Warner Bros Website & Tie-In Toys Reveal Man of Steel Movie Reboots Not Just Superman Shield, But A Lot More Glyph Shields?

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I was at a Toys ‘R Us this weekend and did my usual walk-through the action figure and Lego / Kree-O building brick toy sections.

With the Superman movie reboot hitting the silver screen less than a month away on June 14, 2013, Man of Steel toys are noticeably populating shelves and other nooks in the store. While there have been a few intriguing movie trailers released, much of the scuttlebutt has been in the restitching of Superman’s suit, particularly losing the external red underwear (which is less of an issue now perhaps since Superman has not been sporting the red thong since late 2011 in the comics) the tie-in toys I spied reveal more changes in Kryptonian fashion.

The General Zod action figures, modeled on Superman’s film foe who is likely still an escaped Kryptonian villain via his Phantom Zone dimensional prison, have a pronounced unique shield on their chests. We still have the familiar five (5) sided pentagon Superman shield shape, but within the borders a very different crest. Turns out Zod’s robots also wear his crest, coat-of-arms, shield, whathaveyou.

In the Lego section, the “Battle of Smallville” set includes Superman alongside General Zod and his Phantom Zone co-escapees Foara and Tor-An. They too have unique crests on their chests. In relooking at the Man of Steel trailers, I can see some of these shields, but they are more subtle and mono-chromatic in the film footage released thus far.

After further e-digging, it would appear that there is answer for the varying fashions. It would appear the movie studio has set up a website called Glyph Creator / Generator where you can create your own “Glyph”. This is what these pentagon shields are now called. They are specific “ancestral” crests and appear to be unlike the most recent pre-DC Comics New 52 reboot which had the shields varying by core occupation / caste. This tie-in website, accessible through the main Warner Bros. official Man of Steel website too, opens with a blurb explaining the Glyph concept from the Man of Steel film.

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John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!