David Corenswet, who plays Superman, "fits the role better than any other actor since Christopher Reeve," says the author.

The word “Marvel” wasn’t always followed by “Cinematic Universe”. Once upon a time, Marvel was a comic book company on the verge of bankruptcy. Then came Iron Man and a last-ditch effort to transform its remaining intellectual property into a profitable business. We all know what happened next — the Avengers, a Disney buyout, massive profits, superhero fatigue — but even in that very first movie, the seeds of a sprawling, 36-film saga were already being planted.

Superman needs to accomplish something similar. The first movie in director James Gunn’s new DC Universe (a sparkling clean slate to replace the dour DC Extended Universe helmed by Zack Snyder) has to bring us into a new superhero world, establish a tone that’s different from both Marvel’s quippy franchise and Zack Snyder’s grimdark films, and set up the next few years of box office profits for Warner Bros. Discovery.

In other words, there’s a locomotive’s worth of pressure riding on Superman. A concocted anti-woke political controversy isn’t helping, either.

So it’s nothing short of a miracle that James Gunn’s take on the Man of Steel feels more like a self-contained movie – and a good one, at that – than the first step toward building a new “cinematic universe”.

To be clear, the building blocks for a fresh franchise are evident in almost every frame. A new world full of metahumans (the movie’s term for superheroes), winking cameos from recognisable actors in iconic roles and a recurring gag about the inevitable formation of the Justice League are all littered throughout Superman. But what carries this film is undeniably a focus on developing its main characters and telling their story right now, rather than the promise of what’s coming next.

Diving Right In

Superman cleverly skips the origin story we already know and begins three years into Kal-El’s tenure as protector of Earth. The timing couldn’t be worse. Superman (played by the previously unknown David Corenswet) just lost his first fight ever against the Hammer of Boravia, a metahuman apparently sent by the fictional European country as retribution for meddling in their affairs. However, it soon becomes clear the Hammer is actually a laboratory-made metahuman created and controlled by Lex........

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