Growing up, I had three cats and at least a dozen goldfish. But that was never enough. I was always pestering my folks to let me get a dog, or a hamster, or an iguana, or a parrot — something, anything! But my long-suffering mother always rebuffed my pleas with the same reminder, “You don’t even keep up with the pets you have now!” Her words always stung, but I knew she was right. Like most spoiled kids, I loved the petting and playing; the oohing and aahing over my little friends, but the upkeep? The scooping litter boxes and scrubbing fish bowls? “I’m sure someone else will handle it…”
But of all the scolding to get off my behind and take care of my animals, only one sentence ever stuck with me. And that, I think, is because it came from deep within the Solomonic bowels of the King James Bible. I’ll never forget my mom admonishing me from across the kitchen for, yet again, neglecting to feed Buster, “You know what the Bible says? ‘A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast!’” (Prov 12:10).
That was the last thunderclap of truth and justice that my careless little ears ever needed to hear on the matter. The well-being of these animals was important. Not just to my mom or me — but to God!
Fast forward to the summer of 2025. With as much enthusiasm as a world-weary DC Comics fan could muster, I took my wife and mother to Superman, to see if a man (and his dog) really could fly. Within minutes, I was pummeled with alternating waves of relief and euphoria. Superman — the Superman; my Superman — was back! Needless to say, I adored the movie. Every frame overflows with heart and humor, kindness and coolness. Director/Screenwriter James Gunn (also a lifelong DC Comics guy) absolutely outdid himself in completing this kaleidoscopic triumph, lovingly crafted to both honor the epic history of the character and also to push him ever forward as a symbol of real, honest-to- God hope for the heartbroken human race.
What I could never have anticipated in our screening was the sort of pure, spiritual catharsis that washed over me when the Man of Steel stopped his cosmic clash with a two-hundred-foot-tall kaiju to rescue a lone squirrel from certain annihilation. That moment took my breath away. And then — again — like a lightning bolt of truth, justice, and the human way, I remembered: “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.”
It’s at this moment — and I suppose I should add a *Spoiler Warning* here — that I knew that I could unclench my jaw because this movie would be about all our life. Deo gratias! James Gunn’s Superman was different from his immediate and tragic predecessor, a demigod who was too busy battling para-demons to notice all the preventable deaths mounting around him. No! This Superman brakes for squirrels and still has time to throw that grim version of himself into a black hole — literally.
Perhaps this all seems a bit naïve; a bit “Gee Golly!” of me, especially in light of all the unending real-world horrors around us. But it’s precisely because of the way things are that this mattered to me so much. I knew from this moment onward in the movie, Death would be the one supervillain not making a cameo. Here is an aspirational character that is so uncompromising in his pursuit of defending and upholding life, that Gunn depicts a world in which we don’t have to choose between the lesser of two evils in some cruel trolley problem. Not only can squirrels be saved, but for Superman, so can his worst enemies. Even Lex Luthor can be redeemed from bowing the knee to nihilism and narcissism. Gunn’s Superman all but quotes Deuteronomy 30:19 to his onscreen skeptics: “Choose life!”
And speaking of Deuteronomy, this is where I have to pause to remind us that Superman is a space-age Moses figure. His Midwestern, boy-genius creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish. They made their hero a foreign baby whose pitched bassinet on the River Nile is actually a rocket ship from the Planet Krypton. And when he grew up, his divine mission became leading his people — humanity — out of its slavery to Fear and Death. But this is the part of the mythos that begins to sound a bit more New Testament and downright christological. Because he is, after all, a Man of Two Worlds. He’s from above yet tabernacled here below. He’s Kal-El with us. The Man of Steel, but a man; our man, nonetheless.
While Superman wrestles within himself to reconcile his alien (and apparently hostile) origin to his human and humble upbringing, the one thing he never loses sight of is the goodness of life — for everyone and for everything. And it’s his love for and connection to animals, specifically, that helps him tether these two parts of himself together.
Gunn made clear in the lead-up to its release that a crucial piece of his movie was going to be Superman’s relationship to his superdog, Krypto. This scrappy white mutt of likewise Kryptonian origin has an astonishing 70-year comics history with the Man of Tomorrow and has seen dozens of incarnations in that time, even being the star of his own TV show from 2005–2007.
