Things I'd Do In a Superman Movie

I love Superman. Like, a lot. He's probably my favorite superhero ever (only Spider-Man comes close), and one of my favorite fictional characters ever. And for a while now, I've wanted to write up a Superman movie treatment of my own. Y'know, just in case Warner Bros. ever decides to reboot the main movie line, I can have this thing on-hand and save the day, so to speak. This is basically just a list I've compiled of certain things I'd do in my Superman story. Be warned, some references may fly over the heads of less comic-minded followers.

Without further a do, let's dive in, shall we?

The Title

For the record, my original idea was Superman: Dawn. It was supposed to be symbolic in a way, representing how this new Superman movie is more optimistic and true-to-form than the DCEU take. Eventually I decided that this one fit better.

Krypton No More

More specifically, no Krypton prologue. Krypton most definitely exists (or rather, existed) in my Superman movie. It wouldn’t be Superman without it. We just don’t actually see it in this version. The most we would get is the pod that little baby Clark comes in, a holographic last recording from Jor-El and Lara, and a computer that came with the pod that contains all sorts of data tapes and such on Krypton.

But apart from that, Krypton’s role in this story would be significantly downplayed from past versions. Instead, it’d open up with the Kents finding the pod after it lands. I’d do this partially because we’ve seen the Krypton prologue done twice before now, and I’d want to do something a little bit different, and I think it fits a bit better with the kind of Superman story I want to do.

And while we’re at it, there’s no special destiny or messianic connections at play here. Jor-El and Lara don’t send Kal to Earth to be a light or a symbol or anything like that, and no Jesus allegories either. They’re just a loving, desperate family who wanted to make sure their son had a ghost of a chance at a better life than what Krypton’s final minutes could offer him.

Plus, I kind of want to leave a little bit of mystery as to what caused Krypton’s destruction, and I have a few ideas on that, but I want to save them for a sequel and not bog down this movie in set-ups for future installments.

Spoiler alert: Brainiac did it.

No Tights, No Flights (for most of it anyway)

Okay, I know some (and I say some, because I do know a few people who have voiced support for Grant Morrison’s Action Comics run) people are gonna see this image and say “He’s using stuff from the New 52?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”, but hear me out. As basic ideas, I kinda like the idea of Superman’s first costume basically being a t-shirt with the House of El crest on it and a little red cape on the back, and not having his full powerset right off the bat. In particular, my Superman wouldn’t start flying until at least the beginning of the third-act, and he wouldn’t get the “official” Superman suit until then either. The idea is that it’s supposed to coincide with his hero’s journey; he gets that stuff after he’s either earned or grown into the role of Superman, so to speak. At the start of his career he’s relegated to leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and by the end of it he’s full-on flying.

By the way, for those of you who are curious, this is my rough concept of the final Superman suit.

“They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way”

One of the things I keep hearing in Superman movies is how he’s supposed to be an inspiration to others. A “light to show the way”, an “ideal to strive for”, things like that. But here’s the thing, and stop me if I’m wrong: I’ve yet to actually see that in a Superman movie. It all comes down to Superman doing everything while all of California waits for rescue from Luthor’s schemes, or watches as he slugs Zod across Metropolis. The one exception I can name off the top of my head is in Superman II, where a crowd of Metropolisites, thinking that Zod and his cohorts have killed Superman, charge the Kryptonians to avenge their hero. Then the moment is spoiled when they create a super-breath hurricane and the scene turns slapstick because Richard Lester was an idiot.

So that’s something I would want in my Superman movie. I don’t want it to be just Superman saving people and fighting Lex Luthor. I want to see ordinary people taking his example to heart and becoming better because of it. I want to see Superman help and change people not just by what he does actively, but just because his being a decent person in an indecent time stirs others to action.

And really, that’s kind of the point I’d be going for.

