Because, well, this is America:

Superman: Jesus figure or ‘anti-Christ’?

Superman has always had a bit of a messiah complex, born as a modern-day Moses in the imagination of two Jewish guys during the Depression and over the years developing and amplifying his Christlike characteristics.

So it made sense that Warner Bros. Pictures spared no effort in using the Jesus connection to attract the increasingly important Christian audience to see the latest film in the Superman franchise, “Man of Steel.”

The studio hired a leading faith-based marketing agency, Grace Hill Media, to hold special screenings for pastors, and it developed an extensive website of Christian-themed resources — including specially-edited trailers for use in churches and “Man of Steel” sermon notes.

“The Christ-like parallels, I didn’t make that stuff up,” director Zack Snyder told CNN. “That is the tried-and-true Superman metaphor.”

Or maybe not.

Despite the studio’s best efforts, some viewers are leaving the theater after watching “Man of Steel” and issuing what amounts to a theological spoiler alert: Don’t compare this Superman to Jesus Christ.

In fact, “he is the anti-Christ,” as the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator for National Catholic Reporter, […]

Or as Jackson Cuidon put it in his “Man of Steel” review in Christianity Today, a leading evangelical magazine: “Superman … is there mostly to satiate that part of the American psyche that wants their messiahs to punch things, too.”

[…]