Superman (2025) has been hailed as a success and I applaud all the cast & crew for a revamp propelling the mythos into a new generation.

Also in a wonderful twist Superman (2025) also provides us with a very much alive Jonathan “Pa” Kent able to give a pep talk to Clark during the movie and very much giving off the same atmosphere of the Jonathan Kent in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman which I found quite enjoyable to the very bleak typical route your traditional Clark has to endure as a sort of canon event / humiliation ritual before ascending to The Man of Steel we typically follow.

So let’s talk about Man of Steel (2013) the Superman Movie after the long hiatus from Superman Returns in 2006.
Spoilers ahead but not really Jonathan Kent dies in Man of Steel… shock horror I know, but how he dies seems to be a topic of contention of many.

Why didn’t Clark “save” Jonathan? This is a valid question and I’ve often heard others say “well I would of saved my Father, even if he was forbidding me and people would just have to learn that day who I am” or something around those lines and of course that Jonathan’s decision to halt Clark who was willing to step in not only was a poor decision but also traumatised THAT Clark through much of his further maturing years.

Valid points and… there are no right answers. We’re dealing with a specific world with perspectives from specific characters who are doing what they feel is best. That Jonathan Kent knows very much how PEOPLE react in his world. Should we not forget when Clark was younger in sensory overload at school the children and adults were essentially treating his behaviour as abnormal they were hardly sympathetic he was treated like a “Freak”. Having gifts and special skills are absolutely wonderful if they are used correctly. All they knew though was that he was just crashing out in a closet not that his super hearing had kicked in. Imagine the discomfort, jealousy and mockery Clark would have suffered during those years if The Kents openly shared what was really happening to the community?

There were many other incidents over the years including the bus accident and save. In small incidents you can have individuals accept what is happening but in large numbers well… everyone has different ideas. Imagine if Clark failed to save everyone on the bus and ended up inadvertently got his peers and the driver killed due to his inexperience. That’s manslaughter in the real world if someone truly wanted to push on this and I imagine some grieving parents absolutely would.

I can see where Jonathan Kent was coming from in his decision. Clark wasn’t ready.
Have you ever thought about scenarios where someone has to push someone out of the way of a speeding car and they get hit either fatally or take on life altering injuries saving (hopefully) the other person. I’m sure others have ideas of how they’d handle it. They’d grab the person AND avoid the collision like SUPERMAN I imagine. Except that’s not always how it goes. In most cases your energy is put into getting that person out of the way, you’ve made a decision that YOU might not make it but that person will for whatever reason you chose. In a sense this was the reverse situation.

I’m letting the danger hit me to save you.

I don’t dismiss the actions of the Jonathan in Man of Steel it was difficult and right or wrong I can’t say but I will say that I agree. The World, that World wasn’t ready and Clark was not ready.

The World this Clark in Superman (2025) is from is a World where it seems the World was ready for a long time well before Clark came on the scene and how fortunate he has a Jonathan to provide words of wisdom.

I guess the World is Ready for more Superman now.

Regards,

Alexander / Zenchi