A few days ago on Threads, I posted the original image of David Corenswet’s Superman suit reveal from James Gunn’s Superman movie due out in July 2025, because since its release, there have been countless memes and altered images that have recolored and changed it to look exactly like Superman ‘78 or comic book style aesthetics.

My point was simple: I’m not reposting any altered images of the costume because it furthers the toxicity of Superman gatekeepers who think they know better than the creatives who are actually putting forth their own vision for the character. Here is my full post from that day:

That last line apparently hit a nerve with at least a few people, because later that day not only did a fool with 3 followers tell me that it was ridiculous for anyone to say Henry Cavill was the best Superman since “no one” watched his movie, an objectively incorrect fact in this case, but then I come across a Collider headline courtesy of @brooklyn_batman_ on Threads that made my eye twitch ever so slightly:

Yeah, we’re not going to play this revisionist history game, Christopher Reeve fanboys. So buckle up, you’re entering the chat whether you want to or not.

Now look, in the interest of fairness, I read the Collider piece in its entirety, even though I knew it was pure clickbait which that site has been filled with for years, but I wanted to give the author a chance that he had written something that was at least fair to the actual situation with the Superman fandom in particular.

As you could probably guess, it was a lightly condescending piece about the Snyder Cult clinging to irrational theories that Cavill is coming back, littered with backhanded jabs at how his version of the character wasn’t “correct” in the first place:

We’ve seen much worse written about Cavill’s Superman portrayal, but still.

What we DON’T see written at all by the likes of Collider or anyone else for that matter, is the headline “It’s Time To Move On From Your Christopher Reeve Superman Obsession,” because apparently that one is just fine, despite the fact that he hasn’t played the character since 1987 and obviously cannot do so posthumously since his passing in 2004. Though as I type this, someone is surely thinking that the best option for a new Superman movie is CGI digital replacement and AI generated dialogue from recordings of Reeve’s voice.

If you think this is “whataboutism” because a Collider writer took aim at the Snyder Cult, then you haven’t been paying attention to the Superman fandom for the past 20 years. Even after the Corenswet image was released, plenty of the Reeve gatekeepers commented on how they thought we were done with “dark and brooding” Superman and how he’s not smiling and doesn’t have as pronounced an S curl as he should have. That particular Superman actor obsession has never gone away, and has only gotten louder since WB decided to listen to them after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released.

What they weren’t counting on was that WB’s decision would be to sideline him for the next 8 years, theatrically speaking, and maybe that’s the real problem here.

In FLITE CHAT 0035, listener Jared Kardos brought up the podcast “Digging for Kryptonite,” which recently talked about Superman Lives, the aborted Nicolas Cage Superman project from the 90s that was going to be written by Kevin Smith, which led to the show asking this question in particular:

Intriguing, isn’t it? While Batman and Spider-Man fans have enjoyed multiple iterations of their heroes over the past 30-plus years, including movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Flash that brought some of the past iterations back to the big screen, Superman fans have had all but TWO big screen versions to enjoy, separated by 26 years of distance with a weird nostalgic continuity breaker in the middle in Superman Returns.

Perhaps that’s exactly why the Reeve gatekeepers have been around for so long, because they’ve literally never been given the chance to experience a different Superman portrayal the way Batman and Spider-Man fans have, and now that Cavill time has ended, those gatekeepers find themselves in the same place as their hated Reeve pearl clutching counterparts, grasping to their favorite interpretations of their beloved hero and shutting out all other possibilities, because it’s all they know and ever want to know at this point.

I say all of this as a fan of both Reeve and Cavill’s performances, with a preference for Cavill’s work in the Zack Snyder Trilogy. I own all of their Superman movies proudly in glorious Steelbook form because I can, and because I don’t engage in tribalism against either of them. They are BOTH extremely valid, entertaining and enjoyable versions of Superman on the big screen.

So I’m not excusing the behavior of either Reeve or Cavill gatekeepers. Far from it. I’m saying BOTH of them need to move on, and if you’re going to call out Cavill gatekeepers now for their BS conspiracy theories, then you better not ignore the Reeve gatekeepers that literally made the studio bend to their will in 2017 and started all of the DC Films chaos that ensued afterwards, the same chaos that ultimately sank the DCEU and that now James Gunn and Peter Safran have been tasked to clean up from their moronic predecessors.

Many of us Superman fans are looking forward to a new Superman movie and range from curious to excited to see what Gunn and crew have in store for the Man of Steel, and if the gatekeepers that can’t let Reeve’s interpretation go need to sit in a corner and slug it out with the Snyder Cultists that can’t let Cavill’s interpretation go, then so be it. They can deal with each other while the rest of us enjoy what will be only the THIRD unique theatrical interpretation of Superman in 47 years.