One Hero Is Notably Missing from 'The Flash' Trailer — Where's Superman?

As the DC Universe is set for a total overhaul thanks to the James Gunn takeover, it’s clear that The Flash is going to be both the end of the last phase and the beginning of a new era. The DCEU is James’s world now, and we’re all just living in it, so anything can happen. Now that the trailer for The Flash is finally here, we’re wondering if Superman will be in the new Flash movie, which stars Ezra Miller in the titular role.

The trailer teases appearances from Supergirl, two Batmen, and even General Zod, but Superman himself is nowhere to be seen. So is he in the new The Flash movie? Or is Superman dead?

While anything is possible, for all intents and purposes, it seems like Superman isn’t going to appear in The Flash. Basically, the film follows Barry Allen as he tries to go back in time to save his mother. It’s reminiscent of the comic book story, Flashpoint, and seems to take many elements from that initial inspiration. But the biggest hint that there won’t be a Superman is the fact that Henry Cavill is no longer slated to play the role.

Through lots of back and forth, by December 2022, Henry and the DCEU studio announced that he wouldn't return to playing Superman. Without any sort of announcement of who could be taking on the heroic cape, plus from what we can deduce in the trailer, it wouldn’t be very sensible to introduce a new actor as Superman in a film about the Flash.

And with the returns of Michael Shannon’s General Zod, Michael Keaton’s Batman, and Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne, there are plenty of other characters to worry about.

At one point during the trailer, the camera pans over what appears to be Superman’s cape. This hints that Superman could actually be dead in the film. In fact, we hear Barry’s voice say that he created a “world without metahumans,” which would only be possible if Superman is dead. In the DCEU, it’s Superman’s existence that inspires all the other metahumans to come forward and save the world. But if Superman is dead, then they can never be inspired to come out of the woodwork.

Plus, the fact that General Zod, from Man of Steel, makes his return, could be a hint that instead of recreating the first movie’s events, The Flash could be twisting them around to kill Superman. And in the world that Barry ends up in, Superman is already dead, which would be the truest devastation of all.

The Flash is set to release in theaters on June 16, 2023.