“Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

For a nation that is supposedly reeling from superhero fatigue, filmmakers don’t seem to be getting the message. This summer we have been treated to a number of big budget action movies, several of which have fallen in the superhero genre. And they’ve mostly done well. Thunderbolts* (which I haven’t seen yet) was a moderate success, especially as compared with more recent Marvel releases. Fantastic Four (which I also haven’t yet seen) scored Marvel’s biggest box office opening weekend of the year and seems to have been a hit with both audiences and critics – a rare treat for any superhero movie. But of all the summer box office hits this year, only one of them really hit the mark of super. Let’s talk about Superman.

Superman is hard to get right. He’s just so powerful. He’s stronger than everyone else. He’s more durable than everyone else. He’s faster than everyone else. He can fly. He has freeze breath. He has heat vision. He has X-ray vision. He has super hearing. He’s…well…super in every sense. He’s also really, really good. He has a strong moral center from which he doesn’t depart. He values all life, even the lives of his enemies. He’s not morally conflicted. There aren’t skeletons in his closet. Nothing.

In a day when all superheroes are being written as having some sort of moral grayness and various complications in order to make them feel less super, Superman just doesn’t. This makes him really hard for modern filmmakers, most of whom are very bought into current cultural moral narratives, to put on screen in a convincing way. Superman is just supposed to be better than everybody else, we all know that, but it’s hard to write a compelling story about someone so…super.

James Gunn has done what no one else has managed for a very long time. The new Superman movie gives us a hero who is just about all the things the most famous hero of all should be. The one possible exception to that is actually thrown in your face when the movie opens with Superman (David Corenswet) landing with a thud in Antarctica having been beaten so badly that he can’t stand up. The best he can do is let out a super whistle and wait for Krypto, the Super Dog, to come and drag him back to his secret ice base to get medical help from his robots servants.

And, I know that last sentence raises a number of questions, but I’m not going to dive into those right except to say this: Yes, Krypto, the Super Dog, is in the movie, and, yes, he completely steals the show.

The basic plot revolves around Lex Luthor (fantastically played by Nicholas Hoult) doing everything he can to find a way to kill Superman because at the end of the day, the megalomaniac is jealous of him. He does this through a variety of means including a nanotech upgraded bodyguard, a kaiju, and a clone. His most cunning ploy uses all three of those to steal a recording from Clark’s Kryptonian parents that is his most cherished possession.

The recording as Clark knew it was damaged when he crashed on earth. The incomplete version he managed to preserve had Lara and Jor El telling him to care for the people of Earth. That simple message along with really good parenting from his adoptive parents (more on that in a moment) helped form him into who he is today. Luthor manages to gain access to the rest of the recording which features them telling him to conquer Earth and build a large harem which he can use to help reseed the Kryptonian genetic line.

Luthor uses this second part of the recording along with a online troll farm literally run by smart monkeys hidden away in a pocket dimension (don’t ask) to turn public opinion against the Man of Steel so that he can finally take him down once and for all.

In the end, of course, Superman saves the day. He doesn’t do it alone, though. He gets help from the Justice Gang, a trio of heroes funded by Maxwell Lord (a future DCU villain). Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Green Lantern Guy Gardner (a perfect Nathan Fillion), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) add a great element to the movie and set the stage for a rich and entertaining DCU future. All of this combined with a delightful romance with easily the best Lois Lane ever in Rachel Brosnahan make for a truly tremendous movie.

I think the very best part of the movie for me, though, comes when Superman goes home to Smallville to get help from his earthly parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell give without a doubt the best portrayal of Clark’s parents of any Superman movie or cartoon ever created. It’s not even close. The pair absolutely nail a small town Kansas farming couple who are simple in their lifestyle and their grasp of culture and modern technology. Their deep and rich love for their son and the obvious impact they have had on framing his character make the movie and make this version of Superman the one that will yet be the most successful ever put on the big screen. James Gunn was an absolute genius to make them just like he did.

Superman’s relationship with his parents is actually where I found the most significant Gospel nexus of the movie. Most of the superhero movies created today intentionally try to place the heroes in a world that is as realistic as they can make it. The one exception to that is a near total lack of any reference to God. We are on our own to deal with global, existential threats of all kinds. Our only hope is not an all-powerful Creator, but metahumans of various sorts. No God needed. Only gods.

But if Superman is taking place in the real world, then there is an incredibly high likelihood that a couple of old farmers in a small Kansas town are also going to be faithful churchgoers. More than that, they will be faithful followers of Jesus. They will be faithful followers of Jesus who would naturally seek to raise their children in the faith and with a character shaped by the character of Jesus. To put that another way, they will “start a youth out on his way.” The result is very often that “even when he grows old he will not depart from it.”

The character of Superman in the newest movie is the way it is because of how he was raised. He could have been a completely different person with a different set of parents who inculcated different values in him. But he wasn’t. He was raised to reflect the values and character of Christ, and he did not depart from it even when doing so would have made his life much easier. During the movie, Superman saved lots of people, but he paused in mid rescue to save a dog and even a squirrel from collateral destruction. Even in the final confrontation with Lex Luthor he was trying to call the best out of Luthor, to invite him to walk a path of repentance. Luthor refused, of course, but Superman at least tried. Such was his character.

Parents, if you have kids who are still in their formative years, your efforts to positively, humbly, and lovingly teach them the values of the Christian faith and the character of Christ are not in vain. There are no guarantees in life, and this particular proverb doesn’t make a promise. That’s not how proverbial wisdom works. But the odds are nonetheless high that if you work with diligent intentionality to raise your kids to love Jesus and His church, that work will pay off in spades. Those seeds will bear fruit not just in the lives of your kids, but generationally as they in turn plant them in their own kids. So, let’s get to work.