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I was thinking about it, the other day and I wondered if maybe the best way to reboot the Superman movie franchise isn't to do what they're doing with Spider-Man. Superboy has always been given short shrift in Hollywood and it would be cool to have a real coming of age Superman story on the big screen. Or so I think, anyway.
Now, of course, I would wish for a Legion connection, but I understand that the franchise is a bit shaky to withstand the awesomeness that is Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, but there might be a way to tease it a bit, the way they did with Smallville. I'm not getting my hopes up, however.
The recent (not so recent, really) Secret Origins series in Action Comics has rekindled my interest in seeing a well done Superboy appearance in the context of Superman growing up. I think, more than anything, it would allow for more exploration of Clark Kent's emerging super-powers, in a context where it would also be possible to insert several action scenes, to keep an audience interested. Superman's origin is more than just the rocket to Earth, it's the first time a bullet bounced off him, the first time he burned a hole through the side of the barn, the first time he x-rayed Lana's cheerleader outfit or overheard an unpleasant secret from 5 blocks away.
It's also the first time he rescued a kitten from a tree, or a stranded hiker on a crumbling cliffside. The first time he foiled a bank robber or saved a family from a burning building. And, if you play it right, and put him in costume, you could build toward an eventual "graduation", when Superboy becomes Superman.
One way to depict that transition is through the costume.
In the Silver Age, the origin of Superman's costume was as a play suit that was durable enough to stand up to little Clark's already impressive superhuman strength. Remember, in those days, he received virtually the full complement of super-powers when he came into the Solar System under the Earth's yellow sun. There was very little development of his physical powers, though powers like x-ray vision came a bit later in his childhood. Little Clark needed clothes that wouldn't rip just because he ran through the wall of the house.
I like the idea of baby Clark being nearly human in his strength levels, with his power growing over time as his body soaks up the empowering rays of the yellow sun. I know, I know, there's hardly enough solar energy per square meter to give him any extra strength (I have a whole theory about Kryptonian physiology that I might write up one of these days, just for fun), but this is fantasy and in the comics, he gets juiced up by the meager solar rays that aren't reflected off his carcass. Plus, it would make it immensely more believable that two normal folks could raise a boy who can eventually shift the Earth off its axis, if he started out about as strong as the average healthy baby. Babies are notoriously unreasonable critters and it'd be unlikely that he'd accept parental discipline if he could punch mom and dad into another time zone.
As much as I like the old idea of Ma Kent unraveling Clark's Kryptonian baby blankets and knitting his suit, I think it's outdated. In Superman Returns, as in some comic stories, Superman wears a black and silver suit sometimes referred to as a "lifesuit". I think of it as a sort of travel garment. In the case of baby Kal-El, his travel suit is a cerulean blue bodysuit like kids' footie pajamas. With the family crest emblazoned on the chest.
In the old days, Superman's costume and cape were nearly infinitely stretchable . . . when he wanted it to be. Often times, he'd stretch his cape out like a trampoline to catch falling bad guys or stop falling debris. Now, a material that is that stretchy should simply stretch further, when something hits it. You'd still go SPLAT, you'd just have the imprint of the knit cloth pressed into you. The idea behind the lifesuit, from my perspective, is partly to provide the wearer with a suitable, hard-wearing garment so that he isn't left naked in his travels. Also, it might assist with life support in the mini-starship that brings him to Earth.
The reason I'm focusing on the costume is that it was so badly mangled in Superman Returns. That rubber chest shield was just awful. I think it needs a sleeker, simpler look. More like the comics and the circus performer costumes on which it's based. The costume should "read" even to the folks in the cheap seats. Big S-shield, good color contrast, bright and distinct, not muddy and dark.
But wait, there's more . . .
Since this is an idea for how the movie should be done, I have some more ideas.
With any Superman movie, you're going to have to have an altercation with Lex Luthor, but I'd like Luthor not to be the main villain of the piece. Rather, I'd prefer to set up the Superman/Luthor conflict in the Superboy phase of the story and let it be developed further in future films. For a long time, I've wanted to see a well-done version of Brainiac on the big screen and that's my choice for the big battle.
