What can be learned from a comic book movie featuring dogs and cats, a turtle, pig, and squirrel? More than you might think. 2022’s DC League of Super-Pets reminds us that when we become aggrandized versions of ourselves, we render meaningful relationships impossible. While the world insists we become the best version of ourselves that we can actualize, we must consider whether this fosters or hinders healthy relationships. When self realization remains our priority, we tend to manipulate people to advance our own objectives, instead of laying down our lives to serve our neighbors.
The film’s central antagonist, Lulu (voiced by SNL’s Kate McKinnon) is a guinea pig who acquires a meteoric shard of orange kryptonite that transforms her into a formidable nemesis of the Justice League. Formerly Lex Luthor’s test subject in a series of diabolical experiments, Lulu has found herself relegated to a rescue shelter where she struggles to find acceptance among her newfound peers. Upon obtaining the aforementioned kryptonite, she optimistically declares, “I will finally become what I was always meant to be.” Lulu then commences to assemble a team of accomplices amid an unassuming group of hamsters she finds in an elementary school classroom. In her enhanced state, she imparts powers unto them, not to elevate them as peers, but rather to subjugate them as tools to advance her ambition of realizing her ideal self.
Pets contrasts Lulu’s self righteous mission against that of Krypto, Superman’s trusted companion. Krypto inadvertently has to learn how to have actual friendships after Lulu captures Kal-El in a nefarious plot to exact revenge on the superhero team she blames for her displacement. While Krypto’s identity is initially wrapped up in being a meta-canine, he doesn’t know how to relate to other ordinary dogs — as evidenced in a scene in which we observe his awkward attempts at small talk and forced conversation with another mutt.
Through a series of events, Krypto and the animals in the shelter (from whence Lulu eventually escapes) unite due to circumstances thrust upon them. The shelter pets, led by a boxer-Chihuahua named Ace (Kevin Hart), have found freedom as a fortuitous, yet unintended consequence of Lulu’s escape. Krypto eventually bands with them after ingesting a baited piece of cheese containing green kryptonite. In his weakened state, and after having failed to prevent his master’s abduction, Krypto joins forces with Ace’s gang among whom he learns the meaning and value of friendships.
Collectively, the pets assume superpowers Lulu accidentally bestowed upon them in the midst of her departure. Yet, the point of the film isn’t to underscore their superpowers, per se, as much as it is to highlight how they learned to find community, ultimately as a group of losers — a point aptly highlighted by the slapstick manner in which they struggle to use their ironic new powers.
The film also underscores that it’s okay that there are diverse kinds and levels of relationships, in which certain boundaries are necessary based on inherent dynamics. Krypto is “man’s best friend,” but he has to learn that Superman’s love interest in Lois Lane doesn’t lessen or invalidate their friendship — it just makes it ‘different’. I think of Adam in the garden of Eden who had all the pets in the world (literally), but still needed something distinct from Eve the animals couldn’t provide. King David ‘had his way with ladies’ (to put it lightly), yet lamented on the occasion of Jonathan’s death that their fraternal love was better than that of women (2 Sam. 1:26). Jesus chose twelve apostles, yet disclosed himself uniquely to the “inner three” on the mount of transfiguration and in the garden of Gethsemane.
When we approach relationships as a vehicle for becoming improved versions of ourselves, our friendships will always remain fraught with tension and reflect those bad characteristics St. Paul enumerates in Galatians 5:19-21. Incidentally, Krypto is deemed a “bad dog” due to the jealousy he displays the night Clark Kent prepares to propose to Lois Lane. He fails to display the precious fruits of the Spirit (not that dogs are called to this, mind you!) because he’s bent on himself. It becomes incumbent on him throughout the course of the film to learn the value of sacrifice that Jesus succinctly summarized as, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). This is one reason we tend to find relationships to be so frustrating and confusing: somewhere in the mix, we’re refusing and failing to defer to one another and to “value one another above ourselves.”
The film’s final act depicts a salvific moment in which Krypto becomes willing to lose his life … yet he finds it. In the process, he helps the other pets find their lives too. We have previously learned that Ace has been carrying a load of unprocessed grief since his former owners banished him from the home for apparently harming their toddler when he was simply trying to protect her from falling down a staircase. Within the confines of the shelter, he takes it upon himself to encourage the other animals with the effervescent hope of relocating to an idyllic paradise he dubs “the farm upstate.” Ace espouses such false hope to motivate them to break out of the prison in which they’ve been languishing because they’ve despaired of the prospect of being adopted. Instead of genuinely hoping for adoption, they have resorted to believing Ace’s concocted fairytale of a mythical place “where animals love and protect one another, the lettuce grows on trees, and no shelter lady watches your every move” (i.e. a home and refuge free from the law).
We see intimations of this tension again in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians where the apostle implies that “the flesh” (our Adamic nature) is that to which we default when we lose sight of God’s promise to adopt us in Christ (cf. Gal 4:5-6). In the absence of such promises, we resort to our own idealized conceptions of ‘the good life’ that don’t exist in truth.
Though Ace begrudgingly confesses to deceiving his companions with false hope, a redemptive hope manifests through the self-sacrificial gesture he shows near the film’s conclusion. Krypto has deployed the famed solar paw punch from which “there’s no coming back” as a final strategy to defeat Lulu whose vengeful rage targets Lex, the Justice League, and the Super Pets. Ace counters Krypto’s deft move with an equally sacrificial endeavor that solidifies their bond and ultimately results in the ironic pairing of each Pet with a Justice League member — with Ace and Batman sharing an especially poignant moment.
It would be easy to moralize the film’s message and take a ‘life application’ approach in which we resolve to do a better job deferring to one another in our relationships. Relationships are experientially more refreshing when we find ourselves sacrificing for one another, but none of us can sustain that level of deference all the time. As Paul notes, “when I want to do right, evil is present with me.” But we can be thankful there is a sacrifice that saves. Or as Proverbs reminds us, “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (18:24). The good news is that we’re better than His pets, we are joint heirs with Him and partakers of His righteousness. I can’t think of any better superpower. I can’t think of any better friendship.
