As My Adventures with Superman Season 2 rolls on, a new Superman is being born out in the real world. David Coronswet is filming James Gunn's Superman, which will hopefully kick off a new live-action series of DC films. Gunn's take is likely to be very different from what we're seeing here, but a recent comment from Brandon Routh of Superman Returns shows us that My Adventures with Superman has some lessons for Gunn and Coronswet as they create their Superman. Spoilers follow for My Adventures with Superman Season 2, Episode 6.

"The Machine Who Would Be Empire"

Superman is a terrifically powerful being, in both the impressive and frightening definitions of the word. As we've seen demonstrated in other Superman and Superman-type stories like Red Son, The Boys, and Brightburn, part of what helps make Superman a symbol of hope is the people who raised him. Jonathan and Martha Kent impart a sense of responsibility and community in their adopted son that lets him see everyone on Earth as a fellow member of his community. In other words, Superman could be a destroyer, a conqueror of worlds, a ruler, or someone who lets Earth become dependent on him. Instead, he actively chooses to be supportive.

Actor Brandon Routh's Superman Returns isn't very well-remembered, but it's never felt like something that rested on his shoulders. He reprised the role for the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths finale and showed what happens to a Superman who experiences the deepest, most painful tragedies: He keeps going. At a recent panel at ACE Superhero Comic Con 2024, an attendee asked Routh if he had any advice for Coronswet. Here's what he said:

“I think the biggest thing for me about Superman is always recognizing the non-physical superpowers that he has. It can be cheesy to relate it to the ‘teach a man to fish’ story, but quite literially that is how I see it, and it’s very apropos to being the thing. If you save people all the time, everywhere, maybe they never learn how to save themselves. That doesn’t mean that you don’t save them, but it just means that the teaching, the personality, the aspect, the human communication, the understanding Superman can give us of inclusion.”

The timing of this comment and this episode of My Adventures with Superman feel synchronistic. This comment could've been uttered in the writers' room for MAWS while working on this particular story.

When we last left off, Supes was in a red crystalline coffin being pulled away by Kara after a battle outside of Metropolis--which she won decisively. Much of this episode is spent with just these two characters. Kara has a vision for Earth: a Kryptonian-ruled paradise, a place that returns to life the holographic images she's worshipped for so long. But we saw during her first appearance that she isn't in full control of her own mind. Someone she referred to as Primus takes control when she starts to steer away from the Kryptonian mission.

Kara tries to share this vision with Clark, but he's immediately suspicious. Conquerors don't leave paradises behind, and he knows it--he grew up on Earth, after all. Kara tells him about the planets she helped bring into "the light of the Kryptonian empire." When she takes him to see one, though, what they find is a dead world. Ruins of a vast civilization, dead save for one flickering image that she can't seem to pierce with her own eyes.

While we see Superman do Superman stuff in this episode--throwing asteroids, stopping an enemy with freeze breath, and so forth--he's Clark for most of this episode, and insists that Kara call him by that name. Nothing he does isn't something that Kara could immediately overpower. He's not Superman here.

Instead, he's using his incredible capacity for empathy. He sees Kara, a future conqueror of Earth, not as an enemy, but as someone who needs help. Punching her won't help. He asks questions that make Kara think, sowing seeds of doubt by asking her to look again, rather than through lies.

Kara brings him to Primus Brainiac, the mechanical ruler of the nonexistent Kryptonian empire, who wishes to control his body as he does Kara's, using them as living weapons to further his mission. Brainiac in this show is voiced by Michael Emerson of Lost, Person of Interest, and, most recently, Fallout. What a killer choice. Emerson has nailed the condescending, intelligent villain tone so thoroughly, that as we watch, it feels like Superman's fight against him might just be hopeless.

One of Brainiac's comments is a haunting reminder that seemingly idyllic societies are bolstered by the spoils of war, be that slaves, resources, technology, or simply a lack of future competition. It's a reminder that movies like Starship Troopers and games like Helldivers 2 are a warning as much as they are entertainment.

After the last few episodes, which have felt so frustratingly slow, this episode feels like a reward for our patience. This is a pretty fresh take on Kara, and even after she inevitably breaks through her mind control and unites with her cousin to defeat Brainiac, she's going to be haunted by the images of what was done using her body and her powers. And right now, Superman is kneeling before the ruler of the Kryptonian empire--setting the stage for him to stand up and show his would-be conqueror what it means to be a real Kryptonian--at least to Clark and the House of El--and hero.