Outside of Smallville, the world of my Superman movie would be very much a reflection of our current time, at least in overall attitude. The pandemic, protests, government shenanigans…it may not be directly acknowledged in-story, but the overall sense of chaos and despair and sheer cynicism is very much present here. And I want that to be represented in-story by the character of Lois Lane. When we first meet her, she’s quite obviously weary and weighed down by the woes of the world; she’s got a sort of “life sucks and that’s the facts of life” mentality. But over the course of the movie after Superman’s big debut, she comes to see that things aren’t, and don’t have to be, that hopeless. That good people can still rise up and shine in even the darkest times.

And if the alien superbeing who leaps tall buildings in a single bound, the guy who gives “absolute power corrupts absolutely” the middle finger just by swooping out of the sky and saving a cat from a tree for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do…then maybe there’s hope for us flawed, broken humans.

“Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am.”

Let’s talk a bit about the character of Clark Kent in my Superman treatment. One of the things that I want to be crucial is that it is Clark Kent who is the “real” person, not Superman. Superman is essentially a mask of sorts that Clark puts on when he’s saving people out in public. He’s basically an emphasis of Clark’s heroic personality traits. The Clark Kent we see at the Daily Planet is a mask too; he’s the more timid and shy parts given prominence. The “real” Clark Kent is somewhere in between both of those. Kal-El never really existed; whatever life he may have had under that name died with Krypton. Clark identifies more as a human being than a Kryptonian.

The crucial flaw, the primary mental and emotional hurdle that I want Clark to struggle with over the course of the story is a sense of self-doubt. Now I don’t want him to be overly angsty and mopey–we’ve already had our fair share of that–but I want the audience to sympathize with him in the sense that he feels maybe he can’t find a place in a world that’s initially distrustful of him. Maybe he can’t make a difference just by being sticking to his principles and doing what he can to help. The superhero icon of hope is struggling with a sense of internal hopelessness. And that is what I want to see him overcome and grow through. Or something like that anyway.

The Villains

Yeah, I’d go for Luthor for this one. I know he’s been Superman’s nemesis for the last two big continuities, but I really want to see a proper version of him as the CEO of LexCorp who practically owns Metropolis until Superman arrives and–however unwittingly–one-ups him in his eyes and earns his scorn, no matter how many times he’ll try to disguise it beneath his “Superman is a hinderance to humanity” speeches.

The Luthor family would have a greater connection to Clark in this one as well. When Clark’s pod comes through Earth’s atmosphere, Lex’s father Lionel Luthor, then CEO of LuthorCorp, tracks it to Kansas, and takes a team of scientists to investigate. They don’t find the ship–the Kents took it with them along with baby Clark–but they do find a few pieces of debris and a comparatively sizeable quantity of glowing green meteor rock, which they take. During the years of Clark’s youth, LuthorCorp apparently establishes a power plant in the Smallville area, which is implied to be a cover for Lionel’s hunt for the “alien invader”. After Lionel dies of mysterious circumstances (semi-implied to have been caused by Lex himself), the plant is shut down. It’s only years later when Superman arrives, and after his first interview with Lois Lane where he lets it slip that he’s from another planet, that Lex goes over his father’s research and deduces what system Superman came from, what kind of environmental conditions would give rise to a being like him, and that the green meteor rocks, which he ends up dubbing Kryptonite, would actually have an adverse effect on his physiology.

A few more things regarding Luthor; he goes through most of the movie with a full head of red hair, before losing most of it in an explosion during the final battle. He cuts the rest of it off in a post-credits sequence, where he admits that he quite likes the bald look. At some point in the movie's climax, Lois leaks out what LexCorp has been doing behind the scenes, destroying the company and Luthor’s reputation and forcing him on the run, giving rise to a more mad scientist-esque Luthor like in the older comics, using LexCorp’s reserve supplies, resources, and employees to continually pester Superman in the future.

The other villain I want to include somehow is John Corben, aka Metallo; the cyborg with a Kryptonite heart.

