James Gunn and Zack Snyder Join Forces on Rick and Morty to Jokingly Mock Each Others' Takes on Superman: 'He's the Man of Steel, Not the Man of Conversation'

The James Gunn and Zack Snyder fandoms whitethorn beryllium astatine warfare online, but the 2 DC figureheads joined forces for a astonishment cameo connected the latest occurrence of Rick and Morty to jokingly mock each others’ takes connected Superman.

Warning! Spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 8, Episode 7, Ricker Than Fiction, which aired Sunday, July 6 connected Adult Swim, follow.

In the episode, Gunn and a beefy Snyder conscionable successful a Warner Bros. cafeteria and sermon the upcoming DC Universe reboot kickstarter Superman.

“Just saw your caller chopped of Superman,” Snyder begins. “And connection of advice, he’s the ‘Man of Steel,’ not the ‘Man of Conversation.’ Do much shots of him punching!”

“And here’s a concealed move," Snyder continues, "start the punch astatine regular velocity and past you’re gonna ramp it down.”

“It’s not a f***ing secret!” Gunn responds, angrily, earlier helium apologizes. “I’m atrocious Zack Snyder, I shouldn’t beryllium lashing retired astatine you, your biceps are the size of my head.”

“Yes, but truthful is my heart.”

The brace past speech astir a "fan" called Rick Sanchez, who utilized a portal to sneak nether the lot. Gunn wonders if Hollywood is losing interaction with the audience. Snyder past offers words of reassurance. “That’s the feline that sealed Nolan successful the elephantine bookcase to punctuation unquote ‘punish’ him for Interstellar,” Snyder says. “He doesn’t correspond existent fans. He’s conscionable the smartest antheral successful the universe. Don’t sweat it. He can’t bash what we do. Probably.”

it's really them dude i'm cryingggg😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/8kmoxtYTz9

Snyder’s gentle ribbing of Gunn’s Superman (“Man of Conversation”) is simply a motion to a 10-minute country successful which Clark and Lois speech astir geopolitics and whether Superman should person stopped a warfare connected overseas soil.

In a caller interrogation with The Times, Gunn admitted the country “is decidedly the astir antithetic happening that we enactment successful the movie.”

“Yes, it’s astir politics,” Gunn said. “But connected different level it’s astir morality. Do you ne'er termination nary substance what — which is what Superman believes — oregon bash you person immoderate balance, arsenic Lois believes? It’s truly astir their narration and the mode antithetic opinions connected basal motivation beliefs tin teardrop 2 radical apart.

“But, determination is besides a flying canine successful the movie who wears a cape. And travel on, Clark has glasses and radical don’t cognize who helium is. He tin clasp up a building. He’s wearing a costume. If I flew astir redeeming radical I wouldn’t marque myself a costume I had to alteration into each time. There’s thing peculiar astir a idiosyncratic who makes a costume. Clark is simply a peculiar guy.”

Meanwhile, Snyder’s Rick and Morty cameo sees him successful a self-deprecating mood, highlighting his inclination to overdo it with melodramatic slow-motion successful his enactment sequences. Snyder was of people the steward of the DCEU, starring Henry Cavill arsenic Superman, earlier Warner Bros. handed DC Studios implicit to Gunn and co-CEO Peter Safran to reboot the full beingness with David Corenswet successful the starring role.

Gunn and Snyder's Rick and Morty cameo, which we present cognize was down the viral photograph of the brace from February, disarms the ongoing online warfare betwixt the 2 sets of fandoms: those who enactment the ‘Snyderverse’ and privation to spot it return, and those who are blessed to spot Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe instrumentality shape.

The net has astatine times taken this virtual conflict excessively far. Last month, mods looking aft the SnyderCut subreddit deleted a station calling connected fans to reappraisal weaponry the Superman movie and issued a connection to their assemblage members.

Gunn had responded to the post, which issued a telephone to arms to “stand up and combat for SnyderVerse connected July 11” (the merchandise day of Superman). “Gunn fired the archetypal changeable and killed the Snyderverse and present is our accidental to instrumentality the combat backmost to him,” the station said.

After a Threads idiosyncratic brought the station to Gunn’s attention, helium replied to disregard its interaction connected Superman’s imaginable success. “Lol I deliberation we'll survive,” helium said. “I'm not definite the 8 radical that perceive to that feline (I'm going to spell retired connected a limb and conjecture it's a guy) are going to interaction the people of events.”

Always a pleasance catching up with my person @ZackSnyder, consummate filmmaker (and a doubly consummate storyteller!) pic.twitter.com/kkl1qZtNup

This wasn’t the archetypal clip the infamous Snyder fandom deed the headlines. Snyderverse fans played a portion successful Warner Bros.' 2021 merchandise of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, and, past year, Suicide Squad 2016 manager David Ayer was forced to respond to an online backlash against his enactment for Gunn’s Superman and its debut trailer.

Ayer, whose wide panned Suicide Squad movie formed a portion of Snyder's present defunct DCEU, had initially taken to X/Twitter to inquire fans not to motorboat the latest ‘Ayer Cut’ run astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic the Superman trailer merchandise date. Ayer, intelligibly exacerbated by what he'd witnessed connected societal media arsenic a result, announced helium was taking a “step back” from the discourse.

Gunn touched concisely connected the taxable of immoderate wrong the Snyderverse fandom rooting for Superman and his caller DCU to neglect successful a caller interrogation with Rolling Stone.

“I don’t caput it,” helium said. “I deliberation it’s good. I deliberation you don’t wanna person everybody basal for you. And I person an histrion who reads everything online. I won’t accidental who it is, but he’ll work this article, and he’ll cognize who it is. It’s 1 of the apical 5 successful Superman. And this histrion gets truthful upset implicit things that radical say. I said, ‘First of all, you recognize that the trailer came retired and [reaction] was 97, 98% positive. These radical assistance us, due to the fact that you don’t privation everything to look 100% positive.'

“It’s each close to person an opposing unit each erstwhile successful a while. Some of the things get ridiculous — I conscionable cognize that each clip thing comes out, it doesn’t substance however positively received, there’s gonna beryllium thing that is of large controversy. It was large contention that the prima caused Superman pain.”

Indeed, successful 2023, Gunn shared that Snyder had reached retired to him to "express his support" astir his choices regarding the caller DCU.

Also successful The Times profile, Gunn said he's good alert immoderate radical volition instrumentality discourtesy astatine his caller Superman movie "just due to the fact that it is astir kindness."

Image credit: Adult Swim.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].