Admittedly, I never felt too outraged over the ending of last summer’s ‘Man of Steel.’ (Yes, there will be major spoilers ahead.) The complaints over Superman breaking the neck of his foe were certainly valid – therefore changing the very definition of the character – but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the film. That changed after seeing ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.’
There’s no way this happened except by total coincidence – the script for ‘The Winter Soldier’ was started two years before ‘Man of Steel’ hit theaters – but the endings of both films offer a striking parallel to each other and, now, almost act as a proverbial Exhibit A and Exhibit B on how to respectively stay true and not stay true to a character.
I like this article and mostly agree with his take — though my issue with Man of Steel actually has nothing to do with breaking Zod’s neck. It has to do with wanton destruction and death on the part of Supes.