The Return of Superman Returns (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series)

With the recent news about the recasting of Brandon Routh as (Kingdom Come) Superman in the highly successful DC TV Universe, I thought of digging out an old article I found in the net about the rumored sequel to Superman Returns. Though Superman Returns enjoyed mild success, it never was given a chance to push the story forward when Warner Bros. decided to pull the plug and rebooted Superman. The resulting reboot was the Zack Snyder film Man of Steel headlined by Henry Cavill as Superman. But the totally messed up Justice League movie has forced WB to totally abandon Snyder's vision for their DC Extended Universe, in effect, putting Cavill in limbo. Now, we are left with one Live Action Superman in the form of Tyler Hoechlin, who plays Superman in the Supergirl TV Series, which is a part of the DC TV Universe (or Arrowverse to be correct).While Hoechlin played a decent Superman, it cannot be denied that by the turn of the Millennium, the three most popular live action Superman came down to Routh, Cavill, and Tom Welling. While Arrowverse fans were rooting for Tom Welling to don the Superman costume (which he disappointedly never did during his 10 season run as Clark Kent in the Smallville TV Series), it was Routh who was given the opportunity to revisit the character that made him a household name. This two part entry will focus on Brandon Routh as Superman, and what we could probably expect for his upcoming role as the Kingdom Come Superman. But before that, let us look back and try to breakdown the Superman Returns sequel that never was. I dug back and scoured the net for that long lost rumored synopsis of the sequel and found them at a now defunct webpage. Below is the long lost "rumored synopsis" to the sequel of Superman Returns.

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Probably one of the best scenes of Superman Returns

DISCLAIMER: Synopsis text not mine, this was taken entirely from the defunct IESB.NET page

Superman: The Man of Steel

Superman: The Man of Steel started just a few years after the incidents that we saw in Superman Returns. Kal-El is doing what Superman does best, Lois Lane is raising her kid Jason, who of course is Superman's child and the world is getting use to having Superman back.

Now there are storyline threads that go back to Superman Returns, one is the on going plot of Superman's original reason of going back to Krypton. He has always wondered if he truly is the last Son of Krypton.

Remember new Krypton that Lex created with crystals he stole from the Fortress of Solitude and Kryptonite that Supes launched into to space that nearly killed him?

Superman visits and inspects New Krypton, the island created by Lex Luthor which Superman launched into space

So new Krypton continues to grow in space and has become an almost perfect sphere. It is now the size of a small moon.

Besides giving Humans something to admire at night, Earth's new satellite has also brought some unexpected attention from a galaxy far, far away.

A massive spaceship arrives Earth's orbit, Superman flies up to meet the spacecraft and we are introduced to our out of this world visitor.

Superman quickly finds out that our visitor is also a Kryptonian survivor who has been traveling the known galaxies and was able to detect Kryptonian technology thanks to our new green/black satellite that has started to orbit the Earth.

Superman and his Kryptonian Buddy?

Superman finally has found a Kryptonian buddy and starts showing him around the planet, a planet full of problems, disease, famine, crime and nations at war with each other.

Our new Kryptonian friend asks Superman why, with all his power, is he not changing the world for the better. Why is he not getting rid of famine, disease and war? Of course fans know that Superman has always been told, or better said instructed, not to interfere with Earth's development.

Superman explains that he is not allowed to interfere but his Krypto buddy tells him that with their powers they are required to "interfere," Superman disagrees.

Krypto buddy decides to take charge and starts "interfering" from day one. One of the first things that he does is get involved in a political mess that is heating up between two third world nations.

War breaks out between these two nations but before any real battle breaks, our Krypto buddy interferes and lays waste to these two Armies.

He declares to the world that he will not allow anymore wars and/or the destruction of our planet. He is declaring a "War Free" planet and for those who disagree, he will have to deal with them.

No more war? Superman aides his Kryptonian buddy to stop the war

The major nations of the planet applaud his actions and all agree to an immediate worldwide peace. In return he promises to share technology, fight hunger, famine and disease.

The population of the world rejoices and any small pockets of resistance is quickly squashed by Krypto buddy or even the world governments.

Superman has now become a pariah, the way the world sees it, he has been here for years and had kept technology that could have saved many of the worlds problems.


Superman starts getting a bit suspicious of Krypto buddy and decides to go talk to him. He goes to his spaceship and has a revelation. This massive ship is full of hundreds if not thousands of identical bodies aboard, yep, clones of Krypto buddy, in stasis.

Kryptonian buddy no more, BRAINIAC is revealed! 

So Superman digs a bit more inside the "computer" system, which is familiar to him since it's Kryptonian technology just like the Fortress of Solitude.

Superman finds out that Krypto buddy is actually an artificial intelligence from Krypton that has evolved since the destruction of their world.

He escaped Krypton just like Kal-El did and his real name is Brainiac. He has been going from planet to planet, taking their technology, helping these worlds reach a relative perfection and then he destroys them and moves on.

Superman also finds out that he was actually responsible for the destruction of Krypton and tries to warn the leaders of the world but is confronted by Brainiac. A massive battle ensues and Superman is about to defeat his foe but right just before, Brainiac downloads his conscience into one of his other clones.

Jason White runs for his life as BRAINIAC tries to capture him

Superman realizes that he must destroy this massive ship along with all the clones aboard. After another massive battle he is able to disable the ship, destroy the clones and the new Brainiac but right before the ship is destroyed the Brainiac main frame does a local search for another body that he could download in to, it has to be Kryptonian, and he finds another one on Earth, Superman's kid Jason White.


So Brainiac uses Kryptonian technology and beams/download itself into Jason's body and this causes causes him to age and grow into a full adult but with Brainiac in complete control.