I like the idea of Brainiac as a remnant of Kryptonian technology. The Brainiac of the Superman and Justice League cartoons was the most interesting version I've seen in years. My idea is a bit different, because I want the Brainiac, or rather, the device that eventually becomes Brainiac, to have left Krypton some time before the planet's destruction. In my proposal, Brainiac is a probe sent out by Krypton, during a period of scientific curiosity that had passed by the time Jor-El defied the so-called Science Council and built a rocket to send his son to Earth. This probe would be one of those von Neumann "Universal Constructors" sent out to gather information about the worlds it visits, make few copies of itself and launch them in different directions. Von Neumann planned for the possibility of adaptation in his machines, akin to mutation in living organisms and it is this feature that allows over the decades, for the Brainiac personality to form in one of the probes.
Well, that, and a tiny little bit of malware installed in one of the probes before it was launched. After replicating a specified number of times, this bit of code opened a compressed data file containing the rudiments of an artificial intelligence. My idea is that Krypton has had a problem with A.I. in the past, and maybe that's why they eventually turn their backs on scientific inquiry, beyond carefully defined parameters.
The Brainiac A.I. develops in one of the probes, a unique machine that enters the Solar System about the same time young Clark is learning to outrun a freight train. In its mission to gather information, the probe slowly spirals through the system collecting data when it detects Kryptonian technology on the 3rd planet from the Sun. This changes things and the artificial intelligence we will come to know as Brainiac begins emerging. The payload in the Brainiac software is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the prisoners in the Phantom Zone.
About the time that Clark is spreading his wings, learning to fly around in space, the probe detects his Kryptonian life-signs and it diverts from Earth to Mars, where Clark is practicing barnstorming in the Mariner Valley. The probe impacts on Mars and starts to work, only instead of building a set of duplicates, it begins assembling a Phantom Zone portal. It's a slow process, begun prematurely, on a planet with inadequate resources, but since we keep sending probes to Mars, we help the situation along.
Years pass and Clark moves to Metropolis. He's working at the Daily Planet and beginning to establish the reputation that will make him the most famous super-hero in the world. We should see him stopping a few crimes, helping a few people trapped in fires and even catching a super-criminal, Toy Man or Parasite, and maybe we get a shot of Luthor hacking the city's CCTV cameras and watching the show.
But, how to get Brainiac to Earth?
I thought of that, too. Mission to Mars meets self-replicating machine intelligence. It's also a chance to bring in an element of a later version of Brainiac. So, here's how it goes, international mission to Mars, a survey team stumbles on a Brainiac scavenger attracted by the landing craft. Before long, a swarm of these scavengers descend on the base and tear it apart, along with the astronauts. But, one of the astronauts, Dr. Milton Fine is spared, after a fashion. The probe "adapts" him to its purposes and returns him to Earth in the return vehicle. Normally, they'd need to wait for the orbital alignment for the crew to survive the trip. But, as an extension of the Brainiac mechanism, Fine's life-signs are minimal, so there is enough fuel and consumables to get him home.
Upon his return to Earth, things go wrong, the ship is burning up on re-entry, but Superman saves the day! Only to find that the crew is missing and something is horribly wrong with Dr. Fine.
According to the comics, Jor-El was the man who developed the Phantom Zone ray, it stands to reason that he'd be persona non grata with the prisoners of the Zone. The Fine-Brainiac reacts to Superman's family crest, attacking him and bringing about the battle royale to make the whole show worthwhile. Big Superman vs. Brainiac battle, Superman wins.Hurrah!
Roll credits.
After the credits, there's a bonus scene. Mars. The crater where the Brainiac probe crashed. A large ring of metal scraps and cables, a conglomeration of scavenged material from the various Mars probes and the original Brainiac machine, as well as material manufactured from Martian minerals. Lights flash, sparks leap, a blaze of white light at the center of the ring. Cables smoke and burn through, the blaze of light dims as thunder rolls, and a man falls out of the flickering light. Then a woman, then another man, before the whole thing burns out. The first man gains his feet, a bit unsteady. As the others stand up in the smoking crater, the first man begins to laugh. The screen goes black.
So, not a lot of art with this one, it's mostly story ideas. My work schedule is forcing me to do less drawing, of late. I do have a new take on Kal-El's lifeboat.
www.heroblog.com
Copyright © 2010 Joe Singleton
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