JJ Abrams' Superman: Flyby

[masterghandalf]

This post may also be found on Das_Sporking here.


Well, everyone, it’s holiday times again! For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to do something special for the comm on or around Christmas; Rebel Moon, Part I last year, my scheduled Last Ringbearer post falling on Christmas Day the year before (ymmv on how “special” that one was, admittedly), my two-part look at the John Boorman LotR script the year before that, and Jupiter Ascending the year before that (though that one ended up not actually going up until January). For this year, I’d hoped to have Rebel Moon, Part II finally ready (fingers crossed for New Years?) but that ended up not happening, due to various IRL factors getting in the way and movie reviews taking a while under the best of times (and despite my sporker!Tahiri clamoring for us to finish it). But I didn’t want to leave you all with nothing, and I ended up deciding that there was an odd little curiosity that I’d wanted to take a look at for a while that might fit the bill.

Superman, despite being DC’s flagship character (or at least one of them), has had a somewhat troubled history on film. The first two Christopher Reeve movies are rightly regarded as classics; the last two… not so much. There were various attempts to get a new movie done in the nineties, of which the Nicholas Cage Superman Lives is the most well-known; finally Supes returned to the big screen with Superman Returns in 2006, but the general consensus on that one is that it was more a cheap rehash of the Reeve movies (with some odd creative choices of its own…) than strong new take on the character. Next was the… let’s go with divisive Snyder take, as seen in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and the DC Extended Universe in general. Thankfully, the character seems to have finally gotten it right again with the quite well received James Gunn Superman released just this past summer, which is already set to kickstart a new take on the DC Universe and has both a sequel and a Supergirl spin-off in the works (over in animation, the currently running My Adventures With Superman cartoon is a very different take on the character, but I’ve been enjoying it a lot and strongly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already).

But for now, we need to jump back a ways to the early 2000s. JJ Abrams – yes, that JJ Abrams, this being before almost all of the works that would put him on the map and make him a household name – turned in his own take on a Superman script, or rather two Superman scripts, both drafts of the same basic story, one in 2002 and one in 2003 (and yes, I know Abrams is controversial, especially for his work in Star Trek and Star Wars; for this sporking, I’d appreciate it if the comments stay on-topic about these scripts, thank you!). Rumors about them leaked very quickly to the internet, and they were… odd. On top of some… very questionable creative choices, the obvious problem was that there seemed to be very little Superman in these Superman scripts, where the iconic superhero seemed to be little more than an acme protagonist shoehorned into a paint-by-numbers space epic that seemed to owe less to the comics or other adaptations of the character than it did to… basically every major film franchise of the early 2000s. Having gotten a chance to read both scripts myself, I found that this both was and wasn’t entirely true. There’s certainly a recognizable core of Superman here; indeed, at times the script seems to fall into the problem many Superman origin stories have, of just remaking the first two Reeve movies and not offering anything new for the character (even Man of Steel can’t shake the feeling of just being a darker-and-edgier version of Superman the Movie and Superman II mashed together). But on the other hand, all the weird, gratuitous sci-fi stuff not-so-subtly ripped off from other franchises? Totally there as well, along with some of the more memetically WTH moments the rumor mill had previously discussed… not to mention enough over-the-top devastation to make Man of Steel’s final battle look tame. So, I thought these weird might-have-been scripts were worth taking a look at.

As for how I’ll handle this, I’ll first go through the first draft, providing my usual recap and commentary (and some snark) I typically do for movies and scripts. I’ll then go through the second draft (where the Superman: Flyby title actually comes from, though it has ended up applied to the whole project), which is essentially the same story and mostly focus on the ways in which it differs (and how Abrams is clearly responding to real or anticipated criticisms of the first draft; the second draft is tighter overall, way less ambitious, and Lex Luthor’s role is completely different, for starters). I’ll then offer my final thoughts for the whole thing, and why I’m ultimately glad these movies didn’t get made… but at the same time morbidly curious as to how people would’ve reacted to them, and how it might have changed the cultural landscape going forward if these (Abrams wanted to do a trilogy – of course – and both drafts of Flyby end on a blatant sequel hook and leave the story unfinished) had been the Superman movies we’d gotten. Onward!



2002 Script

This script is dated July 26, 2002, and is simply titled Superman. The version I found was from https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Superman(JJAbrams).pdf.