Superman realizes what just happened and rushes to confront his very own son who is now possessed by Brainiac.

Is Jason still there or is it all Brainiac? It's all Brainiac and Superman knows what he has to do, he must defeat Brainiac at all costs or the planet and its inhabitants will be doomed.

Can Superman save both his son and his adopted planet Earth?

It's a battle between two gods but Superman has already been run ragged and beat down pretty bad in his previous battles of the day. Brainiac has the upper hand and Superman is trying to not to do any permanent damage to Jason's body.

Every time Brainiac is defeated in the past he simply tries to download to another clone and leaves that body completely brain dead but with no other bodies left, will Jason survive? The answer is no.

There is a Christ like metaphor here. Superman has to sacrifice his own son to save humanity.

There are still plenty of holes left in this story, we were not privy to all the details but this is the bulk of the info we received.

While the Bryan Singer sequel was axed, it didn't stop Mattel from releasing a Toyline based on the Sequel as shown here. 

So what do you guys think? Could the planned sequel for Superman Returns would have worked? Remember, Bryan Singer's take on the first X-Men film was a slow build up, as he first tried to establish the status quo of the X-Men. But his sequel, X-Men 2, totally blew everyone away as the high adrenaline action packed sequences and tight plot delivered what I believe is arguably the best Live Action X-Men movie to date! Now basing on the rumored synopsis, the Death of Superman's son is a perfect lead up to how Routh's Superman became the Kingdom Come version. I will be writing my thoughts on the connection to this sequel and the Arrowverse Kingdom Come Superman in part two of this article in my next entry. Hold on. The fun is just getting started!

Superman Returns: A Retrospective

Whether we accept it or not, there are a lot of Critics and Superman Fans who are still hung over from Christopher Reeve's take on Superman. Don't get me wrong, it is a great Superman movie, perhaps even the greatest, but that Superman Classic looks so outdated now by current standards. Singer's Superman Returns was exactly an attempt to hold on to that nostalgia while trying to push the Superman story in the big screen forward. In fact, most critics love Superman Returns more than Man of Steel. And many Superman fans are still pinning on the good old days of the joyful, charming, and brighter Superman as portrayed by Reeve. Nothing wrong with that really. But Warner Brother's meddling and lack of patience has continually hi-jacked any efforts to put Superman back in the big screen as a respectable figure. If they would have been patient enough with Singer, maybe the sequel to Superman Returns would have been bigger and more exciting after establishing the status quo of the present Superman via Superman Returns. If one could remember, Singer's first X-Men wasn't that much of a big movie, but it laid down the groundwork for the sequel X-Men 2 to be a bigger and more exciting movie.

Brandon Routh as Superman

Before the Snyderverse these were who WB was banking on

I personally blame the success of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy for steering Superman into the "Dark, Serious, and Grounded" territory. While the Reeve and Routh Supermen were more on the wonder and the amazing, Snyder's take (with Nolan's blessing if you could remember) grounded Superman in the real world scenario of a post 911 world. I have expounded on that here. WB thought that the massive success of The Dark Knight Trilogy is something that they should build on in contrast to Marvel's more GP friendly movies. But is that really how to do Superman movies? For those who have been following my posts about the DCEU, I'm a staunch defender of Snyder's vision. I was heavily invested in what his idea was and how he would present his mythology. But the grand scale that he tried to convey with the limited screen time given to him to utilize just couldn't make his vision work. And the Josstice League mangled movie burned Snyder's vision to the ground. But if there's one thing that WB learned from this experience, it is that now they are beginning to treat their Comic Book movies in accordance to the Character's characteristics. And so far, we have Aquaman (Action-Adventure), Shazam!(Comedy-Adventure) and the upcoming Joker (Rated R) movie as our examples.

Marlon Brando and Christopher Reeve

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor

Now as for Superman, Singer's Superman after all should have been the right treatment for Superman. Superman Returns generally retained most of the Christopher Reeve Superman's mythology as a quasi-sequel. Part action, part adventure, part romance, and part drama, it had all the elements that made the Reeve Superman a well love classic. But too much reverence and nostalgia for the past Superman film rendered the movie to a fault. The plot basically was a retread of the first Superman movie plus some extras that Singer was building on. Marlon Brando (Jor EL) made a cameo by using old footage and combining it with CGI technology. The Villain (Lex Luthor) was the same, the motivations (Real Estate) of the villain was the same, Superman's action scenes were basically the same showcase of what Superman can do. Even the Superman romance with Lois in flight was a rehash of the Superman and Lois "Can you read my mind" date. Superman drowning in the sea because of Kryptonite was also a rehash of Superman drowning in Luthor's mini-pool because of a Kryptonite necklace. In fact there were a lot more in the film that looked like a scene by scene reconstruction of the old Reeve Superman. But then, Singer's love letter to the old Christopher Reeve movie was his attempt at re-establishing the Superman mythology that most people remembered. And most of it generally worked for those who continue to love the Reeve Superman. But for the new generation of Superman fans, it felt lacking. The advent of technology should have made Superman's adventures bigger and grander. Fans were looking for a Superman that punches (in Superman Returns I don't remember Superman land a single punch, but these fans were overwhelmed by the punching that Cavill's Superman landed though).     

Only Lex Luthor did the punching and kicking

The ending shot to Superman Returns was very similar to Christopher Reeve's Superman ending shot.

Superman Returns had its share of problems. And the 5 year absence of Superman that was established after Superman 2 made him an absentee dad when it was surprisingly revealed that Superman had a son with Lois. Superman Returns wasn't really a bad movie if it was given a chance to continue its story. Singer had established some surprising plot threads that he could have used for the next movie. And in my next entry, I've managed to dig up the rumored synopsis to Singer's Superman Returns sequel.