Even though he hasn’t shot any scenes as Superman for a full half-decade, fans are still keeping their fingers crossed in the hopes that Henry Cavill will return as the DCEU’s canonical Superman in a future project. Any prospect of a Man of Steel sequel looks to be dead in the water given that next year marks the 10th anniversary of Zack Snyder’s origin story, but we know better than to rule anything out in the wild world of Warner Bros. Discovery.
In fact, Cavill’s predecessor Brandon Routh has already proven that you should never bet against a surprise Kryptonian return, with the Superman Returns star finally getting some closure on his own stint as the Big Blue Boy Scout when he suited up as the Kingdom Come version of Kal-El in the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths event, 13 years after his one-and-done stint under the costume.
Bryan Singer’s elegiac tribute to the Richard Donner era failed to ignite at the box office as expected, leading to sequel plans being scrapped in favor of another reboot, one that ultimately led to Man of Steel. Both blockbusters have their fans, but surprisingly reasonable DC diehards have been naming the ways in which Superman Returns is superior to its successor, and in many cases it’s hard to argue.
The airplane rescue is unquestionably the highlight of Superman Returns, and one of the character’s best-ever action sequences in live-action. Even Routh’s follow-up quip of “statistically speaking, it’s still the safest form of travel” is getting plenty of love for being perfectly on-brand with the iconic costumed crimefighter’s personality.
The overarching sentiment is that Superman Returns benefits from existing in a pre-MCU world, but dive a little deeper into the comments, and you’ll find a gathering belief that Routh may not be a better Superman than Cavill in the grand scheme of things, but he might just be a superior Clark Kent.