look:

As for Smith, who told the story of Cage’s Superman odyssey for years before the documentary, told Rolling Stone he felt like the cameo was a triumph.

“I’ve been telling that story since 1997. And it’s kind of become a part of comic-book pop culture. And so my Twitter has been blowing up for the last 24 hours and people want to know what I think. And what I think about it is, you know, in a weird way, even though I’ve been making films for 30 years, and I got my own career, I feel like, ‘Oh, I finally made it.’”

Fingers crossed for a Cage Superman movie! It’s the multiverse there’s literally no excuse. If Harrison Ford can play Indiana Jones in his ’80s, then certainly Cage can do something similar.