Since he can't match Superman in brawn on his own, Lex Luthor has to rely on his impressive intellect to find other ways to stick it to the Man of Steel. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, he kidnapped Superman's mother, Martha Kent, to make the Kryptonian hero comply with his demand: killing Batman. In the two years since Batman v Superman came out, some of you may have wondered why Superman didn't just use his powers to track down where Martha was being held captive. According to director Zack Snyder, that question was answered in a cut scene, which you can get a taste of below.
Recently this behind-the-scenes picture from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was making the rounds on Vero, leading to Zack Snyder being asked if this is the part of the movie where Kal-El flew up and started listening to all the voices around him, which would have been an overload of pain and anguish. Snyder responded:
It is a green screen shot. He flies up above the city and hovers. The camera begins to rotate around him as he hears the Cries of citywide crime going on and as we get closer, he is in pain because he knows if he try's to find her this way, he will have to ignore the countless crimes going on in the two cities and the world.
Even though Superman is capable of so many greats feats, contrary to Lex Luthor's opinion, he's not a god. There's only so many people he can save, meaning that whenever he's living as Clark Kent or even while he's on the job elsewhere in the world, there will always be others suffering. That's why he didn't use his super hearing to figure out Martha's location; doing that would have been too overwhelming what with all the other horrible events he'd have to ignore to find her.
Instead, Superman flew to Gotham City and threw down in fisticuffs with Batman like Lex Luthor wanted, although he tried to explain the situation beforehand, but Bruce Wayne just wasn't having it. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end, as a well-timed utterance of "Martha" stopped Batman from killing Superman, and the Caped Crusader rescued his former adversary's mother while Superman flew back to rub defeat i Lex Luthor's face. Unfortunately, Doomsday was soon after unleashed and killed Superman, so the Man of Steel didn't get to enjoy victory for long.
Needless to say that Superman went through a lot in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but his time buried six feet under wasn't permanent. In Justice League, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg resurrected him using the Kryptonian genesis chamber and one of the Mother Boxes, and while Clark Kent woke up very cranky, he eventually regained his senses, donned a new Superman costume and helped stop Steppenwolf from turning Earth into another Apokolips.
Superman has now begun a new chapter of his life, though ironically, currently Warner Bros and the DC Extended Universe have no plans to have Henry Cavill reprise the character anytime soon. As for what else is in development for the DCEU, you can check out our handy guide for that information.
