Super Specific is a bi-weekly pop culture superhero blog.

I appreciate “Steel man.” Come to me, internet, I will say it loud and clear. I really like this movie. The action is great, the first 20 minutes on Krypton were fascinating to watch and yes I love watching Henry Cavill’s face and abs and everything in general. I think he’s a great Superman.

A lot of people disagree with me.

Honestly, I think a lot of people don’t like “Man of Steel” because Zack Snyder made it happen, and Snyder’s love relationship with his fans and his haters deserves a full article. But let’s start with something simpler, the 2013 Superman reboot divided fans and critics alike over DC’s “dark movie” issue.

DC released “Batman begins” in 2005, trying to revamp the Batman franchise after the campy, over-the-top, and complete box office failure that was “Batman and Robin” in 1997.

Christopher Nolan directed the film and set off the age of a Batman at street level. Armed with a Warner Bros.-level movie budget, a really good screenplay, and all the CGI and stunt work a director could want, Nolan has gone on to make what is arguably the best trilogy of all-time movies. superhero of all time.

The following, “The black Knight,” to him alone is almost universally advertised as the best superhero movie of all time, and for good reason. Aside from my favoritism for Marvel, I could probably quote most of “The Dark Knight”. It is a film masterpiece, and it has won major awards, such as the posthumous Oscar from Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor like the Joker.

But even though Nolan’s success gave superhero films the critical credibility to match their box office weight, his grim portrayal of Batman seemed to signal every other Hollywood filmmaker that if they wanted their superhero movies to be “good”, they also had to be “dark.”

Filmmakers don’t always perform so well. Director Matthew Vaughn managed to capture a ‘Nolan inspired’ tonal reboot pretty well in “X-Men: First Class,” while other superhero movies such as failure “The Fantastic Four” to restart fall flat because they tried to make superheroes more “realistic”.

How exactly do you do that for Superman? It’s hard to “floor” him – the guy literally steals. And so that’s not a stretch that some people might have trouble identifying with Clark Kent. It is physically impossible to harm him without kryptonite on hand, he is a handsome white dude and on his days off he works as a straight reporter.

I didn’t particularly like Superman before “Man of Steel”. I had seen the original “Superman” movies from the 70s after my mom insisted that I learn to appreciate the classics. But I have to admit that the Styrofoam Fortress of Loneliness, neon spandex, and two-shoe hair curls didn’t capture my immediate love and attention.

I can appreciate what “Superman” has done for superheroes and blockbuster movies, but I don’t want to see him again. “Man of Steel”, however, made Kal-El a human for me.

Clark Kent of Cavill is jaded. He’s seen some nasty things in the world and doesn’t yet have the confidence to melt down with all that heroic gravity to fix them. He spends the first 40 minutes of the film drifting from crisis to crisis. He saves the lives of some oil rig workers before disappearing into the sea and prevents a waitress from being harassed in a restaurant, leaving before she can thank him.

He is also angry. He rams tree trunks into a trucker’s 18-wheeler truck after the man throws a drink in his face. He is haunted by his failure to save his foster father from a tornado in an effort to conceal his powers. He breaks General Zod’s (Michael Shannon) neck to save the people of Metropolis, and he screams in anguish for killing one of the only Kryptionians left in the galaxy.

All those little micro-expressions, the twitches of pain and rage and the little smile he has on his face after something goes right for once – a man I can relate to.

But there are many who say that Zack Synder Ruined superman. He made him mean and sullen. This public crusade against Cavill’s Superman continued in “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice”, another critical hit and failure for the director – who picked up the darker tone of the previous film.

I don’t particularly like “Batman vs Superman” either, I think it’s way too long without much sense, but its problem isn’t with “ruining” Superman.

No one has ruined Superman. They made it more accessible, they made it more modern.

For god’s sake, Batman hasn’t always been described as the grumpy-voiced trauma-riddled millionaire we all know. I’ll show you the garish and cheesy ’60s of Adam West “Batman” show, which used the literal “shark repellent” as a plot point in an episode.

The Days of Henry Cavill as Superman maybe finished, for now at least, but the backlash he and Snyder faced is a lesson for all future iterations of the character. Don’t be afraid to change Superman. Despite what some comic book fans may think, the character is not static.

So if the change means making Superman “dark,” I say bring all the black monochrome costumes you have. It’s a better color to wear anyway.