When we talk about superhero kisses, there’s one that always comes up. No, I won’t name names, but we all know it. However, it is my humble opinion that from this day forward, we should deem Clark and Lois’ flying kiss in Superman as the ultimate superhero kiss, for countless and legitimate reasons.
So much goes into this kiss that makes it magical, breathtaking, and profoundly satisfying as a viewer. It’s a culmination of the angst and longing that spreads throughout the movie—the moments they go without each other—but it’s also the type of promising kiss that seals their partnership into something lasting. Something that lingers. We know that Clark loves Lois because he tells her right before he turns himself in. And before Lois says the words aloud in this very scene, we know that she loves him because of her choice to go after him into the pocket universe. We can also very much tell based on the way she looks at him in his bedroom back at his parents’ farm. She shows it more than she can say it because in many ways, that’s her love language.
By the time we get to Lois and Clark’s flying kiss at the end of the movie, every beat of it feels earned: the way he smiles at her, the way she looks at him, the way they hold onto each other. The way their mouths move as though they’re discovering air for the first time—the best thing they’ve both known. It’s staggering, stunning, and simultaneously so sweet. But it’s also what the flying represents—the weightlessness, the ease, the comfort they feel together. It’s slow and quiet. Intimate. They not only look happy, but their joy is also infectious. It transcends off-screen.
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It evokes a sense of security that doesn’t just come from the fact that he saved the day, but something deeper—the fact that if they’re okay, we can be, too. Their happiness isn’t temporary this time. She isn’t unsure of the detail that this can last, but rather she knows it can. She knows that he’s the one for her, and she’s the one for him. They’re it for each other in a way that’s going to last beyond this moment in time and whatever challenges arise. They’re going to take it all on as a couple. Partners. They’re going to hold each other through this moment and everything else.
It’s also gratifying proof of the fact that something can be achingly tender and scorchingly hot at the same time. We don’t have to deny any of that. The kiss is hot. In the same way that their kiss at the kitchen counter is white hot and could’ve gone in a very different direction if the interview hadn’t been brought up, this could have, too. Because two things can be true at the same time, and that’s part of the reason why the romance in this adaptation hits as well as it does. The softness and fire fuse together in a manner that’s so brilliant, I hope future superhero films take note.
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What are your thoughts on Superman and Lois’ flying kiss? Gush about it with us in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Warner Bros.