In the highly anticipated new "Superman," which stars David Corenswet in the title role, the Man of Steel first appears lying bloodied and bruised in an Arctic wasteland.
"We do have a battered Superman in the beginning. That is our country," director James Gunn said at a press event following the release of the film's first trailer. This Superman symbolizes an America that's in a beat-up state yet still stands for goodness, Gunn explained.
Superman has often been considered the archetypal US superhero, embodying ideals of truth and justice, as well as the American dream.
However, in the new film, Gunn decided to focus on "universal morality" instead of American exceptionalism. Instead of being a national hero, Superman aims to protect and save the weak around the world. "Even if it gets him into trouble," noted the director.
"Yes, it's about politics," Gunn told British daily The Times, before adding that it's also "about human kindness."
"Obviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about of kindness," he said. "But screw them."
Those comments had right-wing commentators worrying that Gunn, who also directed "Guardians of the Galaxy," had turned the iconic superhero into a "woke" figure. They are calling for a boycott of the film, which hits theaters on July 11.
Similarly, Fox News anchor Kellyanne Conway said on the talk show "The Five": "We don't go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us. I wonder if it will be successful."
Marvel versus DC in an age of culture wars
Blockbuster superhero films typically avoid openly showcasing anything that would brand them as conservative or liberal. But one popular theory among superhero fans is that the film universes of the two largest North American comics publishers, DC and Marvel Comics, are polarized along the ideological fault lines that define an era of culture war.
The DC universe — which includes Superman and Batman — has been described as more conservative-authoritarian, with its superheroes portrayed as the ultimate protectors of order. As extensions of the law, they act above the people and without accountability.
"There's no sense of any democratic participation in the Batman world," points out film critic A.O. Scott in the 2025 podcast "X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story."
Meanwhile, the same podcast exposes the film critic's theory that heroes "from the Marvel Universe films — Iron Man, Captain America, Ant Man, the Avengers — are a team of do-gooders: These films represent an Obama-Biden view of the world."
James Gunn, an outspoken Trump critic
As the writer and director the "Guardian of the Galaxy" films, James Gunn used to belong to team Marvel. He also made enemies in the MAGA camp as an outspoken Donald Trump critic.
Back in 2017, he shared his views in various tweets: "In my years on social networking I have never spoken out politically," Gunn tweeted. "But we're in a national crisis with an incompetent President forging a full-blown attack on facts and journalism in the style of Hitler and Putin."
The alt-right news site Daily Caller then dug up offensive tweets Gunn had posted nearly a decade earlier. Social media users called on Disney, which own Marvel, to drop the filmmaker.
Gunn was removed from the third "Guardians of the Galaxy" film, but was later reinstated after a public apology and talks with Disney studio heads.
But he moved on to the other comics' camp, becoming the co-chairman of DC Studios in 2022. Gunn is head creator of the DC Universe that was rebooted in 2024 with a slate of new films including "Superman."
An 'undocumented alien'
Nevertheless, Superman's origin story was not written by Gunn to provoke "anti-woke" movie-goers, but rather by second-generation Jewish immigrants, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created a superhero that defended the weak in reaction to the rise of Hitler and antisemitism in Europe.
Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, published in 1938.
Born Kal-El on the planet of Krypton, Baby Superman's biological parents manage to send him off to Earth before they die in the destruction of their planet. The family who take on the orphan then fraudulently claim him as their biological son, Clark Kent, to cover up the fact that the child is literally an undocumented alien — a term that is otherwise seen as degrading for migrants.
This aspect of the superhero's biography was reiterated in 2018 when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published the book, "Superman was a refugee too."
A year earlier, Superman protected a group of undocumented immigrants from an armed white supremacist in issue #987 of Action Comics — which came out shortly after Trump had announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy would be ending. The program allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children to live and work without fear of deportation.
The government use of the term "alien," which had been banned under the Biden
administration, was reinstated at the beginning of 2025. The current Trump administration is also ramping up its crackdown on immigration — raising alarm over state of US democracy and dividing people in the country.
