DC fans have long been curious about whether Henry Cavill’s Superman makes an appearance in The Flash. Cavill’s DC Universe (DCU) career grew very complicated in the months leading up to The Flash. In the 2022 DCU film Black Adam, he reprised his role as Superman for the first time in five years. After his cameo, he took to social media to officially confirm that Superman was back in the DCU. Within days of his return announcement, rumors started swirling that Man of Steel 2 and Justice League 2 were in development with Cavill. Many viewers started hypothesizing about his cameos in The Flash and Aquaman and the Last Kingdom to further ring in his return.
However, his announcement came just before the news that James Gunn and Peter Safran were taking over the DCU. Soon, Cavill returned to social media to let viewers know he actually wasn’t returning as Superman and that the role would be recast for Gunn’s and Safran’s DCU. The studio’s treatment of Cavill during the whole debacle was sad to watch, as he reportedly was pushed to prematurely announce his return and likely wasn’t filled in on everything happening behind the scenes with Gunn, the DCU, and Superman Legacy.
The blows kept coming though, as The Hollywood Reporter soon claimed that Cavill had filmed a cameo for The Flash, which was cut following his removal from the DCU. Without an official confirmation that he had a scene or that it was cut, viewers held onto a small hope that he’d still pop up in The Flash, whether as the DCU’s Superman or an alternate version of the hero.
Is Henry Cavill’s Superman in The Flash?
The short answer is no. Cavill isn’t in The Flash, at least not really. The Flash made the surprising decision to utilize CGI for the majority of its cameos. At one point, a CGI Cavill does appear very briefly in the film. He materializes in the Speed Force as a memory of The Flash’s (Miller) fight with Superman in Justice League. So while viewers will briefly see Superman’s face as a CGI recreation of a past scene, there’s no actual new footage of Cavill. However, there are several mentions of him throughout the film.
In the very beginning, when Flash is called to help Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) get a situation under control, he questions why Superman can’t help. Alfred (Jeremy Irons) admits that Superman was his first choice to summon, but that he’s preoccupied. We then see a brief shot on a television news broadcast of Superman’s silhouette tending to a volcano eruption. Again though, his face is concealed, and it’s not Cavill portraying the figure
Later, Superman’s absence is explained in the alternate universe when General Zod (Michael Shannon) admits he never made it to Earth in that reality and was killed as an infant. Even though his absence makes sense in the alternate universe, it’s disappointing he couldn’t appear in the regular timeline. After all, we had several Justice League members returning, so it’s unclear why Cavill didn’t also pop in for a quick cameo. His absence in The Flash also leaves us with some unanswered questions about whether his cameo ever existed and what it entailed.
(featured image: Warner Bros. Discovery)
