History Headscratchers / ManOfSteel

** Let's pinpoint the geography a bit better. Metropolis and Gotham are said by the [=DCEU=} wiki to be located on the east coast of the USA; specifically, in the states of Delaware and New Jersey, specifically. Now, the Indian Ocean is not constrained to the timezone of the Indian nation, it actually spans from eastern Africa to western Australia. If we look at the antipode of Wilmington, Delaware (disregard the fact that the fictional Metropolis has a vastly larger population than Wilminton) {{https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes/united-states/wilmington-de we see that it's off the west coast of Australia}} so this must be where Superman went to stop the terraforming process. And that means that sunset in Metropolis (7:30PM) would be around 7:30AM a few hundred nautical miles or so off Western Australia. Thus, there's more overlap in the time where the sun could be up for both of these locations.

*** Mumbai (a city on the coast of the Indian Ocean) is 10 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Kansas (where I assume Metropolis is, given that it doesn't seem that far from Smallville, explicitly stated to be in Kansas). The sunrise in Mumbai is around 6 a.m., while sunset in Kansas is somewhere around 8 p.m. So it's a bit of a time crunch, but juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust plausible.

** Regardless of whatever the Kryptonian MissingLink was like, modern Kryptonians are, culturally, xenophobes. They wouldn't have got along with humans even if they had decided to settle on Mars. They would have regarded Earth alien, worthless, and a potential threat (not an immediate threat, but xenophobia is often not rational). The fact that restarting their civilization requires Kal-El, and he's defiant, is a reason to destroy Earth now, but they'd want to eventually.

** It backfired in that each and every single person on Krypton was bred for one purpose & one purpose only. Jor-El & Zod, despite their trying, could not overcome that which had been preordained for them from birth, while Kal-El was born with true free will. Hell, the miners kept mining and the Council kept looking after the people instead of the very real signals that they were killing their planet too quickly, all because that's how they raised to be.

** Capes predate superman by a big margin. Capes were worn by royalty, for instance. Perhaps Clark is pretending to be a prince or something.
** Clark is seen reading 'The Republic' by Ancient Grecian philosopher Plato at one point in the story. Capes were a piece of clothing typically worn in Ancient Greece. Philosophers are often seen wearing capes in paintings such as 'The School Of Athens' by Raphael. Philosophers were also important in society as well somewhat powerful. This is reflected when Clark is seen standing over Krypto(?). Although it is a very young Clark, we already know he is very smart (Science Fair Winner), so it is possible he would have an interest in ancient times. With the cloak, he is clearly trying to emulate the philosophers.

** In the DCCU, it's been said that Batman will be older and wiser than Superman. It's possible that Clark was imitating him.

** The filmmakers are evidently giving people too much credit since this is a question asked by so many, but apparently people can’t see the implications and are completely stuck on “superpowers = cool”. Let me break it down for you. There are two aspects to General Zod terraforming the Earth: 1) the gravity and the makeup of earth; 2) the atmosphere.
** '''The gravity and the makeup of earth''': It is explained by Pa Kent early in the movie that the Command Key are made from a mineral not on the human periodic table. A liquid/solid black metal that also made-up of A LOT (if not most) of Kryptonian technology, but unfortunately, it doesn’t exist on Earth due to its low gravity and different makeup. General Zod made a point of holding up a handful of the black sand in Metropolis at the end, it should be obvious. Human society cannot survive in a place where there is no silicon and aluminum; likewise, Kryptonian society cannot survive in a place where that black substance doesn’t exist.

### Sensory Bombardment is considered a type of torture, including being bombarded with loud noises or music and flashing or bright lights, which is everything Kal-El suffered through his childhood and adolescent years. Never ending Sensory Bombardment can and will often lead to Sleep Deprivation, which is also a type of torture technique. It is not a laughing matter if it happened to an adult for a few days/weeks, and some people seriously considered doing it to ''children'' for a couple years for "superpowers?"
** Finally, General Zod is NOT turning the Yellow Sun into a Red Sun, they are still going to have superhuman strength if at a weaker state. If one can have 10% of Superman’s powers without being tortured though childhood, who would not prefer it?

** FridgeBrilliance If Kryptonians were like bears, that only become social to breed, the presence of Louis at the Daily Planet may have been what makes living in metropolis possible for him, activating his species gregarious behavior.
** Regardless of whatever the Kryptonian MissingLink was like, modern Kryptonians are, culturally, xenophobes. They wouldn't have got along with humans even if they had decided to settle on Mars. They would have regarded Earth alien, worthless, and a potential threat. (Not an immediate threat, but xenophobia is often not rational.) The fact that restarting their civilization requires Kal-El, and he's defiant, is a reason to destroy Earth now, but they'd want to eventually.
** 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 barely 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.
** Finally, even if Zod didn't have any ''direct'' cause to fear humans, martians, or whatever, he'd still consider human ''culture'' to be a bad thing to have nearby. Remember, he was outraged to learn that Jor and Lara had produced Kal via natural childbirth rather than the Birthing Matrix. Could he really afford to start a new generation of Kryptonians on another planet in the same solar system, knowing that humans' media broadcasts - broadcasts full of stories about naturally-born family life, and people rising above their birth status, and mavericks who question the status quo - would be streaming across the system and corrupting said next generation with their alien ideas?

