James Gunn’s Superman Could Finally Redeem One of the Worst Superman Movie Moments Ever

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1983’s Superman III features a sequence in which Christopher Reeve’s Superman gradually becomes evil and eventually has a knockdown, drag-out fight with his Clark Kent persona. While it is certainly the most memorable sequence of Superman III, many issues with the movie itself held the superhero fight back from its true potential – potential that the incoming Superman vs. Ultraman battle in James Gunn’s Superman could finally realize in full.

Superman III’s Junkyard Fight Was a Great Idea Packaged in a Terrible Movie

In Superman III, the Man of Steel’s exposure to a faulty sample of synthetic Kryptonite created by Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) doesn’t nullify him like real Kryptonite should, but instead turns Superman into an aggressive, self-absorbed, sinister version of his former self. Eventually, this causes Superman to split into two separate entities – the dark Superman and Clark Kent, with the two duking it out in a junkyard before the latter eventually emerges triumphant and soars back into the sky as the true Superman.

The battle of two Men of Steel in Superman III represents an internal struggle between Superman’s innate heroism and the potential for him to go in the opposite direction. It’s also ambiguous whether it happens in reality or just in Superman’s mind, given how Clark splits off from the dark Superman like an emerging spirit and how the latter simply disappears into thin air after being defeated by Clark. Conceptually, Superman fighting an evil version of himself is a great idea, and the Kryptonian junkyard smackdown is by far the best sequence in the deservedly derided Superman III. However, it still didn’t deliver in the kind of epic fashion that it could have, especially within the goofy plot of Superman III. However, James Gunn’s Superman could have just the right villain for the job of delivering a truly memorable Superman vs. Superman showdown.

Ultraman Embodies a Ruthless Version of Superman

Superman’s rogues gallery includes numerous villains who possess the same powers he does, or embody villainous versions of the hero, such as General Zod, Faora-Ul, Nam-Ek, Jax-Ur, and Bizarro. Ultraman is a somewhat unique case: not only does he possess all of Superman’s powers, he’s quite literally an evil Superman from an alternate reality (Earth-3), an alternate reality populated by villainous versions of DC’s hero roster. That alone makes Ultraman a Superman villain well-positioned to oppose the Man of Steel as both a physical opponent and another side of the good-evil coin. What’s interesting is how infrequently live-action Superman media has put him up against a doppelganger enemy, especially in Superman movies.

Aside from Superman III‘s junkyard brawl, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace presented its own failed riff on Bizarro with the Superman clone Nuclear Man. The Superman TV series Smallville dove the most heavily into creating “Evil Superman” villains with series lead Tom Welling portraying both Bizarro and Ultraman on the show (the latter being Ultraman’s only live-action portrayal to date apart from Gunn’s Superman movie). Superman & Lois also saw Tyler Hoechlin as Bizarro opposite his own Man of Steel, and eventually transformed Hoechlin’s Bizarro into Doomsday, which further illustrates the potential of a multiversal Superman villain like Ultraman as a big-screen heavy against David Corenswet’s Superman. Within the framework of Gunn’s Superman, there are two ways Ultraman could deliver as a villainous Superman in a smackdown a la Superman III‘s junkyard battle: one of them straightforward, and the other a much bigger wildcard.

How Superman vs. Ultraman in James Gunn’s Superman Could Deliver on the Showdown Superman III Promised

The first possibility for how Ultraman could be presented in Superman is to simply have David Corenswet play the role. With Corenswet already portraying Superman in the film, simply pulling off Ultraman’s mask to reveal Corenswet as a far more ruthless, bloodthirsty Superman from another Earth in DC’s multiverse could set up a one-to-one modern take on Superman III‘s junkyard battle of two Supermen, with the two characters representing Superman’s purity vs. what a corrupted version of him would look like in much the same way. The second possibility could be an even wilder scenario if Ultraman is revealed to be the DCEU’s Superman, Henry Cavill.

With considerable speculation gaining traction that Cavill is playing Ultraman in Gunn’s Superman film, it would help account for Ultraman being a masked villain when there’s no real need to hide the identity of a basic Superman doppelganger. Aided by modern visual effects and the strength of both Cavill and Corenswet, a battle of their Supermen could be a breathtaking action sequence, with layers to it. While Cavill could theoretically portray comic book accurate version of Ultraman from Earth-3, an even wilder possibility could be if Cavill is actually returning as his DCEU version of Superman – or, more specifically, Superman from Zack Snyder’s Knightmare future, pulled into the DCU through a multiverse portal by Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, who then attempts to weaponize Knightmare Superman against the Superman of his world (effectively turning Knightmare Superman into Ultraman by default), only for his plan to inevitably go awry.

Superman III‘s battle of two Supermen is, like the movie itself, a product of its time, and one that hasn’t aged well, even if it remains the only truly salvageable moment from one of the worst Superman movies ever made. If James Gunn’s Superman has the potential for anything, it is in finally giving audiences the big-screen Superman vs. Superman battle royale they have waited decades for with Ultraman’s role in the movie.

Superman III is available to stream on HBO Max, and James Gunn’s Superman will be released in theaters on July 11th.