Into the SuperVerse - Supers related spoilers/discussion for The Flash film

[All Star Superman]

The Flash is a very enjoyable film and a love letter to the DCU and Zack Snyder's much maligned Man of Steel... it also has some small surprises for more general Superman fans. 👀 I have nothing left to say about this film than reiterate the same concepts and plot elements, but it's finally coming out in theaters around the world for everyone to watch and properly discuss... or complain. 😜

spoilers:

The premise is simple: after changing the past to save his mom, Barry Allen gets stuck in 2013 when Zod's invasion is happening... Barry is an unapologetic Snyder's Superman fan 😅 and knows he needs to find Kal to stop the kryptonians. Unfortunately, Superman can't be found because altering the past broke the timeline messing up all the heroes' lives and none of them is around for one reason or another... not even the captive Kara knows where the cousin she has swear to protect is (Kara/Supergirl is more a MacGuffin in the film, but Sasha Calle is good with what she has to work with in her limited screentime). The group that Barry put together has to fill for Clark's absence to fight the evil kryptonians but turn out you really need Superman to do Superman's job, and, this time, without Kal being around, Zod wins. The basic concept is that infinite attempts can be made to change the battle's outcome, but all the possible variations will always end up with Zod obtaining the codex and terraforming Earth (it's a fixed point)... so the price for Barry saving his mom was dooming the human race to be wiped out. As I said in the past elsewhere, it's the MoS event gone wrong... if, in the original Snyder's films, the kryptonians' invasion was the catalyst that kickstart the age of heroes and birth the DCEU, this is its death: there's no Superman to prevent Earth to be terraformed, and no JL to come out the shadows after him. The only way for Barry to stop Zod and his army is to make the ultimate sacrifice and let his mother die again to restore the DCEU events as they originally were. At the end, you can assume Superman got his job done (again) if Barry comes back in present day and the human race still exists. Sadly, the epilogue doesn't have a last appearance of Henry Cavill (there are only few brief CGI cameos of him left in the film) or a closure for the DCEU or the film itself (supporting characters like Calle, Keaton and Affleck vanish completely but you shouldn't even care) and you have to fill the blanks by yourself. A very unsatisfying way to conclude a story and universe, imo. Beside DCEU Superman's "spiritual presence" across the film, we see a glimpse of the "SuperVerse" over there when the multiverse is collapsing during the final act: in a Black & White world, George Reeves appears with his own Jay Garrick; elsewhere Chris Reeve and Helen Slater stand side by side after flying; and a long haired Nic Cage is fighting a giant mechanical spider (yes, Nic finally got his chance to be Superman!). It seems a small tease of the original Crisis project that was planned under the old regime (imagine if we could've seen Cage and Cavill's Supermen teaming up to save the multiverse in a Crisis event 😆 ).

end of spoilers

I guess all the Supermen (and Supergirls) are meant to be still out there saving their respective Earths. Btw, this is still a Barry Allen centric story and a very crazy fun one. 😅 Thoughts?

None of Zack Snyder's so-called "DC movies" have been "love letters" to DC Comics. Each and every one is a cynical deconstruction aimed at people who neither know or love the iconic DCU.

[All Star Superman]

I guess I'm in the minority: I hated the cameos at the end. Barbara Muschietti admitted that the cameos were "part of the movie since its inception." I have a feeling they knew there wasn't much interest left in this film after the many delays, decline of the Snyderverse, and Miller's criminal behavior and decided to prop it up with so called "fan bait."

I felt that Reeves and Reeve's cameos were in poor taste. Not only did they serve no real narrative function, the CGI was awful and poorly portrayed these beloved actors in their iconic roles. Of course, they also used Keaton's Batman as a giant stunt to generate interest in a film few cared about. This has been proven by the poor box office performance, which is being attributed to "superhero movie fatigue" when, in fact, audiences are tired of the Snyderverse. It was a mistake from the beginning and only the most diehard of fans wanted it to continue even this long.

[bat39]

How was Reeves going to appear in Supergirl? He died in 1959.



I took it that Lois didn't remember sleeping with Superman at all, which was incredibly creepy. It was a horrible idea to reference the inferior sequels to Superman The Movie, but especially the "Super Kiss." Had Superman Returns ignored all the sequels, a far better film might have resulted.

He meant Christopher Reeve not George Reeves.

You can actually view Superman Returns as just a loose sequel to Superman: The Movie, since it doesn't specifically reference any previous film other than that one. There's an ambiguous reference to the possibility of Luthor having been to the Fortress before, and of course, you have the fact that Superman and Lois had sex, but neither of those necessarily means that the events of Superman II happened wholesale. There's not a single mention of Zod, for instance.

[Last Son of Krypton]

The cameos were in the film since its inception for real: Reeve/Slater, West, Carter and a blurred Superman were the ones appearing in the early test screenings for The Flash more than a year ago.

