Over five months have passed since audiences got their first look at the teaser trailer for James Gunn’s Superman. And, in that time, much of what followed was heavily focused on Superman’s dog, Krypto. Fans were left wondering, “What is this movie about?” and “When can we see more?”
The second question was answered on Wednesday as DC and Warner Bros. released the full trailer for the highly anticipated July 11 film. In it, there’s a ton of new footage, characters, places, and even some hints of a story. There are intriguing relationships, introductions, settings, and only two shots of Krypto. Who we love! But we’re glad we can finally see more of what Gunn has in store this summer.
You can watch the full trailer here. Below, we’re gonna go through the trailer to discuss every significant new detail and reveal we could find.
The first half of the trailer is centered on the tantalizing idea that Clark Kent (David Corenswet) allows Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) to interview him “as Superman.” The scene teaches us not just about the relationship between these characters—trusting, playful—but that Superman is having some issues.
Among those issues is, apparently, a spaceship that lands on the street in Metropolis. This very quick, almost throwaway shot at the beginning of the trailer doesn’t really match with anything else we see so we’re very curious about whose ship it is and when that takes place in the movie.
Another issue is that the Secretary of Defense, who the trailer implies is Rick Flag Sr., played by Frank Grillo, is going to look into Superman’s actions. Flag, of course, is a character from several other of Gunn’s DC properties such as Creature Commandos and Peacemaker.
“My actions? I stopped a war,” says Clark/Superman against footage of exactly that. Lots of people fighting, Superman landing in the middle of it and taking fire. Lois suggests maybe he didn’t.
Lane explains that he “illegally entered a country,” as we see Superman has been arrested by Flag and two other characters. The person in the mask has yet to be identified, though some fans are speculating it’s a character named Ultraman, an alternate universe villainous counterpart to Superman from Earth-3 in the comics. The woman is the Engineer, played by María Gabriela de Faría, and she plays a VERY big role in the rest of this trailer. Faría’s take on the Engineer is inspired by the second character to take on that mantle in DC’s Wildstorm universe of comics, Angela Spica, who replaces her blood with nanobot-filled metallic liquid to grant her the ability to use her liquid metal skin to shapeshift and create anything she desires.
Clark is getting frustrated as Lois continues to grill Superman about what gives him the authority to do good. He says he just wants to help people but Lois challenges him on it. This is intercut with some destruction and, finally, a midair battle with another new villain, rumored to be called the Hammer of Boravia. While the character appears to be new, the country they’re the hammer of isn’t: Boravia is a fictionalized European country based around the Alps in the comics, often depicted as being caught up in the tumult of civil war. It’s an old comics pull too, with Boravia having first appeared in the very second second issue of Superman back in 1939.
Superman falls from the sky and crashes into the ground. It’s unclear if this is because of the battle with the Hammer of Boravia, or the giant kaiju we’ve seen before, and will see again later. Either way, the citizens of Metropolis help him up, showing they are grateful for his assistance. He flies away spectacularly.
He flies away next to a building with this interesting symbol on it. A symbol we’ll see later on Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion. He has his own building? Or the team he’s on does… a team with a logo that certainly looks like a J and an L. Maybe it’s some kind of society that fights for equity.
The trailer cuts to the Fortress of Solitude, which we’ve seen in previous marketing, but now two villains are walking through it. One is Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and the other is the Engineer again. And now, we start to see some of her powers. Like turning her hands into blades.
Superman isn’t at the Fortress at the moment, but his trusty dog Krypto is, and we see several shots of the Engineer cutting down Superman’s helper robots and Krypto joining in.
It’s unclear if this is happening at the same time Lex Luthor and the Engineer are invading the Fortress, but we get a few cool shots of Superman swooping in to save a woman from being stomped by the giant kaiju.
We also get a few shots of Superman and Lois in an apartment where, now, he’s clearly just Superman. They embrace as a weird jellyfish-type creature floats above Metropolis, and gets wrapped up in a massive net of green energy (presumably that’s Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner using his Green Lantern ring–we’ll see him in action again later on). Most of the action we’ve seen in these trailers is during the day. This is at night. Is this the film’s final boss? We did see whatever this is in the first look ever of Superman, so it would be very James Gunn to hide a major spoiler in that first reveal.
As we’ve been watching the previous scenes, a voiceover has been playing. It’s Pa Kent (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince) who says, “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.” That culminates in the above shot of a young Clark running to see Pa, linked with the older versions talking in the present timeline. They embrace.
