The past week has brought about an onslaught of trailers for next year’s biggest potential blockbusters, and today we have the latest trailer for one of the question marks of the 2013 summer movie line-up: Man of Steel, the Zack Snyder-directed reboot of the Superman film series.

You can watch the trailer here below.

I like the fact that Snyder, with the support of writers David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan and producer Christopher Nolan, is going for a more grounded and introspective approach to Superman’s cinematic adventures highly reminiscent of the legendary DC Comics superhero’s late ’90s/early ’00s comic exploits. It is not necessarily dark and gritty. But this being a movie from the director of 300 and Watchmen there is naturally a heap of widescreen comic book action to satisfy the summer movie audiences.

When the first Blade movie hit theater screens in August of 1998 it became a surprise smash hit and accomplished several noteworthy goals: it gave Wesley Snipes an iconic movie hero in the mold of Rambo and John McClane to call his own, spawned one of New Line Cinema’s most lucrative franchises since the heyday of Freddy Krueger and the Ninja Turtles, and it proved that Marvel Comics characters could successfully headline their own motion picture adventures, thus paving the way for Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Avengers to rule the box office in the years that followed. It took four years for a sequel to come together but with Guillermo Del Toro at the helm, Blade II surpassed the original in every way and became one of the best comic book movie sequels of all. The rapturous reception from moviegoers and critics that greeted Blade II helped revive Del Toro’s American directing career.

Expectations were high for a third Blade movie; at one point German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) was rumored to take the reins for a post-apocalyptic sequel that would have had Snipes’ monosyllabic vampire hunter continue his neverending battle in a world dominated by the bloodthirsty undead. Instead David S. Goyer, the screenwriter who was instrumental in bringing Blade to the big screen, signed on to write and direct the movie that would be released in December 2004 as Blade: Trinity. The end result has since been deemed by many to be one of the worse comic book movies ever made, if not the absolute worse. Make no mistake friends, if you’ve never seen the movie you’re not missing anything at all. It’s atrocious. In the annals of superhero it ranks with the likes of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Elektra. Blade: Trinity makes other maligned third chapters of comic book movie franchises like X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3 look like masterpieces in comparison.

Warner Bros. surprised Comic-Con attendees this earlier year with a very brief teaser trailer for Godzilla, and it was met with huge praise. Little is known about the film itself, but Gareth Edwards now has a scheduled date to keep.

WB has announced that the new Godzila reboot would be stomping into theaters in Summer 2014. According to the studio, the film will be a “grounded [and] realistic” take on everyone’s favorite walking skyscraper lizard.

“As you know, I’m quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating.” That’s Bill (David Carradine) from Kill Bill: Vol. 2, waxing poetic on his favorite superhero, Superman. “Not a great comic book. Not particularly well-drawn. But the mythology… The mythology is not only great, it’s unique.”

Bill explains to The Bride (Uma Thurman) that, when it comes to standard superhero mythology, there’s the hero and then there’s the alter ego. “Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone.”

Bill is of course referring to the fact that Superman didn’t become Superman. He was born Superman. “When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S” – that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume.”

At the conclusion of Bill’s scholarly deconstruction of the world’s first superhero, he touches upon something truly fascinating. “Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak”¦ He’s unsure of himself”¦ He’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.”

The first teaser trailer for the Zack Snyder-directed, Christopher Nolan-produced Superman reboot Man of Steel premiered in theaters this week in front of Nolan’s final Bat-film The Dark Knight Rises. Bootleg copies quickly made their way online, but today the trailer has been officially released to the interwebs for your viewing pleasure.

You can watch the trailer here below. [Update: There’s actually two versions of the trailer, both are below. One has Jonathan Kent’s narration; the other is by Jor-El.]

This trailer isn’t as revealing as the footage that played at the movie’s Comic-Con panel this year (check out Stoogeypedia’s coverage of the panel here); new Supes Henry Cavill is all over the preview, fishing and looking mighty scruffy, and Kevin Costner (as Pa Kent) provides narration and can be briefly glimpsed in a photo. We don’t get to see Cavill in full-on Man of Steel mode until the trailer’s (literally) soaring final seconds. Howard Shore’s music from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring provides the soundtrack for this clip.