The script opens with a panicked news anchor giving a report about a titanic battle between extraterrestrials across the planet, which has already destroyed the Giza pyramids, large sections of Paris and Seoul, and set much of South American on fire. The anchor openly wonders whether humanity was right to put its faith in Superman… and then, fate having successfully been tempted, the battle bursts through the skyscraper where the news studio is located (which is in Gotham, as it happens), utterly destroying it and flattening five city blocks. One of the combatants is dressed in armor and wearing a cloak like a ninja (the script makes this exact comparison, in fact), and we’re told his name is Ty-Zor and he’s about thirty years old. Facing him is another “warrior” (the exact term is used, and I don’t care for it in this context, for this character – I don’t think Superman should be described, first and foremost, as a “warrior”) about the same age – a badly battered but still standing Superman. Ty-Zor takes off and Superman gives chase, and the two of them engage in a mid-air martial arts battle causing yet more collateral damage and sonic booms as they take the battle beyond Gotham. Finally, they end up at a NASA facility, and Ty-Zor lures Superman into a lead-lined corridor where his x-ray vision won’t work; Ty-Zor taunts him about how it’s almost like being human. They continue the fight until at last Superman stumbles into a testing room with something we can’t see – but we can guess what it is as he doubles over in agony, with Ty-Zor taunting him about how his mother cried when she died, and now he wants to hear Superman cry too. Superman screams…

And we cut to the alien environment of Krypton, twenty-nine years ago, where a little girl is playing in a field until she’s interrupted by the arrival of massive war machines. The girl flees (holy shit does she run) to her home as the war machines break through the border, and we cut to the Kryptonian senate where an officer makes a report to the king – Jor-El – that the border has been breached. The script specifies that all scenes on Krypton will be spoken in the Kryptonian language that they plan to develop in full (can you tell this script was contemporary with the Jackson LotR movies yet?). Jor-El gets more reports about the enemy advancing and a certain general being dead; finally, he sends the officer making the reports away, and we cut to the capital city, Taza, under siege. Inside the palace, Jor-El and his wife Lara argue about sending their infant son, Kal-El, away to safety. Lara is opposed but ultimately gives in. Kal-El’s parents, heartbroken, put him in the escape pod, as Jor-El tells him to look at them and remember them. The countdown to launch begins and the royal couple have to flee. They escape through the palace garden, where a vehicle driven by a turtle-like alien is waiting. Lara begs Jor-El to flee with her, but he only promises he’ll see her again.

Jor-El returns to the embattled city, fighting his way through enemy troops with magnificent martial-arts skills and a weapon called a blastaff which is, well, apparently a staff with blasters on either end. Eventually Jor-El stops to help a fallen soldier and gets collared by an enemy mech and is brought before the leader of the enemy – his own brother, Kata-Zor, father of Ty-Zor from the prologue (why Jor-El and Kata-Zor have different surnames if they’re brothers is never specified, especially since it’s clear they do pass their house names to their children – maybe they’re half-brothers? Or is the “Zor” a reference to Jor-El’s canonical brother in most continuities, Zor-El? If so, does that make Ty-Zor an evil, gender-flipped Supergirl?). Kata-Zor taunts Jor-El for his failure, says he knows he’ll have sent his son off-planet to fulfil the prophecy *groans* but promises to find him (unwittingly foreshadowing Zod in Man of Steel?) and kill him himself. Kata-Zor’s unnamed number two protests that Kal-El could’ve gone to any one of a thousand planets, so Kata-Zor promises to send a thousand searchers. We cut to a thousand pods lifting off from Krypton…

…and cut to Kansas, where Jonathan and Martha Kent are having breakfast when they’re interrupted by a meteor impacting in their fields. Going to investigate, they discover Kal-El’s pod and the baby inside. We cut to the Kents playing with the baby, who after losing the ball of yarn he’s playing with under a sofa, casually picks the sofa up and tosses it through the wall and into the front yard. The Kents are stunned. Later, Martha is changing Kal-El’s diaper, and we get one of the script’s more notorious moments as it turns out that his poop smells much, much much worse than human poop, to Jonathan’s revulsion (one has to wonder if Clark grew out of having super-stinky super-poop as he aged, and if not, just how foul the Daily Planet men’s room must be). But Martha doesn’t mind the smell, knows that the baby needs someone to take care of him, convinces Jonathan and ultimately names him “Clark” after Clark Gable (okay…); Jonathan says she can call him whatever she wants, so long as they get rid of that diaper first. We then get a montage of little Clark growing, developing new superpowers and causing massive amounts of property damage around the house (and tosses a baseball all the way out of the state until it impacts in the middle of a big city, maybe Metropolis). We also get a really weird and gratuitous moment where he sees through Lana Lang’s mother’s clothes and comments that she’s not wearing underwear, leading both Martha and Jonathan to engage in a bit of gossip slash slut shaming, so… yeah. Later, a six-year-old Clark tries to befriend Lana herself but gets rejected and told he’s weird, though his parents console him afterwards.

