There Was an Alternate Ending for MAN OF STEEL Where Superman Didn't Kill Zod

Man of Steel writer David Goyer recently revealed that there was an alternate ending to the film in which Superman did not kill Zod. As you know, director Zack Snyder took a lot of heat from a lot of fans regarding the decision to have Superman kill Zod. It was a big departure for Superman as he is known for being a superhero that doesn’t kill people. Snyder and Goyer went against the grain, though, and tried something dark and different, with Superman snapping Zod’s neck.

Goyer stands by his decision, though. He thinks this direction was the right choice for the story they wanted to tell for Superman. During a Comic-Con@Home panel, he said:

“I absolutely understand a lot of people had problems with it. When I have had a hand in adapting these things, you wanna be as respectful to the core material as possible but you also can’t protect against failure. You have to take big swings. With big swings there are big rewards.”

However, there was an alternate scene written where Superman doesn’t kill Zod. Goyer described how that alternate ending would have played out, saying:

“The idea was that Superman would… there was one of those sort of cryopods on the ship that ends up becoming the Fortress of Solitude that he’s able to put Zod back into and then throw out into space. We did talk about it and maybe some people would’ve been happier with that, but it felt like a cop out for the story that we were telling.”

That ending certainly wouldn’t have had the same impact that the original ending had, but it is more in line with the traditional stories of Superman. They wanted to take a more realistic approach with Superman, though, and they ended up putting him in this difficult ethical position where he felt his only choice was to kill Zod. Goyer went on to say:

“We were trying to… if you track the story all the way through in terms of this character emerging and his maturity and fully understanding the kind of power he has, and when they fight the kind of devastation that is caused by it. It’s not some frivolous fight, it’s almost like 9/11 when they fight. We were trying to come up with a stalemate where he couldn’t… there’d been a editorial decision in which Superman doesn’t kill, it was a rule, but that’s a rule that’s imposed on a fictional world and we just thought but sometimes, whether it’s a soldier or people in law enforcement, and again an immature Superman. This is the first time he’s ever flown in that story. He’d just flown for the first time days before that. He’s not aware of the extent of his powers at all. He’s finding somebody who’s said, ‘I won’t stop,’ who’s said, ‘You can’t put me in a prison I won’t ever stop’. We wanted to put him in a stalemate.”

I understand what Goyer and Snyder were going for, but a lot of fans still feel that the movie didn’t honor Superman as being the beacon of hope that he’s always been. While Man of Steel isn’t my favorite Superman movie, I did like it for doing something new and different with the character.

What are your thoughts on the end of Man of Steel? What do you think about the alternate ending they considered?