"We were pretty sure that was going to be controversial. It’s not like we were deluding ourselves, and we weren’t just doing it to be cool. We felt, in the case of Zod, we wanted to put the character in an impossible situation and make an impossible choice.
This is one area, and I’ve written comic books as well and this is where I disagree with some of my fellow comic book writers – ‘Superman doesn’t kill’. It’s a rule that exists outside of the narrative and I just don’t believe in rules like that. I believe when you’re writing film or television, you can’t rely on a crutch or rule that exists outside of the narrative of the film.
So the situation was, Zod says ‘I’m not going to stop until you kill me or I kill you.’ The reality is no prison on the planet could hold him and in our film Superman can’t fly to the moon, and we didn’t want to come up with that crutch."
Ignoring the fact that Superman has killed before, Goyer's point is extremely clear and makes perfect sense. Why should he be subject to an arbitrary rule that has nothing to do with his film? People seem to think that this Superman must be identical to the one we've been reading for decades, but this isn't that Superman. This is Clark Kent as he's becoming Superman, still figuring out who he wants to be and how far he'll go when pushed to the brink. And there seems to be some sort of confusion that just because Superman was forced to kill this time that it somehow means he wanted to kill. As if he's suddenly now this bloodthirsty Superman who will probably snap Batman's neck in the first five minutes of the sequel. I would say those people are playing a game of "Missing the Point Entirely", and don't seem to understand how this makes him a richer, more complex character.
Anyway, Goyer was also asked by THR about Justice League, and if he would be writing the script, as was the rumor some months ago. His response was "Might be, can't say.", meaning he probably won't say anything until Superman vs. Batman is all wrapped up.
