There was no new trailer for Superman (2025) at Super Bowl LIX, but DC did drop some new looks at Supe’s dog Krypto. But, oddly the more prominent Superman footage came in the form of a strange viral video featuring Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner. In the video, we see Gardner clowning around, showing off his signature bowl cut while the words “the only bowl I need” are flashed on the screen. The joke here is a play on the word “bowl,” get it?
In dropping a tiny bit of new footage of Guy Gardner, also known as Green Lantern, the buzz campaign for the new Superman is relying on a historically unproven strategy: assuming that the average non-comic book person knows or understands who any of the different Green Lanterns are. And yet, over a decade ago, James Gunn was able to do this exact same kind of thing when he worked for Marvel by convincing the world they already loved a bunch of superheroes nobody knew or cared about — the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Arguably, Guy Gardner is not as obscure as any of the Guardians of the Galaxy were pre-2014. In fact, if you were a reader of DC titles in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Guy Gardner and his signature orange bowl cut were a regular fixture of the comics. In fact, the cover of issue #1 of Justice League International in 1987 (with art from Kevin Maguire and Terry Austin) has Gardner front and center with his arms crossed, looking straight at the reader saying, “Wanna make something of it?”
The ethos of Guy Gardner was part punk rock and part whatever was passing for edgy with DC outside of all appearances of Lobo. Then and now, the vibe of Guy Gardner was the opposite of fellow member of the Green Lantern Corps, Hal Jordan. Where Jordan was traditional, Gardner was a quippy jerk, more likely to moon Batman than cooperate. Arguably, attitude helped DC to ground the slightly distant notion of the Green Lantern Corps, characters who sometimes felt like aloof Time Lords, rather than superheroes. So, like him or not, for ‘80s and ‘90s kids, Guy Gardner was the Green Lantern, and it seems James Gunn is planning on leaning into that idea, goofiness and all.
What’s interesting about this new marketing of Gardner is that Gunn is making sure we understand that we’re not supposed to think Guy Gardner is cool. The Super Bowl moment is a kind of self-own for DC, outright acknowledging that everyone involved with the Superman movie knows that supporting superhero Guy Gardner is inherently silly. And yet, this kind of self-deprecation has worked for James Gunn superhero projects before. In 2014, everyone fell in love with the Guardians of the Galaxy because they were goofy, not in spite of that fact. With Superman, Gunn knows he can’t make Supe himself into too much of a clown, but that doesn’t mean Guy Gardner can’t yuck it up a little. (Or a lot?)
Will it work? Maybe. Because while the 2011 Green Lantern struggled to convince casual fans that anyone who goes by Green Lantern is serious, it seems that in 2025, DC isn’t even trying anymore. And that might have been the perfect approach all along.
