Man Of Steel Reveal Completely Changes A Controversial Superman Scene 10 Years Later

A Man of Steel reveal gives a whole new meaning to one of the DCEU movie’s most controversial Superman scenes. Henry Cavill’s debut as Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel marked the start of the DCEU. Although the movie showed a lot of promise for Cavill’s version of Superman, Man of Steel‘s reviews ended up being mixed due to the film making some controversial choices.

On Twitter, Man of Steel storyboard artist Jay Oliva shed a new light on one of the film’s most controversial scenes.

According to Oliva, there were no Metropolis citizens present during the scene where Superman dodges a tanker truck, and it hits a parking garage, which resulted in a massive explosion that could have killed anyone in the building. That reveal recontextualizes a scene that originally gave Cavill’s Superman a bad look, as he simply dodged the truck and never looked back at it while the truck’s explosion destroyed the parking garage.

Why Man Of Steel’s Ending Is Still So Controversial

The reveal does make Man of Steel‘s ending better, as it makes it clear that Cavill’s Superman didn’t attempt to save citizens in the building for a reason. However, it isn’t enough to stop the movie’s ending from being controversial. While Superman and Zod’s fight didn’t result in any deaths with the tanker truck situation, their battle all over Metropolis certainly resulted in severe casualties, as shown in other movies in the DCEU.

Cavill’s Superman should have been shown trying to save as many people as he can during the fight, or attempting to minimize the destruction to Metropolis, which didn’t happen. That major Man of Steel criticism was recently addressed by Superman’s new animated series. My Adventures with Superman season 1 showed that Clark was conscious of the damage his fights with villain could cause, with a scene even showing Superman quickly repairing all the damage done to Metropolis after he fought Livewire.

While Man of Steel‘s ending became controversial in part due to the level of destruction Metropolis suffered and Superman’s role in it, the movie’s most divisive moment was certainly Clark killing General Zod. Having Superman, who has a strict no-kill rule in pretty much every adaptation, murder one of his biggest villains was a weird decision to start off the DCEU. Superman could have banished Zod to the Phantom Zone — as he has done in other media — instead of killing him, which would have made Man of Steel‘s ending better. While that didn’t happen, the new reveal should at least tame some of the criticism surrounding Man of Steel‘s ending.