It wasn't meant to be pointless fanservice, but a tease of things to come because, similarly to Gunn, the old regime (Hamada/Emmerich) was planning to establish a new universe/continuity with new actors playing the roles, but to get there they wanted first acknowledge that all the past and present iterations of these characters co-exists in the multiverse before a Crisis-inspired film coming after The Flash sequel would've provided a send off for Snyder's cast, homaging/honoring past and present DC and passing the torch to the the new generation of actors that will play these characters going forward. It wasn't even such a long term plan, these projects were written and ready to be filmed. The Crisis film was first teased by Jim Lee back in 2021 and reported by THR more recently, btw.

The Flash began life under the studio regime run by Toby Emmerich and his lieutenant, DC Films boss Walter Hamada. Most of the shooting and postproduction was undertaken under that leadership, with the movie as part of Hamada’s plan to have Flash build to a major reset of the entire DC cinematic universe, departing from the one established by filmmaker Zack Snyder with Man of Steel a decade ago. Hamada planned a Flash sequel and then wanted to segue to a movie inspired by the 1980s classic comic event Crisis on Infinite Earths.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...an-1235517975/

Development on The Flash spanned three regimes at Warners and figured prominently into former DC Films boss Walter Hamada’s plans for the universe. Hamada commissioned a sequel script from Aquaman scribe David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, one that would ultimately lead to a crossover event titled Crisis on Infinite Earths.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...av-1235518567/

Crisis on Infinite Supermans

Just staying on topic of the dream to bring back Henry Cavill: Dwayne Johnson wasn’t the only one who had that idea. Former head of DC Films Walter Hamada was also working on a long-range plan to return Superman, and Cavill, to the DC cinematic fold.

Sources tell us that cameos in forthcoming DC movies of next year would have breadcrumbed to a giant tentpole movie inspired by the now-classic Crisis on Infinite Earth comics of the 1980s. That comics mini-series featured multiple timelines and heroes from other dimensional Earths and, just as the Flash movie was returning Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck in their Batman incarnations, this new movie project would have returned Cavill as Supes.

Johnson, however, had his own plans and muscled his own Cavill return.
https://view.email.hollywoodreporter...1fc572b6d036b7

We were robbed of Cavill and Cage saving the multiverse together, guys!

[Last Son of Krypton]

The much maligned (DC is cursed, isn't it?) Flash film is out on VOD to be finally screenshotted by fans online lol.

Let's start with the mother of all Superman cameos, Nic Cage's Supes (you can also see multiple shots of him fighting Doomsday in the 2nd pic below 👀 ):





George Reeves:

[Last Son of Krypton]

Cavill's last appearance, ugh (I haven't decided yet if this is worse of the CGI'ed mustache or not):

Chris Reeve and Helen Slater:

[Jeffrey2]

Wow...never read this outline before, though I'd heard vaguely that Brainiac was supposed to be the villain for the sequel. Brainiac is always supposed to be the villain in some hypothetical sequel that never comes

That's why I honestly hope that Gunn just goes all out with Superman Legacy and delivers Brainiac upfront!

Interesting tidbit. Cary Bates wrote a Superman film script in the early 90s along with Ilya Salkind. It would have effectively been Superman V though Reeve would not have reprised the role. The Salkind's were producing the Superboy TV series at the time and its star, Gerard Chrsitopher, might have starred in the film as Superman. The script had no Lex or Zod in it. Brainiac was the villain and the Bottle City of Kandor was a major plot point. . It would have been an expansive film with the only question being was the state of FX then good enough to have done such a film justice.

There was no love lost between the Salkinds and WB and WB got the rights back. The Bates/Salking project was abandoned, and WB started what became a decade plus of development hell to get a Superman film on the big screen again. It's fascinating that people have been trying to do Brainiac on film since the early 90s and nada. It doesn't look like SL will feature Brainiac either.

https://www.supermanhomepage.com/mov...=reborn-review

[Primal Slayer]

It was cool to see the concept be brought to life. Thankfully it looked better than the other cameos.

[DochaDocha]

Cavill's last appearance, ugh (I haven't decided yet if this is worse of the CGI'ed mustache or not):

He looks ready to fight the Scorpion King...

[Last Son of Krypton]

There was no love lost between the Salkinds and WB and WB got the rights back. The Bates/Salking project was abandoned, and WB started what became a decade plus of development hell to get a Superman film on the big screen again. It's fascinating that people have been trying to do Brainiac on film since the early 90s and nada. It doesn't look like SL will feature Brainiac either.

https://www.supermanhomepage.com/mov...=reborn-review

There was also an earlier attempt in the 80s to bring Brainiac on the big screen, he was meant to be the villain for the 3rd Chris Reeve film before he was replaced by a human made's supercomputer and Richard Pryor in the final script. Here's the original outline for SMIII with Brainiac: https://meatfighter.com/superman3/pa...ginal_idea.pdf

He looks ready to fight the Scorpion King...

