David S. Goyer Whether Superman Should Be Able to Kill and if he’s Writing JUSTICE LEAGUE

David Goyer upset a lot of fans over the summer by writing a version of Superman that would be willing to Kill. For most comic book fans, Superman’s unwillingness to cross that line was a defining part of his character. At a recent lecture, he gave his view on why it was OK to make that kind of fundamental change. He also talked a bit about the possibility of writing the script for The Justice League.

First, on Superman killing Zod:
“We were pretty sure that was going to be controversial. It’s not like we were deluding ourselves, and we weren’t just doing it to be cool. We felt, in the case of Zod, we wanted to put the character in an impossible situation and make an impossible choice.

This is one area, and I’ve written comic books as well and this is where I disagree with some of my fellow comic book writers – ‘Superman doesn’t kill’. It’s a rule that exists outside of the narrative and I just don’t believe in rules like that. I believe when you’re writing film or television, you can’t rely on a crutch or rule that exists outside of the narrative of the film.”

…“So the situation was, Zod says ‘I’m not going to stop until you kill me or I kill you.’ The reality is no prison on the planet could hold him and in our film Superman can’t fly to the moon, and we didn’t want to come up with that crutch.”

Meanwhile, on Justice League and other DC projects:
“Also our movie was in a way Superman Begins, he’s not really Superman until the end of the film. We wanted him to have had that experience of having taken a life and carry that through onto the next films. Because he’s Superman and because people idolise him he will have to hold himself to a higher standard.”

SOurce: LR