On their way home from the diner where this played out, Clark and Martha get accosted by Martha’s landlord, demanding rent payment… and when he doesn’t get it, starts making very unsubtle advances on Martha and finally demands she service him sexually to pay off what he owes. So… yeah, we literally just had a guy make a rape threat on Ma Kent. Why, Abrams!? This culminates in him forcibly kissing her and Clark coming to her defense and brutally and bloodily beating the crap out of the guy, because “six-year-old Superman reducing a guy who tried to rape his mother to a horrible, bloody mess” is totally what audiences wanted to see. Finally, Martha manages to convince Clark to let him go and the landlord runs off, screaming that Clark is not only a freak, but the devil himself. We cut to Clark in bed, fearing that the landlord was right… We cut to a Christmas when Clark is in Junior high School as he overhears the other kids gossiping cruelly about him. We cut to Clark in his parents’ closet, using his X-ray vision to figure out what his presents are, when he stumbles onto a weird cannister. As he examines it later, he gets it open and finds a strange liquid inside, that bursts out and forms into the Superman suit (another notorious bit, mostly for how weird and random it is, clearly something that’s just there to be alien for the sake of being alien, leading people to wonder if Abrams perhaps got Superman and Venom mixed up somehow). The suit jumps on Clark; at first he’s scared, but once he realizes it’s not trying to hurt him he’s genuinely pleased with how he looks, even though the suit is far too big for him (if it really is some sort of weird liquid, shouldn’t it be able to change its size to fit him?). Clark goes outside in the suit and runs and jumps around in it and even flies a little before plowing straight into his father’s tractor. Jonathan, seeing this, sends him to his room.

Inside the house, the Kents sit down and discuss Clark’s origins with him, explaining for the first time how they found him in a pod from space, leaving him stunned and confused, wondering if he really is the devil. Eventually, Clark tears the suit off and goes running through the fields until he collapses, weeping the deep, painful cries of a true Outsider… and we cut back to Krypton, where Lara is now living in exile in a hut in the desert, tended by Taga the turtle alien. Suddenly, Taga is killed and Lara is captured by Kata-Zor’s agents, hauled off to the new capital at the megacity of Yispa where she’s imprisoned in a concentration camp (yes, that’s the exact term used – real subtle, Abrams). The other prisoners recognize her and start chanting her name, as it becomes obvious there are hundreds of thousands of them here. We then cut to Kata-Zor and his son Ty-Zor at prayer (the script goes out of its way to note that their prayer room is actually beautiful) as an ambassador arrives and tells them Lara has been captured. We cut to Jor-El’s cell, where he’s suffering but still alive, kept chained to the wall with his arms outstretched (again, real subtle). Lara is shoved in, followed by Ty-Zor, who starts monologuing about how he wasn’t even born yet when his grandfather chose Jor-El over Kata-Zor for the throne. He draws a katana of all things, postures with it, and demands Jor-El and Lara tell him where Kal-El is in return for Lara’s life. They refuse, and share a final moment before Ty-Zor decapitates her and Jor-El screams…

And we cut to Earth and Clark, now in college, out walking with his roommate Jerry Shuster (cute) who’s trying to get Clark to unwind and come to a party with him, but Clark just wants to study. Clark is on the verge of giving in, until he spots Lois Lane (yes, really, we’re meeting Lois now) leaving the nearby party. Clark goes to talk to her, and they commiserate a bit about how lonely they are (with a joke about Clark’s fly being undone); we learn that Lois is a journalism major while Clark is still undeclared as a senior, to Lois’s amazement. They have some flirty banter until a couple of other students interrupt including a guy who, of course, starts harassing Lois and then turns on Clark, who won’t even defend himself. Lois stands up for him, then takes the guy down with some Krav Maga moves before heading home, wishing Clark luck as she goes. We cut to a sleepy desert town seven years later, where CIA Agent Lex Luthor (yes, really, and he has hair and this isn’t even the strangest thing about this script’s take on Lex) arrives to investigate a supposed alien crash landing. Local police show Lex to the crash site, but he quickly exposes the “alien” as a hoax and orders his men to arrest the locals who planted it. We cut to a news article on the CIA’s alien hunting by Lois Lane, and then to Lex reporting in to his superior at Langley . The Director confirms that Lois exposed Lex’s unit’s entire mission statement, and the locals Lex arrested planted the hoax at her instigation. The two argue about whether Lex’s unit should be shut down and confirm there’s some big secret Lois didn’t cover. Lex wants to go public; the Director thinks that would cause mass hysteria, but Lex is okay with that…

