…as Superman, that is.

It’s been quite literally years since the last time Henry Cavill donned the famous Superman costume for any significant length of time. It was back when Joss Whedon was doing re-shoots of the Justice League film which infamously had Cavill maintain his mustache from Mission: Impossible which was then digitally removed… quite badly.

Since then, there’s been speculation as to whether Henry Cavill would ever return to the character. To Mr. Cavill’s credit, he didn’t stoke the fires or try to pressure the studios. If anything, he’s been very low key about the possibility and (I strongly suspect on his side) hope of eventually returning to the character.

Cavill’s Superman would show up again, minus Cavill himself, in the first Shazam! film…

Yeah, they wanted Cavill to appear at the movie’s end in his Superman costume but couldn’t. Instead, they had another actor don Cavill’s costume and showed Superman from the neck down. A cheesy solution, I suppose, but what can you do?

Then, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam showed up and, at its end, fans of Henry Cavill had a distinct thrill at the end of the film… a cameo by Henry Cavill himself…!

I suspect this cameo -supposedly pushed by Dwayne Johnson himself- helped Black Adam draw what it did in the box office, though there are conflicting analysis of how well -or badly- the film did in the end.

Regardless, we had this article by Adam B. Vary appear on variety.com:

Henry Cavill: “I am back as Superman”

Alas, that cameo turned out -at least for the time being- Henry Cavill’s last big hurrah as the famous comic book character.

Yesterday and on Instagram, Mr. Cavill posted the following:

Again, Mr. Cavill takes the very high road and, without bitterness, announced his retirement from the character.

Warner Brothers has been, frankly, a mess of late and this is above and beyond their DC Comics properties. When James Gunn was announced as the new “head” of the DC properties, speculation began that maybe he would start with a “clean slate” and build from the bottom up with the characters… which would mean many of the actors we have come to associate with the DC properties might have seen their last appearances as such.

Interestingly, there are still a couple of “old” DC movies to come. There’s Aquaman 2, Shazam 2, and The Flash. There was, infamously, the Batgirl film which was cancelled after being close to complete and we also heard Patty Jenkins is out as Wonder Woman director. Is Gal Gadot also done with the role?

Jason Momoa, interestingly enough, supposedly met with Gunn and was ecstatic with whatever project they proposed he be in. The safe bet is that Momoa is going to play Lobo…

Truthfully when it was originally announced that Momoa was joining the DC universe, many thought playing Lobo was a no-brainer and Aquaman, who is most often drawn as this…

…seemed an odd choice.

I felt it worked in the end, but it doesn’t entirely shock me that Momoa may be cast as Lobo. If so, will his Aquaman days be gone?

As with so many other things, time will tell!