Maybe this will be the real showdown The Rock will get lol.

It was cool to see the concept be brought to life. Thankfully it looked better than the other cameos.

Thanks for the HD gifs. It's one of the coolest Superman action brought on screen, imo.

[Jeffrey2]

There was also an earlier attempt in the 80s to bring Brainiac on the big screen, he was meant to be the villain for the 3rd Chris Reeve film before he was replaced by a human made's supercomputer and Richard Pryor in the final script. Here's the original outline for SMIII with Brainiac: https://meatfighter.com/superman3/pa...ginal_idea.pdf

Lordy, that script is bad. "Re-imaging" Superman didn't start with Snyder. LOL. I'm referring to Snyder's JL2/3 which would have had an evil Superman, Batman and Lois getting it on, Lois having Bruce's child and Clark eventually raising that child. The Salkinds' script is bad, but Snyder's takes the cake.

Superman 3/4 are considered failures. The Salkinds had gained the rights and made those films. Ironically, they made Superboy which is the best live action "Superman" TV series ever done (sorry S&L) in terms of featuring classic villains (for the first time) and paying homage to the Golden and Silver Ages. The Salkinds used veteran comic book writers for Superboy and Cary Bates wrote the Brainiac/Kandor script for Superman 5 which would have premiered in the mid-90s and which is far better than what the Salkinds initially had planned for Superman 3.

[Last Son of Krypton]

When the Jay Garrick from George Reeves' Superman's universe appears in the multiverse sequence, in the background is visible the robot villain Mr. McTavish from The Adventures of Superman show (that's a deepest cut than Cage vs. a giant spider lol):

[Last Son of Krypton]

Lordy, that script is bad. "Re-imaging" Superman didn't start with Snyder. LOL. I'm referring to Snyder's JL2/3 which would have had an evil Superman, Batman and Lois getting it on, Lois having Bruce's child and Clark eventually raising that child. The Salkinds' script is bad, but Snyder's takes the cake.

Superman 3/4 are considered failures. The Salkinds had gained the rights and made those films. Ironically, they made Superboy which is the best live action "Superman" TV series ever done (sorry S&L) in terms of featuring classic villains (for the first time) and paying homage to the Golden and Silver Ages. The Salkinds used veteran comic book writers for Superboy and Cary Bates wrote the Brainiac/Kandor script for Superman 5 which would have premiered in the mid-90s and which is far better than what the Salkinds initially had planned for Superman 3.

The Superboy show was very comic-book-y. Almost Silver age fun.

I read the script for the cancelled Superman V years ago. I think I've read almost all the scripts available of aborted Superman and JL projects.

All these films happened somewhere in the multiverse even if we didn't see them.

[Jeffrey2]

The Superboy show was very comic-book-y. Almost Silver age fun.

I read the script for the cancelled Superman V years ago. I think I've read almost all the scripts available of aborted Superman and JL projects.

All these films happened somewhere in the multiverse even if we didn't see them.

Nothing wrong with comic-book-y. The only superhero films I've enjoyed consistently are Spiderman films. They are comic-book-y but, unlike Superman, Spiderman is sort of beyond "ages". I'm not a reader of Spiderman books and not an expert but that's my impression.

Of the scripts I've read the one I sort of liked was Flyby (?). It had Krypton not exploding (better than what Snyder planned to do to the mythos) and a Brainiac-like villain fighting Superman while Luthor sets a trap for Superman by kidnapping Lois. It distorted the mythos but, in a way, more acceptable to me than some of these other failed efforts.

It's all the multiverse as you say. Wait until AI allows us to create our own Superman films and make that multiverse come alive. I'm working on a Superman trilogy for when that day comes. I'm inclined to cast Gerard Christopher in the lead and Stacy Haiduk as Lois
- yeah, she played Lana but it's the multiverse.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Nothing wrong with comic-book-y. The only superhero films I've enjoyed consistently are Spiderman films. They are comic-book-y but, unlike Superman, Spiderman is sort of beyond "ages". I'm not a reader of Spiderman books and not an expert but that's my impression.

Of the scripts I've read the one I sort of liked was Flyby (?). It had Krypton not exploding (better than what Snyder planned to do to the mythos) and a Brainiac-like villain fighting Superman while Luthor sets a trap for Superman by kidnapping Lois. It distorted the mythos but, in a way, more acceptable to me than some of these other failed efforts.

It's all the multiverse as you say. Wait until AI allows us to create our own Superman films and make that multiverse come alive. I'm working on a Superman trilogy for when that day comes. I'm inclined to cast Gerard Christopher in the lead and Stacy Haiduk as Lois
- yeah, she played Lana but it's the multiverse.

I meant comic-book-y in a positive way. So I agree.

Flyby had a Zod-like villain from what I recall. And Luthor being kryptonian in a version of the script lmao.

Ah, Gerard Christopher is really underrated in the role.