Being such a huge fan of Superman, all the talk of whether to reboot Superman or to continue what Singer started has a fanboy like myself a bit confused. I'm one of the few who enjoyed Superman Returns, and I will also be one of the first to admit that it dropped the ball when it came to action. The question is if it was bad enough to scrap all together and go in a new direction, or continue this story and hope it will get better. This very debate has accumulated at least 2000+ hot and passionate "IMHO"'s regarding were Supes should go, what he should do, what should he look like, who should he fight, should he go dark, and last but not least, who should play him.
As I was reading TheDurkinKnight's article, "What I Can Live Without in a New Superman Movie!" I began to think about who the character is and not where he came from, but WHEN he came from. I think that the only reboot that would work, and the only thing that would make supes fresh in the eyes not only to us as fans, but to the the Matrix generation, is to set the story in the 1930's. How awesome would it be to see Clark Kent and Superman in the time period they where created for? It would solve a lot of our issues with the character that we know today. You could be an ace reporter for a major newspaper and nobody would know what you look like because media was a different animal in the 30's. Maybe, with camera technology from the 30's nobody has a clear picture of his face so a secret identity isn't that far fetched. He could have his iconic suit and it would finally fit in that universe, the spit curl would be fashionable, and Lois could be the dame that we all want her to be. How would a 1930's America handle an alien from another planet? How would he, as a god-like figure, deal with a more conservative/ religious America? These are all things that can be explored and used to create depth to a set of characters that have grown stale.
The best part would be Lex Luthor. I'm with everybody else who says that Lex has been beat to death and we should have a different villain, but if we brought Lex back to the basics and made him the Super genius/mad scientist that he is supposed to be, not the rich real-estate mogul he is now, some very cool and interesting things can be done with that character. Imagine Lex luthor hunkered down in a dirty, beat up garage making his own Steampunk version of his super-suit. He would finally have character and for once be interesting to watch. Or if we keep Luthor as a secondary character, how cool would it be to see an alien such as Brainiac or Darseid reek havoc on a pre-WWII America?
I doubt this version of Superman would ever happen, but I can dream. What do you guys think of this approach to O.G.?
Thanks for reading! Peace out