Now things start to pick up. First, we start to see several other DC characters, such as Mister Terrific, played by Edi Gathegi.
We get our coolest look at Lex yet, as he stands in the Fortress of Solitude and takes over the voiceover with another point of view on Superman. These quotes go over the next several sequences. “Superman is not a man. He’s an ‘it.’ And somehow become the focal point of the entire world’s conversation.”
There’s this quick scene of Clark, in his Superman outfit, back home in Smallville with Ma and Pa Kent. We don’t know what battle this is after but it certainly took a toll on him. It’s also followed by a shot of Lois, which implies she’s there with him, but we think that’s just a clever edit.
There’s also a quick shot of Superman in a jail cell. One we saw him break out of both earlier in this trailer and in the original teaser. What’s interesting here, though, is that Metamorph (Anthony Carrigan) is there and he’s turned his hand into Kryptonite. Someone knows Superman’s weakness.
In by far one of the coolest shots of the trailer, Superman rises up out of some kind of massive debris field. We don’t know what caused this but him rising from the ashes basically is a very cool, very hopeful moment.
There’s also a quick shot of Mister Terrific with Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and the aforementioned Guy Gardner. And, just like we said a few images up, Guy is wearing the same JL symbol that was on that building, making it seem even more like this is an early iteration of the League. It’s also made further interesting by the fact that Superman doesn’t quite seem like he’s part of this team in what we’ve seen, and that maybe this Justice League was already established.
We do know that Maxwell Lord is in this film, played by the James-Gunn-stalwart that is his brother Sean–in the comics, before being revealed as an adversary, Lord was presented as a major supporting figure in the re-establishment of the Justice League after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earthsand eventually the Justice League International. Could we be seeing the early formation of the League taking place here?
After several shots of Superman fighting the Engineer in a baseball stadium, which we’ve seen before, just never this clearly, the trailer shows the above. Some kind of underwater gash in the Earth. The editing suggests that’s from the baseball battle but we’re guessing that’s not accurate. What could cause damage like this, and to what end?
“I will not accept that,” Luthor screams to finish this quote about Superman. He is very, very mad about something. Probably Superman.
“I cleaned your boots,” Ma Kent (Neva Howell) says as we see Clark still at home in Smallville, probably after that earlier shot of being hurt in bed.
We watch Superman zip through the skies, right at the giant kaiju, and punch it in the nose. It’s a super cool scene, but did you notice the billboard playing the news? The chryron says, “New regulations set to begin next week.” Is the government attempting to regulate superheroes? Who is behind that? That sure might put a damper on James Gunn’s new DC universe.
More shots of the other heroes in the film. First up, Guy swats away some soldiers with his Green Lantern ring. It appears to be in the same desert location we previously saw Mister Terrific.
Certainly not in the same location, Hawkgirl smashes and flies someone out of what looks like a college campus.
After a quick shot of Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) at the Daily Planet, we get our first full look at Lex’s girlfriend Eve Teschmacher, played by Sara Sampaio. She’s taking a selfie as Superman fights.
There’s another shot of the baseball fight followed by a VERY quick moment from Lex’s office of him and Superman. This is the first time we are seeing them share the screen together and Superman is very mad. But Lex doesn’t care. He just sips his drink.
This is a weird one. Here’s Terrific and Lois exiting what appears to be a pipe underground. It doesn’t really fit with much else in the trailer, so we have no idea where or when this is.
We get our best look yet at Metamorpho’s powers before…
Another very weird shot. Here we see Superman flying through some kind of floating debris field towards a house. A house that shoots him with a laser. Where is this happening? What is shooting this? For our money, this is the most mysterious moment in the trailer and it does look similar to the place we saw Terrific and Lois exiting the pipe.
The trailer then starts to wrap up with a close-up of a scene we’ve previously seen: Lois and Superman kissing in midair. Think about this moment juxtaposed with their conversation at the beginning of the trailer. How much has Lois gone through with Clark to go from “I’m interviewing Superman” to “I’m kissing Superman”?
Then, you knew it had to happen. After the Superman logo, Lois asks him, “You have a dog?” And we’re finally back to Krypto, who we see in Clark’s old bedroom in Smallville.
So what have we learned? Superman is trying to do good and not everyone understands it. Lex Luthor has it out for him. Other DC heroes play a role. Superman gets beaten up a lot more than we’re used to seeing. How does that all fit together? We’ll find out July 11 when Superman hits theaters.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
