As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance:
- Superman implies that the reason he survived Luthor's black hole was that Luthor rounded off a decimal point when calculating Superman's density! See Gambit Roulette on the main page for the full context on this. note
- Joseph Stalin and Superman getting along finely is rather funny, given that "Stalin" literally means "Man Of Steel"note .
- Likewise for the animated version, where Superman kills Stalin and takes his place as the Man of Steel.
- Luthor's ability to avoid Brainiac's tendrils makes it likely that he planted Brainiac on Superman all of those years ago in order to further his plans.
- Superman is oblivious to Pyotr being a traitor to his regime in spite of the latter openly despising him, or Diana clearly being in love with him. This is a hint that this version of Superman doesn't see human beings as people so much as he does as problems that need to be fixed. When Pyotr drunkenly hints that he poisoned Stalin, Superman is too busy solving problems and averting crises to really listen. Lex figures out this flaw and uses it to achieve victory.
- One part of Superman mythos that this Superman lacks is that there is no Kryptonite in this story (as Luthor would have undoubtedly used it against him if it did). The reason is that because this story has the infant Kal-L being sent from a far distant future, there is no Krypton, so there is no Kryptonite!
- This also explains why Superman is able to be weakened by red sunlight if Krypton is really Earth: In the far distant future, Earth's sun would have been a red giant on the verge of going nova.
- Superman being from the future in this version brings new meaning to his nickname the Man of Tomorrow.
- Superman deliberately allowing Batman to commit suicide (being faster than the speed of human thought he could have stopped Batman's thumb on the trigger easily) is the beginning of his face turn - this is the moment when he first sees a human seriously committed to the preference of personal autonomy over material wellbeing and honors that decision. So really it's Batman who defeated Superman, not Luthor. Batman also successfully turns Diana against Superman with one sentence, as Luthor will later do, so despite minimal presence in the work his performance is impressive, underrated.
