Man of Steel Spoilers: Five Things Learned From the Trailer

If you’re one of those people who likes to go into a movie pure as the driven snow, then you’d better run. There are some things in this story you won’t want to read.The release of the second Man of Steel trailer, which hit today at noon, has resulted in a day of the comics community uniting to praise Superman–something that hasn’t happened in quite a while, considering the problems DC has had finding the character’s footing in the New 52.We also got a lot of new information to process in this trailer; we wanted to single a few things out, though, as of particular interest.Note that predictions and questions raised, we’ll probably talk about later. Right now, we just wanted to look at some things that are, or seem to be, straight-out facts.Jonathan Kent is deadWhen talking with (we assume) Lois at the end of the trailer, Superman says, “my father believed that if the world found out who I really was, they’d reject me. He was convinced that the world wasn’t ready. What do you think?” Besides being the line that gave us the most goosebumps, it also conveys something powerful: Superman is talking about Jonathan Kent in the past tense.Losing Jonathan Kent has been treated as an essential part of Superman’s mythology in recent years, popping up first in All-Star Superman and then again during Geoff Johns’s run on Action Comics. Pa Kent is quickly becoming the Uncle Ben of the DC Universe.Superman got his powers very youngMany fans who had heard about the school bus save thought that might be the first time Superman uses his powers in the new film–and that might be true, in terms of using them on purpose.This trailer opens, though, with a very young Clark Kent trying to hide from a world that’s bombarding his enhanced senses, and Martha trying to help him through it. This hearkens more to the Silver Age/Richard Donner take on the character than the version seen in John Byrne’s Man of Steel and then throughout the ’90s.Which, really, should be no surprise since that’s what DC is back to in the comics.