From the very beginning I’ve wanted to have Metallo in my Superman treatment. Specifically, the story involving him is very much inspired by his appearance in Geoff Johns’ Superman: Secret Origin; being a US soldier who works directly for General Samuel Lane, Lois’s father. Lane would be xenophobic and fearful of Superman, and goes to Luthor to preemptively destroy the “alien invader”. The solution is to merge Corben with a prototype endoskeleton that LexCorp has built, resulting in Metallo.

Now all of this is subject to change, but still this is what I’ve got thus far.

Other Assorted Bits

-The Legion of Super-Heroes would make a cameo appearance…as a cartoon that Clark watches as a kid, designed to be a tribute to Hanna-Barbera’s Super-Friends. So they still have an influence on Clark’s life in this continuity, even if they’re not real in-universe.

-Metropolis’ look is a combination of modern and retro looks, a la Superman Returns, with a dash of the futuristic in places. I kind of want to give it a slightly fantastical feel. It’s also explicitly stated to be in Delaware.

-Kryptonite has a slightly different look from the comics. Instead of being a green rock/crystal, it’s mostly black with glowing green cracks. It also has little impressions of what might be fossils imbedded in its surface. I want it to have a distinctively sinister look and feel about it, like it’s the corpse of a dead world. Which it is. Now that I think of it, it actually would kinda look like a real-world mineral called vivianite.

-From what little we see of Kryptonian technology, it carries over the crystalline vibe of the Donner films. Rather than being jagged and angular, though, Kryptonian tech and structures are smoother, more graceful and rounded, like glass sculptures. In addition to the memory crystals in the pod, it also comes with a fabrication unit, which is what Clark uses to craft the full Superman suit before his final battle with Luthor and Metallo in the third act.

-The suit is made up of nanocrystal technology brought along in his spacecraft from Krypton. Clark initially designed it with the idea of having something that would be as durable and heat-resistant as he is. It automatically “regrows” and repairs itself if torn or ripped, and serves to treat Superman’s wounds should he receive them. It would have a sort of psionic link to him so whenever he switches from Clark to Superman and back again, the suit materializes itself outward rather than simply being kept under his usual clothing.

-Some of Clark’s powers work a bit differently from the comics, aside from the aforementioned initial struggles to properly fly. He can’t use X-Ray or heat vision for extended periods of time, super hearing doesn’t work in the vacuum of space (for obvious reasons), and when he’s using super-speed he perceives things in real-time instead of slow motion, so he has to carefully plan how and where to use it. It’s most effective in an open area or in a straight line. It’s also implied that the more he exerts himself, either in speed or strength, the faster he’ll burn through his solar energy reserves, necessitating some time for him to “recharge”, so to speak. So he could technically do stuff like bench-press a continent or fly at the speed of light, but it would take a lot out of him.

-Clark and Lois aren’t in a romantic relationship, at least not yet. There’s hints of something beginning between the two by the end of the movie, but I want to take things slow between them. Also, Lois would figure out Clark is Superman around the third act, definitely well before the end of the movie.

-John Williams’ iconic Superman theme would be used in the film. The trick is that we don’t hear the full thing until Clark starts flying for the first time. In other words, only after he’s definitively grown into Superman do we hear the theme play.

-Marvel Comics and the MCU apparently exist in this continuity. Don’t ask me how many legal loopholes I’d have to go through to make that work.

-When the Daily Planet staff try to figure out a name for the new superhuman vigilante, Jimmy Olsen suggests “the Red-Blue Blur”, the alias used in Smallville. Perry White thinks it’s a dumb name.

Comments

[BradyBunch]

You should pitch the idea to a film studio in the future after you've built connections. This sounds like a legitimate Superman story that has real potential. I believe that can bring back the essence of what Superman is all about. I adore Superman as well, but he hasn't had a good film since the 80s. We need him, and more than ever before. The world needs hope, and he can reassure us if done correctly.

[aceina]

i like your idea its good sadly DC do nt want ot make a superman movie staring superman in live action

they want to make superman pretending to be batman