5. Jor-El Gives Superman The Codex Because...
Some of the changes to the Superman mythology in Man of Steel are pretty cool. Lois Lane knows exactly who Clark Kent is, and there's no beating around the bush for once. Superman is Krypton's only natural born child, creating an even deeper separation between Kal and the rest of his people. But Superman carrying all of Krypton's people in his DNA is a bit... heavy handed. As a natural born Kryptonian he already stands out, it's not necessary for him to literally carry the seeds of existence. He's the savior of all, we get it. We get it from all the obvious Jesus symbolism, especially him falling from the spaceship oh-so-dramatically with his arms in crucifix formation and an operatic choir in the background. It's a little ridiculous. Another thing is that it's never quite clear exactly what Jor-El wants Kal to do with all that Kryptonian DNA. According to Zod, Jor-El gave Kal his people's DNA in order to overwrite the Earth with Krypton. And Jor-El never really denies that. Superman asks him point blank if Zod's claim was true, and Jor doesn't actually respond, he just gives him another speech about Jesusy-things. Later on Jor says that humans and Kryptonians can share the world, but in the same breath calls Krypton a ghost. Ooookay, so which is it Jor? Do you want the people of Krypton to live again or do you want their memory to rest in peace? One would think if you wanted your son to repopulate the earth with Kryptonians you would have actually mentioned that to him at some point, rather than letting your arch nemesis spill the beans. Has your computer brain malfunctioned from spending too many years in the arctic? And anyway, if Jor does hope for Kal to rebirth the people of Krypton, doesn't that still involve altering the atmosphere like Zod wants? Red sun or yellow sun, you can't have it both ways. And if you do leave the atmosphere intact, then giving birth to Kryptonians will create a race of flying super powered beings, many of whom will probably pull a Zod and declare themselves Earth-overlord. And I'm pretty sure Jor didn't intend for the people of Earth to be subjugated. This is pretty lazy writing. All of the info about the DNA/Codex fly by extremely quickly, and if you're not paying close attention it just comes off that Zod and Jor-El have the same goals. And this problem could have been solved with a fully-fleshed out conversation between Kal and Jor. A major writing misstep here.