Handing You Your Ess.

Very soon, a trailer for the next Superman movie is going to drop.  The rumour is that it will be here before Christmas, but even if it isn't, you're bound to see the newest incarnation of Superman in his full costumed glory well before the July 11 release of the film.  You may have already seen this image of David Cornswet suiting up:

 

One boot at a time, just like the rest of us.

It's not what I would have chosen as the image to introduce the world to the new Man of Tomorrow, but it at least gives us a decent look at the costume and the new logo.

And that "S" is the latest topic of conversation in the Geek-o-sphere.  The new logo is based on this:

 

It's an Alex Ross design, blindingly simple.

It swaps black for the more traditional yellow background, in a darker story called Kingdom Come, with an older, darker Superman.  Genius and worth looking up and reading if you're not familiar.

The new logo takes this Ross design and swaps the yellow back in.  Presumably, James Gunn plans a brighter, more hopeful Superman and the logo is a sort of "best of both worlds" blending:

 

If nothing else, the new Superman has a nice "S".

It seems some portion of the Geek-o-sphere takes issue with it.  Comic book fans will argue about just about every molecule of every movie, show and book on the planet.  It's often like watching the infinite monkeys at infinite keyboards, all living in infinite parents basements, eating infinite Cheetos and pounding infinite Red Bulls.  This time, someone actually got James's Gunn's attention with a demand to use the "original" Superman Logo, not the one he's using.  His response was to ask if they wanted him to use this:

 

Yep.  Superman didn't always have a tight S.

It may not be familiar, but it's the original.  From this:

Like most things about the Man of Steel, the logo evolved and continues to do so.  When a property like Superman has 80 years of life and change, we mere morals have a tenancy to revere the version we are most familiar with as the "real" version.  I am as guilty of this as anyone and being aware that I am, I fight the instinct at every turn.  If new and different versions of beloved characters didn't spring forth from the creative talents in the world, we'd have one Batman movie, one James Bond movie, one version of Robin Hood and play them all on repeat.  

What a horrible thought!

Anyhow, in case you're wondering, Superman's S has been changing it's shape and even its colour regularly for the last 80 years.  Long may it be so.

 

And somehow the Alex Ross Kingdom Come logo didn't make the cut.

I suspect that the person who made the demand of Gunn had something like the 1998-2009 version in mind as the "original", but as you can see, it's far from it.  There's a wealth of options in just the limited selection presented here and I applaud Gunn for going his own way without losing sight of the history of the character he's about to reintroduce to the world.

Now, if he'd just get back to me about my African-American Superman script...