** Scene was a real flashback though.

* Superman was extremely reckless to this movie, where he smash through buildings and creating utter destruction. Superman actually drag a fight with Zod to Smallville instead of battling it in the vast farm fields they passed, probably for a Sears or IHOP advertisement.

** Regarding Metropolis, most of the property damage and implied deaths was caused by Zod's ship and later Zod again smashing things at Superman or Superman into things. The most damage was dealt while Superman was elsewhere dealing with the World Engine. During that time, people are seen evacuating, and the destruction didn't encompass the whole city. Some hyberbole is at work here.

** Earth has less gravity than Krypton, and since they would have developed more powerful muscles on a planet with higher gravity, this would explain the super strength, speed and ability to fly/leap long distances. The air is stated to be more nourishing the Krypton's- increased nutrient/oxygen flow would also contribute to this, not to mention that Kryptonian artifacts are noted to be incredibly sturdy- the above factors just made the PoweredArmor they were wearing that much more super.

*** "People stop talking about It" ... except this amazing feat was performed by the same boy who Pushed a Full School Bus out of the river 5? years prior, either event on it's own can be glossed over or dismissed as 'an exaggeration' and people would let the story die... the same kid performing both "Miracles" and Pete's Mom among others would have started a the 'First Church of Clark Kent' before they'd cleaned up the Tornado debris.

** So where did Clark keep the key before giving it to Lois? Also, what's wrong with pockets? Feora kept her dagger in a seath, not just warped it in or materialised or something. There's no reason to believe they didn't use pockets or pouches or like.

** David Goyer said that the immense collateral damage was there to emphazise that as powerful as Superman is, he is still just one guy, he can't save everybody. Also, that the goal was to show the physical consequences of such godlike beings duking it out. Yes, hundreds, even thousands of people died, but the option was the extinction of the human race.

** Dealing with probably the more direct question of why it wasn't technologically possible for Zod to terraform Mars, the answer lies somewhere in Zod's assertion during the dream sequence that "a foundation has to be built on something". We don't know what the full range of capabilities of the World Engine are as such, but the fact that Kryptonian colonies were referred to as "outposts" that withered when cut off from Krypton suggests that the terraforming capabilities of the World Engine are limited; it seems to need an atmosphere to work on, which Mars doesn't have. The fact that the Kryptonians didn't terraform every single world they came across implies the World Engine can only really alter certain planets to Kryptonian norms. Earth happens to be one of those most rare gems in the cosmos: a planet that can actually be converted into a new Krypton.

[[folder: Faora's "evolution speech]]

** According to the [[Timeline/DCExtendedUniverse]], this event happened in 1997, so no they didn't have cameraphones.

** Never mind Jonathan's stupid, suicidal, paranoid, ass-backwards reasons for getting himself killed. Why did Clark ''let'' him go? He seemed to have an overall positive relationship with his dad, and you'd have to hate your father pretty badly to just stand there and let him die when almost any action you might have taken could have saved him.
** I think we're just looking for logic where there isn't any. Maybe there's a more emotional, more heartwarming answer to this question. Perhaps in that moment, when an incredibly dangerous natural disaster was headed their way and everyone was in a panic about it, Jonathan Kent simply forgot his son was an invulnerable alien and told him to get to the overpass out of concern for his family's safety, as any loving father would do under normal circumstances. And Clark let him because he trusts him, just as any good son would.

* Are we really to believe that not one person who watches the U.S. airspace for a living or any citizens of Smallville except the Kents saw the capsule that brought Kal-El to Earth and went looking for it? Not to mention, how the did the Kents move the capsule from the crash site to the barn basement? Moving something that big would have required more than just two people. Finally, are we really to believe that the "...metallurgist at Kansas State." wasn't the least bit excited at the potential prospect of discovering a new element and told none of his colleagues?

** Perhaps the council thought that if they game Dev-Em what he wanted, he'd ''surely'' get over his madness and act like a proper member of Kryptonian society. After all, the death penalty on Krypton in multiple versions, which presumably includes this one, was considered barbaric which is why the Phantom Zone was used for punishment.

* So, a young Kryptonian called Dev-Em goes mad with desire to make a name of himself, and murders a friend in order to have better odds at qualifying for the upcoming space colonization effort, the very first murder in Kyrptonian society in over a century. He is caught, and held in prision until his fate is resolved, since the Kryptonian council is divided about giving him the death penaly. Then some of the council memebers who did not like the idea, not only free him from prision, but put him in one of the precious spaceships, along with the person who caught Dev-Em in the first place. Okay, exactly how could such a plan not end terribly wrong? Even thousands of years earlier in their history, Kryptonians apparently were ruled by morons.

