Niche Nerd Stuff in Superman

I like Superman. I like him when he’s saving the world; I like him when he’s rescuing a cat stuck in a tree. I like him when he’s punching giant space robots and when he’s punching Nazis, and when he’s doing both at once. I like him when he’s struggling with his secret identity, I like him when he’s being an illegal immigrant analogy. I just like him. Sometimes you don’t need a brooding Batman in a dark detective story or whatever the hell Marvel is doing these days. Sometimes you need a hero made of pure optimism, an objectively good, kind person. You need Superman.

Thankfully, James Gunn appears to understand this, because the new Superman film absolutely nailed it.

I’m not going to try and do a full-on movie review here, because far more competent people than I in their droves have already done so. Instead, I will, as is my wont, explain a bunch of extremely niche comics things I noticed and liked – and there were a lot of these. Not that they got in the way of the viewing experience for a non-comics nerd, mind; I, whose brain is stuffed with ancient DC Comics trivia, and my wife, who has seen the Wonder Woman movies and read Hawkgirl’s Wikipedia article, both thought Superman was great. But as many of my previous posts have demonstrated, when I’m not sitting wide-eyed and honestly slightly teary at the sight of Superman in flight, I do rather enjoy spotting niche Glup Shittos and their ilk.

So if you saw Superman already and didn’t recognise some side characters, or if you haven’t seen it yet but are desperate to know if your favourite hero of the Golden Age is ever mentioned, strap in.

The Engineer

First things first, a secondary villain I really didn’t expect to see was the Engineer, who until a few years ago wasn’t even in DC Comics at all. Angelica Spica, whose blood is full of nanobots, is from The Authority, a superhero team from Wildstorm Comics which was created, essentially, as a Justice League with dirty hands and no qualms about doing what’s best for Earth, whether Earth likes it or not. Up to and including installing themselves as a surprisingly functional dictatorship.

Note Apollo (definitely not Superman) and Midnighter (definitely not Batman) in the background. ‘Stormwatch’ Vol. 3 #11 (2012)

The original comics are a damn good read, honestly. But this was a completely separate universe with completely separate characters… up until 2011, when the original Wildstorm universe ended and the characters were sort-of integrated into the main DC universe. To varying levels of success. But the Authority exists, and the Engineer, with her crazy technological powers, is a fun character, played very well by María Gabriela de Faría, who I did not expect to see on the side of Lex Luthor. (Though honestly, given how authoritarian the old Authority got, it does work pretty well.)

Buzzsaws for hands buzzsaws for hands
Superman (2025)

And speaking of Lex Luthor…

Lex and Corp

I cannot not talk about Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, because it is perfection. No origin story here: this is full-power comics Lex Luthor, with a megacorporation and an army of robot suits, crazy biotech, at least two pet metahumans, and an infinite monkey setup dedicated entirely to slagging Superman off on Twitter. This, to paraphrase my good friend Jack, is a man who weeps with anger at the mere fact that Superman dares to exist. It’s wonderful. Hoult plays him fantastically. Honestly, every actor in the film played their part fantastically, but Hoult’s Lex is just perfection.

James Gunn has the opportunity to do the funniest thing imaginable for the inevitable sequels. Just saying.

But in a nice bit of parallelling, Superman’s own supporting cast at the Daily Planet was mirrored by Lex’s supporting minions at LuthorCorp. (Why not LexCorp? I guess it sounds more official, but I did miss that old name. So much more egotistical.) And among those two minions were Otis Berg and Eve Teschmacher, two minor characters who are not from the comics at all, but from the original 1978 Superman film! They are far less bumbling now, as henchmen go, and Eve is actually quite an important character, but it was a cool nod to where it all began.

And speaking of where it all began…

That JSA Mural

There is a scene in the Hall of Justice, headquarters of the fledgling Justice Gang (name pending). First cool thing: it’s a real train station in Cincinnati, the very real train station on which the Hall of Justice was originally based way back in the 1973 Super Friends cartoon. All they had to do was write ‘Hall of Justice’ on the outside wall and it looks perfect, basically.

Cincinnati Union Terminal (Ohio History)

But inside the Hall of Justice is a big mural of some suspiciously 1930s-looking superheroes. The opening crawl of Superman establishes that metahumans/superheroes have been around for about 300 years… which means that the Justice Society of America, the original DC superhero team from the 30s and 40s, has had time to exist – and judging by that mural, did so to great success!

You asked for it, you got it. Here’s the full mural honoring the History of Metahumans in the DCU adorning the Hall of Justice in #Superman. pic.twitter.com/GUALUPFsR0

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 25, 2025

Now I only spotted Wildcat, Jay Garrick’s Flash and someone who I thought was Alan Scott’s Green Lantern but apparently isn’t; some more gifted nerds than I have done a full examination and identified all of these ancient superheroes. Whether there’s been an actual JSA in this new DC film universe or whether a bunch of its members have just shown up, I guess we don’t know – but it was a very nice bit of worldbuilding that you could literally blink and miss. Give us a gritty noir Sandman film, Gunn; you know you want to.

And speaking of grit…

Woman of Tomorrow

I have heard on the grapevine that there is a Supergirl film in the works. I have heard that it is specifically based on the Tom King comic Woman of Tomorrow. Tom King is attached to the film as a producer. This, and some hints in the Superman film, confirm that basis. Woman of Tomorrow is basically True Grit in space: an alien child wants revenge on some space outlaws who killed her family, and Kara Zor-El is roped in as her reluctant guardian for some good old morally ambiguous heroing. It gets real dark. I can’t wait.

It had an angry bald genius, it had giant monsters, it had an immigration subplot, it had some niche side characters. (I will absolutely be diving into Mr Terrific; expect a future post on that guy.) It had Jimmy Olsen. (Expect a post on him. He’s so weird.) It had Krypto the Super-Dog. It had a man with his pants outside his trousers, whose most foul-mouthed utterance was ‘darn it’, and who spent his action scenes shoring up buildings, rescuing civilians, and reassuring them that all would be well. He rescued a squirrel. A squirrel.

There have been too many dark Supermen in the last decade or so. Homelander in The Boys; the Superman of the Injustice games; Omni-Man in Invincible. Superman himself, to a lesser degree, in the Zack Snyder films. While TV and comics have done their best to remind everyone what Superman should be – Superman and Lois and My Adventures with Superman are both fantastic – mainstream media has overshadowed them, I think. So many creators have been obsessed with putting godlike power in the wrong hands of late.

These are the right hands. These are Superman’s hands. This is a big blue Boy Scout with a flying dog and a big smile. And it’s only a shame that we don’t have him around in real life. Seeing him on-screen, saving that world, will have to do for now. Maybe it’ll set an example. That’s what Superman is for, after all.

Superman (2025)