How Some Of The Best Comic Book Writers In The World Would Reboot The Superman Franchise

It's no secret that I did not like Superman Returns much, and neither did a lot of other people. There were a lot of problems with it I thought, and I'll list a few off the top of my head:

a) The super tot - Singer and co. basically painted themselves into a corner with that one. It's a giant albatross around the neck of any future stories planned for Supes and Lois. No one wants to see them with a kid, especially a super powered one no less. I mean, what can you do with him? The awkwardness of growing up with super powers you're trying to hide? Or the process of learning said super powers? Or being different than everyone else? That could easily be Clark's/Supes' story - we don't need the super tot for that.

b) Superman Returns was a chick flick, pure and simple. Don't get me wrong, there's a time and place for chick flicks, but a Superman movie is not one of them. It might as well have been a Lois Lane movie, for pete's sake.

c) Superman was the most unsympathetic character, I'm sorry. It did not help that James Marsden's character was a lot more sympathetic. I mean, here was this really nice guy, who risked his life even though he had no superpowers to rescue a woman who was secretly in love with someone else (who was still pursing her!) and a kid who really wasn't his. I'm sorry, but that makes Supes and Lois look like douche bags as far as I'm concerned.

Like I said, I'm not the only one who feels that way; I don't know if anybody lost geek cred as much as Bryan Singer did in the time span between the release dates of X-Men 2 and Superman Returns. And while the movie made a good amount of money, it did not make the kind of money (relative to the budget and expectations) that would justify carte blanche for Mr. Singer with the franchise.

As a result, there has been so much talk since then that Singer might not do the sequel, that he still might do the sequel but he needs to follow strict guidelines, or even a reboot of the series the way Hulk and Batman was rebooted (and said reboot might or might not involve Singer).

The reboot option seems to be the most popular amongst the geeks, and now even some of the most beloved and respected comic book writers in the industry have put in their two cents. Here is a great article about what they thought were the problems with the movie and how they would reboot the franchise.

No matter how you cut it though, there's a lot more pressure now on Time Warner to get Superman right, as The Dark Knight's huge critical and box office success have showed them the rewards that can be reaped by doing so. Hopefully, we'll see results sooner rather than later.