So is it safe, now, to assume that the person Alfred was talking to in that trailer is Superman?

Breaking News: Superman is coming back in this year’s Justice League. In other news, water is wet and people die if they are killed. Okay, let’s get real, here. Who wasn’t expecting this? If you do adapt Death of Superman, you’re only doing it so you can adapt his resurrection. DC has never been subtle before, and they’re not subtle now. New merchandise listings on SuperHeroStuff essentially spoil Superman’s return for the audience, and it looks a lot like the movie is going to be sticking close to the comics by having him return in his armored black suit.

The interesting thing to note is the question of how they’re going to pull this off. When Superman came back the first time, it was the doing of the regeneration matrix. He wasn’t actually dead. To put it into simple terms:

They didn’t exactly introduce the regeneration matrix, here, so is that going to be a thing? Is he just going to spontaneously come back to life entirely on his own? For that matter, are they planning to incorporate any other parts of his return story? Could Cyborg Superman be getting involved? Steel? Eradicator? What about Superboy? All of that is highly unlikely, given their overall direction with the DCEU. The most likely of the various options provided, interestingly enough, would probably be either Cyborg Superman or Eradicator. Suffice it to say, Reign of the Supermen is probably just not going to happen. Which is fine with me, since I never really liked either story, to begin with. If he just comes back and they explained he was in a healing coma or whatever, I’m good.

There are two pretty significant hopes, here. The first is that he won’t stay in the black suit for too long. I think Spider-Man 3 showed us the dangers of that. The last thing anyone wants to see is Clark Kent doing outdated dance moves whilst smugly walking down the street.

Okay, but seriously, the black suit obviously didn’t last long, and for good reason. Superman should be colorful. Aside from just providing more color to the otherwise rather muted DCEU, it just represents him far better as a character. Leave the dark getups to Batman.

The other hope is that they won’t overdo it on the Christ comparisons. It was annoying enough in the last two movies, we don’t need more of it. Of course with his return from the dead, those comparisons are inevitable. Just don’t bloat the movie with them when he does make his comeback.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this year’s Justice League. And reports on who they’re eyeing to direct Man of Steel 2 have me thinking things may just be headed in the right direction. We’ll just have to see how things go.

Justice League hits theaters on November 17.