Metropolis: 10 Things The Superman Prequel Must Include

3. Classic DC Iconography

Daily Planet Metropolis DC Comics
DC Comics

One thing Gotham definitely has going for it is its set-design; the city looks like it's been ripped straight from the comics, boasting a quasi-Burton-BTAS aesthetic that divests from the real world vibe of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.

It's a vibe that Metropolis should work with too, although there are challenges in doing so. Gotham City has always been a European locale trapped by American geography - an aberrant hodgepodge of gothic architecture less utopian, more dystopian in nature.

Metropolis, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It's meant to be the City of Tomorrow, and a place where no Dark Knight would ever be needed. It's grand, all-encompassing and the exemplification of DC's brightest elements, and while it does have a nasty underbelly, the visual connotations of the DCU's most famous locale are there for all to see.

As such, Metropolis has a lot to live up to. The Daily Planet has to have its ridiculous globe atop its building, skyscrapers need to fan out as far as the eye can see and, most importantly, it has to feel abstract.

It's all well and good having a city and calling it a Metropolis, but if it's one only in name, then it just won't be the same.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.