History Headscratchers / ManOfSteel

** Jor-El seemed like the kind of man who would believe in the best of people. After all, that's what his clan symbol means. That said, he also states to Clark exactly that in time, ''he'' would need to rise up and the be the example to help bridge the species together. It's not a perfect plan by a long shot, but it is the kind of plan the leader of what's possibly the most optimistic clan of Krypton would come up with.

** Genetic engineering did not "backfire in a ridiculous amount of ways" at least to our knowledge. What backfired was over-mining their planet instead investing in their space program.

** The Biggest Problem with the Mars plan is [[ComicBook/MartianManhunter The Martians]] A race of people that are just as powerful as the kryptonians, if not more so. Even assuming that, like in most continuities, Only J'onn J'onzz remains even then he could probably stop them alone if the barley trained Superman could. They also thought that Superman would go along with the destroy earth plan because he was also a kyrptonian, there's no way that they could convince any martian to destroy mars. They Also Needed Superman to rebuild the Birthing Matrix, the reason they wanted to terraform earth in the first place.

** Zod seems to have regarded Jor-El as a friend. He had a knife he could have pulled at any time, likely ending the fight. The fact that he doesn't do so implies that he wasn't trying to fight as hard as Jor-El was. And when you're son's on the line and you've come to terms with your impending death, you're going to be trying ''really'' hard.

** WordofGod [[https://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/11-super-things-learned-man-steel-live-fan-220800093.html says]] he was imitating himself. GeneticMemory compelled him to wear capes as a child.

[[folder: Meta-talk; Why would they make Superman obviously a divine being?!]]
* The scene of Sups being in a church with the Loving Savior on the window for the scenery is a really bad portrayal of the original creators of Superman wanted him to be, a sybol of achievement, not of worship. The studio producers are complete idiots for doing that scene, not only religiously offensive to the Jeudeo community but also of a perfect action of what not to do to change the core character of a famous icon. Kal-El is not the Man Upstairs but a really advance alien who's morals are cosmically different to humans. Batman was right in the next movie, keep the wanna-be god off our planet.
[[/folder]]

** WesternAnimation/SupermanVsTheElite... it wasn't any better there. An after-credits scenes would be fine. It would at least set-up Lex's intellect and that he was capable of harming kryptonians. SequelHook is a trope, after all. Mainstream audiences seem to like Zod in this film, so only comic readers would be annoyed that they 'wasted' Luthor, and even then, it's not like you can only use a character in one film. Look at Scarecrow in ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga''. The "Zod vs House of El" conflict was done when Supes snapped his neck, or more specifically, defeated him. While it would rob the film of a more conclusive feel, the film was meant to not only be the start of a trilogy, but the launching point for the DC Cinematic Universe, and having it be an after-credits scene would solve that conclusive feel-problem, as the Marvel movies don't seem to suffer for having them (there's a large enough gap between the main feature and the after-credits scene for it to not impact the tone of the movie).

** That's not always the case. In ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'', Batman is never able to save everyone and be a totally ideal hero. In the Justice League cartoon, all the team members have flaws and have to deal with them in each episode. It's not just Marvel that has more flawed heroes. Only the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and the comics it was based on, had Superman is a purely ideal hero that can save everyone (and even then, in Superman 1, it required a DeusExMachina of flying back in time in order to save Lois Lane), and that version of Superman hasn't been around since 1986. Finally, that's not even getting into the fact that most of the damage caused in Man of Steel is because of Zod's World Engine (a force far more powerful than the Chitauri), and Superman and Zod's fight itself actually causes less damage than the Avengers did. The damage was contained as best as possible given the circumstances, so while it is not surprising that some fans would be perturbed, it doesn't hold up to any logical scrutiny.

* When Clark saved the bus full of teens as a youngster, Jonathan says that maybe he should have let them drown and Clark keeps his powers a secret. Wouldn’t the secret be out anyway since Clark didn’t drown while the rest of the passengers did?

** The sole reason that people are complaining about Superman killing Zod and destroying the city in the fight against him is because of FanDumb, most of which is the fault of the Reeves movies. There is a widespread public perception that Superman would never kill anyone and would avoid causing massive destruction at ALL COSTS, no matter how little sense it makes. However, Superman hasn't been like that for over 3 decades now, and he wasn't even like that in the Reeves movies either. It pretty much comes down to TheyChangedItNowItSucks, even though MoS didn't actually change anything.

* A fridge brilliance on the part of Zack Snyder. He likes TheFountainhead, so much that it becomes his next project. Objectiveism treat selfless altruism as evil, and Great Man should not lower himself to help others

** Considering everyone we see just stands and stares until the destruction actually starts, including the Daily Planet workers who were at least ten stories up, yes, we're saying that. Besides, Super Man and Zod move around a lot, and falling buildings have good potential to block paths: just because they ran doesn't mean they actually got anywhere safe.

* "That is the main problem people have" Not sure what people you're talking about, the only people I've seen/read make that complaint are you, and DougWalker; in general the problem people have is that Superman killed him, and given that Zod was determined to kill this family and as noted there was no place to really put Zod, Clark's hand was forced.

** Also he usually has some kind of explicit or implied advantage during his fights. The first time is the flash bang and the second time he is seen noticeably putting on his own suit of armor that may have been some kind of PowerArmor that he had been tinkering with to give himsemlf an edge in just such a situation.

** Quoted from TheOtherWiki: "Superman's ability to fly under his own power is explained with the concept of "self telekinesis", an invisible telekinetic field that allows him to lift himself off the ground. Any objects that Superman touches are also enveloped by the field and this allows him to move them with the force of his will. In addition, the idea of a supercharged bioelectric "aura" which acts as an invisible "force field" around and within his body was introduced by Byrne to provide an explanation for his invulnerability. Superman's skin-tight aura allows his equally tight costume to come through his fights relatively undamaged, although his cape will tear as it is not protected by the aura."