Man of Steel Alternate Ending Wouldn't Have Killed General Zod

Man of Steel might be seen as one of the better DCEU movies these days, mostly because the story is easy to follow but it was quite the rod for controversy back then. The dark tone was a really big sticking point for some, while others complained about Superman himself having a very passive personality that made him more boring than usual. Of course, the biggest point of controversy was Superman killing General Zod, a decision that haunts the DCEU to this day.

David S. Goyer, the film's writer who is no stranger to DC criticism, discussed a Man of Steel alternate ending where Superman does not kill General Zod. According to a Comic-Con panel (via Slash Film), Goyer said there was a scene where Superman traps Zod in a cryopod ship and throws him into space. While this ending was discussed, Goyer said that for the story they were trying to tell, Superman had to kill Zod.

"The idea was that Superman would – there was one of those sort of cryopods on the ship that ends up becoming the Fortress of Solitude that he's able to put Zod back into and then throw out into space. We did talk about it and maybe some people would've been happier with that, but it felt like a cop out for the story that we were telling."

It's hard to agree with Goyer here since there's no scene where Superman is supposed to think that killing is the right thing to do. The fact that Zod was trying to kill a family with his heat vision does not help since nothing was preventing Superman from just flying him up and punching him some more. Honestly, they needed to get more creative when it came to Superman killing and they just didn't succeed in my opinion.

Man of Steel is now available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital stores.

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