A lot is going on in James Gunn’s new Superman movie, from the introduction of a new superhero universe (the DCU), to multiple superheroes, to the plot involving – spoilers past this point – Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) attempting to kill Superman (David Corenswet) with an out-of-control portal between worlds. But in the midst of that, at least one real-world question has reared its head: is Superman about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? And the definitive answer is: sure, maybe?
To give a bit more context here, as the movie opens, we’re told that “3 days ago,” Superman stopped the invasion of the country of Jarhanpur by the nation of Boravia. A conversation between Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Superman explains further – without any real details – that Jarhanpur has significant problems as a country, but Boravia and its President Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić) are worse. What was most important to Superman, while Lois drilled into him about how the conflict was too complicated to get involved in? “People were going to die!” yells the Man of Steel, frustrated.
We get to see much more about Ghurkos, including his alliance with Luthor to manipulate the conflict and take Superman off the board. The goal is to take over Jarhanpur and split it between the two of them… Ghurkos will get a New Boravia, while Luthor will get a country of his own where he can be king. And we get to see more of Jarhanpur as well, or at least the border where the salt of the Earth people, who seem to be at least 50% children, are trying to hold strong against the American-supported troops of Boravia. We’re told they’re both bad countries, but the movie certainly skews your sentiments in one direction. It’s not towards Boravia.
If you remove all other details about this, could it be a metaphor for Israel and Palestine? People on social media certainly have made the connection, comparing Ghurkos to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Boravia to American ally Israel, and the conflict in Jarhanpur to Gaza. There are also many people on TikTok pointing out the difference between Superman, which finds Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) dropping Ghurkos to his death, which they take as an explicitly political statement, versus Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World, which jettisoned nearly every political detail from a plot that previously had more explicit ties with Israel thanks to the character of Sabra (Shira Haas).
But I digress. The issue is that Superman is not explicitly about Israel versus Palestine because this movie, too, jumbles things up in a way where the bean counters at Warner Bros. Discovery don’t have to get nervous about DC Studios entering the most divisive conflict of our lifetimes.
First of all, both Boravia and Jarhanpur are fictional. They’re locations straight out of DC Comics, and in fact, in 1939’s Superman #2, the hero got involved in stopping a civil war in the country of Boravia. It showed up later in 1958’s Blackhawk #126, where the titular hero overthrew a usurper and restored the rightful King to the Boravian throne. But – and here’s the key detail, which stays consistent with Superman: Boravia is located in Europe. Specifically, the Alps.
Jarhanpur, meanwhile, was introduced in 2002’s JLA #62, and is one of those ancient, mystical cities that have secretly existed for thousands of years that litter fictional universes like DC Comics. While the location isn’t known, the culture seems to lean more towards a mix of India and a touch of Middle Eastern culture. Basically: magical and unspecified ethnicity. In Superman, we only get to see the border, and while it could be Middle Eastern, it also could be anywhere else (Markovia, another fictional DC Comics European country, is located to the North). Of note, actor Fahim Fazli thanked James Gunn for casting him as “Jarhanpurian Villager Leader,” and added that he is “the first Afghan-born American actor in Hollywood in a Superman film.”
To further complicate things, it’s a conflict manipulated by a tech billionaire who is also manipulating social media and the US government (that would be Lex Luthor). You can choose your poison here, but the reference to a billionaire with a bunch of tech-obsessed acolytes, mentioned by Lois Lane later in the movie, has certainly rung the Elon Musk alarm online.
So basically, what we have here in the movie is an Eastern European country bordering a possibly Middle Eastern country, in conflict with each other. This could be a rough metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But you could also see it as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, or any number of global conflicts that have erupted over the past century. In fact, if anything, that’s the idea of the movie: what happens when Superman gets involved in a complicated global conflict; not to point to anything in particular in the real world. And to extrapolate further, it’s more about what good people do in light of atrocities being committed both at home and abroad. So if to you that atrocity is Israel and Palestine, or Russia and Ukraine, or Elon Musk cutting funding to US AID… Sure, you’re right.
At least a bit of the reason for this mushiness of metaphor is that Gunn was first offered Superman back in 2018, hired to write it in 2022, and began principal photography in February of 2024. Also – you may be aware – the movie came out on July 12, 2025. That’s at least three years, though likely longer, that Gunn has been thinking about his take on Superman. Meaning it’s not about anything specific because by the time they got around to releasing the movie, it wouldn’t be about current events anymore… Despite the Israeli-Palestinian conflict having existed for far longer, and the most recent inciting incident happening on October 7, 2023, before Gunn began filming Superman.
But because of that timeline, the great news is you can read into Superman however you want. If you do explicitly see it as about a current conflict in the real world, like what’s happening right now in Gaza, sure, that’s what it’s about. If you don’t, and want to look at it as a general call to goodness with no specific analogue, then yes, that’s what it is as well.
Personally? I found this to be a weakness in the movie, that by trying to be about everything at the same time, it ultimately was about nothing. I wish it were more explicitly about what’s happening in Gaza, or what Russia is doing to Ukraine, or any number of other global conflicts, rather than a melange of ideas that add up to “be good” – a sweet message on greeting cards, but more frustrating than inspiring when you know a company has spent at least $225 million on a movie that could have been put towards feeding dying children. Again, I understand the schedule of making a movie, as well as the general politics of a massive company like Warner Bros. Discovery, won’t allow for that. But contrast that with, say, children’s superstar Ms. Rachel, who has doggedly used her massive platform to promote both “be good” and dive directly into the atrocities being committed in Gaza through her lens of supporting children, despite massive criticism online and off.
But that’s my take on it. And yours, like with all of art, is equally valid. Superman is, and has always been, a warrior for the little guy from his very beginnings in Action Comics #1. He’s associated with “truth, justice, and the American way,” but if you look back at page 1 of Siegel and Shuster’s classic, the first reveal of the character in costume states, “Superman! Champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!” It has nothing to do with America or any global conflict, but only that he helps people who need his help. That’s certainly what he does in Superman. But whether James Gunn is saying the movie is about specific sections of the world where people are in need, like in the Middle East? That’s up to you.
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