I want to tell you, #OpinionNerds, that I am so heartened and encouraged by the way so many of you have stood for the approach to Superman that Zack Snyder took. Not because I'm a fan of I feel that I need to be vindicated for that fandom. That's not what this is about.

What I'm pleased with is the push back against rank simplicity, against the idea that things like hope and optimism are something you can put on as easy as tying a red towel around your neck and thrusting your fists in the air. It's got to be something more substantial than that.

If Superman is meant to be the best example of human hope and optimism, I fully believe that he has to be the example of how fucking hard it can be to keep hope and optimism alive. Its not something you can wear on your face every moment of every day.

Most importantly it only really comes into play when you realize how bad things have gotten, when you're in the midst of the absolute pitch black of what appears to be the never ending night.

Hope, optimism, faith - if these things were easy, if going through the experiences needed that lead to realizing the need for them were easy, we wouldn't need to tell stories about it. We wouldn't need heroes to stand in our place in fiction to be examples of it.

These Superman films are not feel good romps because the path to hope travels through the heart of darkness. Hope is not the beacon atop the soft hill that we all sit upon. It's the machete we use to hack away at the blackened bush between us and whatever good's on the other side

The process of this is hard. Its ugly. And most of the time you don't realize how good it feels until it's over. Its easy for an invulnerable man with the powers of a god to have hope because he has no reason NOT to hope.

But the rest of us have to suffer before we can find hope. That's just the way it is, because if you aren't suffering you don't NEED hope. If we want Superman to show us the way to hope then he has to suffer like we do. He has to go through the dark woods like we do.

Superman can't just be hope, because if he never has to find hope he can't show us how to find it to. Being a beacon of hope can't be as easy as putting on a red cape and thrusting your hand out. It has to be more substantial than that.

I don't need my fandom of these movies to be vindicated, but I find my hope through all of you who have stood by this Superman on his journey through the darkness. He's reached out to us not to show us where to go, but to be there with us along the way.

If we all do that, if we all reach out and take the hand of he person next to us, we can all get through the dark and the pain and ugliness of life together. Superman can't show us where to go, but he can help us figure out how to get there.

And he's stepped up to the front of the line not because he's better than us, but because he can take the cuts and bruises of the snapping branches and sharp rocks. He can take the damage we can't.

We don't need to protect Superman from the pain and darkness and ugliness of life because we made him to be strong. So let's kick him. Let's chop him off at the knees. Let's push him to the ground and stomp on him until he bleeds.

Because if I know anything about Superman it's he can take it. No matter how bad he hurts he'll keep chopping away at the darkness. So lets get out of his way, because tearing through the painful underbrush of despair;
That's a job for Superman.