While the new DCU is still very young, it’s abundantly clear that this shared universe is drawing more heavily from DC’s comic book library than any before it. Some upcoming projects, like the Supergirl movie, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, and the Mister Miracle animated series, are directly based on specific comic book storylines. And even in the case of James Gunn’s Superman, which is telling a more original story, the comic book DNA is clear. Gunn’s Superman owes a clear debt to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s seminal graphic novel All-Star Superman.
That fact was reinforced when IGN visited the Superman set in Summer 2024. Several cast and crew members pointed to All-Star Superman as a clear and direct source of inspiration on the project. But what exactly is All-Star Superman, and how is it influencing the Man of Steel’s newest cinematic adventure? Here’s what you need to know.
What Is All-Star Superman?
DC’s All-Star line was an early, short-lived attempt at recreating the success of Marvel’s Ultimate imprint in the mid-’00s. The general idea was similar – bring together some of DC’s top creators to reinvent iconic heroes, free from the constraints of the company’s mainline continuity.
DC only wound up publishing two comics under the All-Star banner before the line was shelved, but both certainly made a lasting impression. Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman & Robin: The Boy Wonder serves as a prequel to Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, revealing how the Dynamic Duo came together and hinting at why their partnership deteriorated over time.
As for All-Star Superman, that book proved to be Morrison and Quitely’s superhero magnum opus. The series is set in a standalone Superman universe, one as much inspired by the contemporary Superman comics as the classic Silver Age stories and the Richard Donner movies.
All-Star Superman opens with the Man of Steel literally flying too close to the sun, as he rescues a group of astronauts and subsequently overloads his body with solar radiation. Even as he experiences newfound levels of strength, Kal-El finds his body is slowly dying, exploding one turbocharged cell at a time.
This discovery prompts Superman to start putting his affairs in order, starting with finally revealing his secret identity to a befuddled Lois Lane. He then embarks on the Kryptonian equivalent of the 12 Labors of Hercules, doing all he can to leave the universe a better place before he goes. And, of course, the incarcerated Lex Luthor is only too happy to take advantage of his nemesis’ impending death.
All-Star Superman is widely regarded as one of the greatest Superman comics ever published (see where it ranks on IGN’s Top 25 Superman Graphic Novels list). It’s also been adapted as both a 2011 animated movie and a 2025 full-cast audiobook. Unlike those projects, Gunn’s Superman isn’t a direct adaptation. As far as we know, this movie doesn’t deal with Superman confronting his impending death. But visually, tonally, and especially in terms of the Superman/Lex Luthor dynamic, there’s a lot of All-Star in Gunn’s Superman. Both place Superman and his supporting cast in a timeless setting and embrace many of the campier trappings of the Silver Age, like Krypto and the wonders inside the Fortress of Solitude.
All-Star Superman’s Influence on the James Gunn Movie
To get an idea of just how heavily All-Star Superman inspired the new movie, just know that Gunn assigned it to his cast and crew as required reading. Production designer Beth Mickle revealed as much during an interview with journalists on the Superman set.
“All-Star Superman is, by far and away, our guiding light for this,” Mickle said. “What a magnificent guiding light it’s been. A lot of the color palette notes that I had, early on, really came from that.
Mickle added, “When I first started, James said, ‘This is the one I’d like everybody to look at,’ just to start to understand where his head was, and I spent three weeks devouring it, then screenshotting it, then grouping colors together, grouping the lines and the shapes together. And there really is the most beautiful, vivid, but also simple design language in it, and upbeat, bright, but again, simple and not overworked, not stuffed with color, not stuffed with layers. So, that really became our main source, and then you’ll see throughout.”
Gunn himself pointed to All-Star as a huge inspiration for the movie, above and beyond other DC comics and animated projects. Gunn particularly connected with the idea of Lex Luthor as a supernaturally gifted scientist and inventor.
“There’s a lot of ways in which the DC animated universe [influenced us] and then there’s a lot of stuff from the comic books, but above and beyond anything else, it’s All-Star Superman. That influenced me more than anything,” Gunn said. “I mean, being able to take that sort of Silver Age feel, that sort of science fiction approach to it with the gadgets, and Lex is really a sort of sorcerer in a way. He’s a scientist, but he’s so good at science that I think of him as a sorcerer.”
Luthor actor Nicholas Hoult elaborated on Gunn’s vision of the character, revealing that this Lex, like the All-Star version is fueled by his hatred of Superman and his belief that humanity should be the master of its own destiny. As far as Lex is concerned, he’s the good guy here.
“It was this idea that when you’re playing a villain, it’s easy to be like, ‘I’m the bad guy.’” Hoult said. “But, actually, if you stand back and look at this, it’s his beliefs and almost his love of humanity and protection, and belief in this idea that they should be masters of their own fate and destiny is important to him. And the rest of society has kind of fallen into this path of trusting Superman, believing in Superman and giving him, what Lex would view as kind of all power and freedom. And so it’s like, where does jurisdiction and law and protection of humanity come into that, I suppose.”
Superman actor David Corenswet revealed that reading All-Star helped him understand Gunn’s take on the Man of Steel and better wrap his head around the script.
“I was frankly a little bit confused by James’s script the first time I read it, and we didn’t get to talk about it very much because of the strikes, until we got close to filming,” Corenswet said. “So the fact that he had told me even before I was cast that All-Star Superman was one of his guiding lights was super helpful, because the thing that I found in that was, I guess, the kind of gentle nerdiness of Superman. I love seeing when he goes into his Fortress of Solitude that he’s got a man cave, not in the way that… It’s not a Bat Cave. He’s got his technology and stuff, but it’s mostly all of these relics and fun things that he’s gotten to collect because he does what he does, and he wants to show them off to Lois because he can’t show them off to many people because he’s not supposed to.”
Corenswet continued, “And sort of the gentle loneliness of that, but without any sense of dark brooding. Just really brimming with excitement about the things that he gets to do and collect, and wanting to bring other people into that and just not being able to. I really like Superman as a very hopeful character, both as a symbol of hope, but also as a person who just happens to have a somewhat rosy outlook on the world and think that things can be good, things can get better. But obviously that can be a constraint on him as a dramatic character because he can’t always be happy and optimistic.
For Corenswet, both the All-Star version of Superman and Gunn’s Superman are united by a simple, understandable emotion – longing.
“The comic let me in, gave me this sense of the longing that he has, to share what he gets to do and to have other people enjoy what he gets to enjoy,” Corenswet said. “And the fact that he has to control that, because he can’t be too open, he can’t reveal who he is, that was the biggest thing that I [connected with]. And that sort of comes back to what I’m hoping there’ll be a flavor of in this movie, is that longing.”
Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025.
For more on IGN’s visit to the Superman set, see why Gunn is “giving up everything in my life and soul” to make Superman, and learn how the movie is reinventing the look and feel of Kal-El’s world.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
