The Hype Is Real For Superman After Epic Teaser Trailer

Everything old is new again in the first teaser for James Gunn's "Superman." But if everything here looks familiar, why does it feel so fresh?

The first "Superman" teaser is full of familiar imagery — shots of the American heartland, a man alone in the ice and snow, a harried Clark Kent, and a confident Lois Lane. Lex Luthor is there, looking all lean and mean. A Fortress of Solitude rises from the ice. Even the old John Williams theme is back. There's generations of nostalgia here, and just when you think you've seen literally all of it before, blammo, there's Krypto the Superdog. That's new.

Beyond all the iconography, there's also something in the teaser for 2025's "Superman" that DC's struggled to capture in the last ten years on film: an optimistic tone. The "Man of Steel" era was dour, intense, and frightening. "Superman Returns" felt too stuck in the past and distant. The Christopher Reeve movies started hopeful, but ended in low-budget disaster almost forty years ago. And the last time we saw that Superman, in 2023's "The Flash," he was a soulless, computer-generated demon who looked like he'd been rendered on an old Nintendo Wii.

In other words, we've been seeing Superman in movies for years now. He's never really gone away. But he hasn't felt like Superman in quite a long time — until now.

Early reactions all seem to agree: when it comes to adapting Superman, this teaser feels like the real deal; there's no deleted mustache here. This Superman is strong, but not scary. He looks like the character as you always picture him — hopeful, humble, strong, and pure. And while we know he has godlike powers, he spends most of the teaser on the verge of being defeated. He's not some weird alien who's just guaranteed to win. He's a man — he's human.

It feels like for the last ten years, DC movies have predicated themselves on the notion that darkness and violence were the things audiences craved. "This time, our superheroes kill people. They're gonna rip the bad guy's head off." And isn't that kind of boring? What's more interesting — a destroyer, or a protector? We don't know for sure what'll happen in the movie, but this teaser seems to set up a more inspiring kind of hero.

Or should we say heroes? Casting reports and the teaser itself indicate that there's actually a lot of established superheroes in this movie. Like, enough to where people were kind of worried. Was this going to be "Batman v Superman" all over again, stuffed full of characters who didn't need to be here yet? That really remains to be seen. But the important thing for now is that the teaser doesn't linger on that — we see the other heroes, but they're clearly not the point. The impression we get is that this is Superman's story, taking place in a world that would exist whether he was there or not. While they may be present in the movie, the teaser doesn't beat you over the head with the more obscure heroes and make you feel like "Shazam 2," where you needed to go do homework to understand basic things about the movie.

Finally, you may have noticed that the trailer ends with no title. Just a date and a company logo: DC Studios. This teaser isn't just hyping up a movie; it's teasing a whole new approach to the DC characters on screen, this time under the creative leadership of James Gunn. And after a run of puzzling, embarrassing disasters like "The Flash" and "Joker: Folie à Deux," that's the thing that audiences really need to be sold on here.

The fact that there's no title card isn't an oversight — it's a statement of purpose. You know who Superman is. You know this story. But hasn't it been a while since you've seen it done this purely? It conveys confidence in the project and treats the audience with respect. This same technique was used to great effect in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's "All-Star Superman," where Clark's origin story is one page — and eight words — long. "Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple." That's it. They know you know, and you don't need to hear it again.

And that's the same effect the first "Superman" teaser has — there are no gimmicks, no tricks. Just the promise of a story you already know, executed well — and it makes this start to a whole new DC Universe look very promising, indeed.