** Perhaps a planet already has to show that it can hold a significant atmosphere before it can be terraformed. It would suck to waste all that energy terraforming a planet only for your new atmosphere to drift off or solidify be cause your planet doesn't have the proper gravity to hold it there or is too cold. This could explain why Zod found a world engine on a planet that wasn't terraformed. Maybe it was terraformed, but it didn't take. Perhaps lack of success in this area is why the Kryptonians abandoned colonization of other planets altogether.

* How the hell did Lois's camera manage to capture such a clear photo of Clark? Now I can buy that Lois being the journalist that she is could spot something in an existing photo that no one else saw, but she takes a photo from the bottom of a large cliff, straight away zooms in one one spot that was half way up the cliff and gets an almost clear photo of Clark, save for a bit of blurriness around his face? I will admit that I know nothing about camera's, but I'm still fairly certain that make of camera cannot get such a clear shot with that type of lens. Plus, you have to ask how did she even see Clark from that far away?

** No, Faora just wasted all his men effortlessly and had her sights on him. Death was as certain if he ran way as if he faced the alien invader. As to waht was going on through his head, again, Faora just wasted his men. The guy most likely was pissed off and wanted to fight until the bitter end, no matter how futile it may be.

** And pray tell how would he preform the tactical retreat? His helicopter was crashed, the other soldiers with him on it were either too injured or dead. And a super powered alien woman who can run faster than he can blink is like 10 feet in front of him. He could try to retreat but she'd still go after him. He was all out of ammo in his guns, but if he was going to die, he figured he'd at least die knowing he TRIED to put a dent in her. Also it sets up for a great IronicEcho at the end.

** I just assumed that the military was taking actions to evacuate the city as best they could once they knew Zod was setting up camp in Metropolis. Since they were attacking Zod's ship anyway, it only made sense for them to oversee the evacuation as well since that's one of the things we train our soldiers for and one of the reasons the National Guard exists. Logistically, it's also a lot easier for us to send soldiers in to oversee an evacuation on American soil than it is to send fighter jets to attack a target in the Indian Ocean that we're not even sure we can damage.

* Earth is an ideal planet to support life. It would take far less energy to "Kryptoform" Earth then it would to do the same to either Venus or Mars. On the simple grounds of Cost Efficiency, it's easier to just Kryptoform Earth then to either go look for another ideal planet or spend more resources to convert a less ideal planet. The only issue is the presence of native sapients, and Zod simply does not care.

** Realistically, the only thing that Luthor can do in an after credits sequence is just show up and tell the audience "This is who's gonna play Lex Luthor". And it might not even matter since he might ''not'' be the villain in the sequel. He might show up and maybe antagonize Superman, which could lead to him being the BigBad in Man of Steel 3 or the ''Justice League'' movie, whatever comes first. Scarecrow in the DKS were nice continuity nods, but his appearances in the second & third movies were merely cameos, which wouldn't really work with a big character as Luthor. Of all of the Superman movies, Lex Luthor has been in four of them (I, II, IV, Returns) so even non-comic book readers would know how big a player Lex Luthor is. ''Man of Steel'' was written to be self-contained, with the sequel plans (as well as the later announced Flash & Justice League movies) finalized '''after''' the movie proved to be a hit since the first attempt to make the DCCU, ''Green Lantern'' was a false start (Amanda Waller would have been the Nick Fury equivilant), Warner Bros. needed to see if audiences would take to this new universe first. So that's why aside from a few super quick cameos (the LexCorp shoutouts and the Wayne Industries satelitte), the movie didn't dare go beyond the origin & Zod stories, not even for an aftercredits sequence. Will there be one in MOS II? Probably, but remember: even Loki had to have a movie (Thor) to become the major player he is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Avengers, Thor II). Lex needs more than a few mere minutes.

** Clark knows where her powers come from; the Jor-El A.I. told him. The composition of Earth's atmosphere & the absorbtion of yellow sunlight from Earth's sun. But really, there is no realistic, established way to imprision Zod and/or remove his powers left at the end of the movie. Zod is a superpowered alien now capable of everything that Superman can do, there is no believable way of keeping such a being unconcious in what could take months or years, at least a few weeks to give the government "some time to think of something" (it would be laughable if the superpowered Kryptonians could be taken out with common anesthetic gases or drugs). Introducing Lex Luthor at the tail end of the movie wouldn't have been a smart move (unless it was an aftercredits scene) since it would have taken away the movie's "Zod vs the House of El" theme and would leave the audiences grumbling that they wasted Luthor on a few minutes; that's why the shoutouts to Luthor in the movie were all low-key. The only way the movie established that a Kryptonian's powers can be lost is if they are in the natural or simulated settings of Krypton's atmosphere, which can no longer be done with the destruction of '''all of the Kryptonian ships'''. Between stopping Zod from causing any more casualties and surely knowing full well that nothing now can stop '''him''' let alone Zod, Clark had to make his actions... [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender decisive]]. After all, he can't very well remove Zod's powers with a heretofore unmentioned spiritbending in the last moments, leaving him a broken shell of the man he once was, right?