This particular depiction of Krypto shows an especially untamable side. Gunn told news outlets that the idea for Krypto began to take shape while he rescued his own dog, Ozu, from a hoarding situation in which he had never known human affection. While drafting the screenplay, Ozu, who wouldn’t even let Gunn or his wife touch him, destroyed their home — clothes, furniture, even his work computer. But that exasperation turned to inspiration when Gunn pondered, “What if this dog had superpowers?” That question alone changed the whole script for the better while also changing Gunn’s life as a lifelong animal lover currently caring for a particularly difficult animal to love.
In one interview, he said:
I love animals more than I love movies, so [I love] being able to create animal characters that people fall in love with and then, hopefully … see their own animals. I mean, Krypto’s a bad dog. He’s a terrible dog, and a lot of people have pretty naughty dogs. [But] I think maybe that brings people a little bit closer with their pets.
This is utterly charming, of course, but even better, there’s something gospel-y about it. It reveals that one of the most deeply human joys we can experience is to be the loving caretaker of an animal — even the laptop-eating kinds. There’s just something wonderful about these misbehaving creatures that capture not only our imaginations, but also our affections. I cannot stop myself from delighting in and “regarding” my little calico cat. Not because she’s always good or easy to care for, but because I just love her so much. “A righteous man regardeth the life of even his most un-domesticatable beast.”
In animals, we see the glory of God. They may not bear his divine image, but they certainly communicate his divine goodness to us. In our awe of and affection for these creatures, great and small, we’re reminded of God’s own gracious disposition towards us, his heavenly intent for us to play, laugh, and cuddle, so that we might have joy in him and live justly with our animals.
As I’ve been reading through the Torah slowly this year, I’ve seen afresh just how stubborn God is about justice for his beloved critters. Not only does Genesis carry eloquent descriptions of their created beauty, but Exodus through Deuteronomy contains dozens of laws about them — get this, for their well-being! “You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Ex. 23:19); “Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain” (Deut 25:4); “If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs … be sure to let the mother go free, so that you may prosper and live long” (Deut 22:6–7). Did you catch that last clause? God ties together just treatment of a sparrow with human flourishing and longevity!
When I see a Superman that rages after an extraterrestrial monster is killed before it can be peacefully rehomed in a galactic zoo, who uses his last ounce of strength to blow a beagle out of harm’s way with his super breath, or who, again, stops a fight with a supervillain to rescue a squirrel, I can’t help but be reminded of humanity’s sacred, joyful duty to cherish absolutely all life.
It’s abundantly clear though that while this passing age remains, there will not be an end to animal suffering, nor of our human sorrow. Sin has subjected us both, not only to great fear of and liability to one another, but also to the cruel domain of Death. Towards the end of the film, when Metropolis is threatened by an extinction-level event, we see a montage of citizens evacuating the city. One little old lady carries her turtles in a small terrarium, and the hard-shelled sportswriter at the Daily Planet calls his cat while sobbing just so she can hear his voice one last time.
Superman reminds us that, indeed, these creatures join us in groaning together, eagerly awaiting when they “will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Rom 8:20). Of course, Paul doesn’t have to build his heavenly hope on the sand of some feel-good, superhero movie. Mercifully, the Apostle grounds the life of the whole cosmos on the very real cross upon which Jesus of Nazareth lost his.
Here’s where movie magic or comic book-logic steps out of fiction and into reality. Because God raised Jesus from the dead (having first raised Israel from Egypt, as Robert Jenson was fond to say), we are free, like Superman, to pursue this kind of radical, even scandalous goodness. We can save squirrels and bid our enemies to come back — all without sentimentality — because Jesus Christ has been crushed by and is now crushing our archnemeses: Sin and Death.
Isaiah foresaw an even better, truer world than that of Solomon’s or Superman’s. A world where:
The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together, and a child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle. An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den. They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord (11:6–9).
God’s grace is too big for us not to share with creatures so small. Now enough with proverbs and comics. I think the cat needs some treats…
This gripped my heart! Thank you
Thanks so much for reading!