For better or worse, The Flash is movie as much about the DC multiverse as it is the characters in the film. On one hand, Barry Allen seeing a Superman he doesn’t recognize fighting a giant spider alien he’s never seen before feels almost out of place.

It’s definitely a moment there for the audience’s benefit more so than the characters. Yet, when the film was conceived and filmed before the merger with Discovery, so it was meant to lay a foundation from which Warner Bros. could softly reboot continuity while trying to honor the iterations of DC characters that came before.

The metatextual message was that fans’ favorite iteration of a DC universe, from the 1970s Wonder Woman series to Christopher Reeve’s cinematic Superman all “happened.” While they may not share story details, it’s all canon.

The wisdom of including computer-generated recreations of beloved actors aside, Nicolas Cage played Superman in The Flash to suggest even the movies that didn’t happen also, technically, happened.

Many Superman fans felt they were “robbed” when Warner Bros. scrapped Superman Lives, and Twitter didn’t exist back then to start a viral campaign to save it. Sure, the moment where Nicolas Cage’s Superman fights the spider is somewhere between an Easter egg and an inside joke.

It also allows a digitally de-aged Cage to get “redemption” for the awkward costume test photo that leaked online many years ago. But of all the cameos, this may be the one that truly honors the work of actors and artists, and not just because Cage is alive to agree to appear in the film. It’s just one scene with little impact on the story in the film.

Yet, seeing Nicolas Cage with the long hair and retooled costume taking down Jon Peters’ giant spider celebrates the best Superman fans never got.