We cut to the Daily Planet where the somewhat effeminate (yes, really and yes, the implication is exactly what you think it is) Jimmy Olsen is showing a new hire around. This is, of course, Clark Kent, though the nameplate Jimmy gives him has a typo and mistakenly reads “Clar Kent.” Clark starts to ask Jimmy about Lois, who he knows works here, only to run into Lois herself, who is busy complaining about Perry White; Jimmy and Lois fill Clark in on the whole business with the CIA and the alien hoax, and how Perry wasn’t happy and now Lois has been assigned to cover Lex’s upcoming press conference. Perry himself shows up, introduces himself to Clark and immediately starts making snide remarks about Jimmy being gay and having a boyfriend (yaay, casual homophobia *sighs*) which clearly bothers Clark (his rudeness, not Jimmy being gay). Perry assigns Clark to work with Lois and Jimmy for a while and leaves, while Jimmy comments about what an asshole he is. We then cut to Lex’s press conference, where he’s giving an overview of the history of UFO sightings on Earth. He introduces himself and his work, and calls out Lois for planting a hoax to try and fool him, but admits he’s relieved to have a chance to publicly talk about what he does. He explains how the CIA has a real alien craft in its possession – nine years ago he led the team that found it, but there was no body inside. Whoever or whatever came to Earth is still out there. Clark is visibly troubled, and as Lex keeps on ranting about alien threats, eventually can’t take it anymore and leaves.

We cut to Clark as he calls his mom and confirms that the pod he arrived in is still on their farm, and wonders to himself what Lex would do if he found the alien he’s looking for. We cut to Clark and Lois at the Daily Planet – Lois thinks this is all nonsense, just the CIA responding to her embarrassing them, and her instincts tell her there’s something off about Lex. Clark brings up their encounter at college and finally prods Lois into remembering it; Clark thanks Lois for sticking up for him and giving him some direction in life, though she still doesn’t really remember him. She then gets a call – the president’s plane trip has been rescheduled, and she’s interviewing him on Air Force One tomorrow. As Lois hurries off to get ready, she finally remembers Clark – his fly was down!

The next morning, Lois and Jimmy board Air Force One in DC while Clark sleeps in. As Lois is escorted to meet the president, something on the plane goes wrong and alarms start going off. Engine panels break off and get sucked into the turbines, ruining them and causing the plane to go off course. The situation worsens as Clark is awoken by a story about it being reported on his radio. He summons his now-fitting suit and lets it put itself on him before heading out for the first time… as Superman! He shoots up into the sky, as some civilians on the ground notice Air Force One’s descent, wondering if it’s a bird or a plane and then realizing no, it is a plane! (Okay, that one was just sort of trying too hard). Superman approaches the plane and with some effort manages to stabilize it; as the crew and passengers spot him, they’re amazed. Cut to the Kent farm, where Jonathan is listening to news of the event on his radio, back to Superman carrying the plane to a safe landing in the middle of Boston, then back to Jonathan as he races to tell Martha what’s happening before collapsing from a sudden heart attack. In Boston, Air Force One is surrounded by cheering crowds as the President personally thanks Superman. Superman in turn checks on Lois and she, obviously smitten, exchanges some banter with him. Then, faced by a babble of questions from other reports (including Are You A Republican, for some reason) excuses himself and flies off. Lois watches him go, and we cut to Lex Luthor watching a news report on the event, musing that here we go.

We cut to Superman returning to his apartment and changing back to Clark, stunned by what he did and clearly wondering if he was followed. Finally, (after sitting in his chair naked for a while for some reason) he calls his mother to tell her… and is informed that his father is dead. We then cut to the planet’s news channels all buzzing about Superman, the signals carrying out into space… where we cut to Yispa Megacity on Krypton, and to a room in the palace where Kata-Zor is gaming flanked by two semi-clad Kryptonian females and smoking a bong (yes, folks, this is our big bad, coming across more as some sort of goofy playboy than an all-powerful dictator… I have a feeling that had this script been made, whoever played him would not have been joining the ranks of Terrence Stamp as General Zod when it comes to playing evil Kryptonians). His opponent is Predius, who is apparently an inmate brought from one of the concentration camps and who we’re told is going to be important in later movies in the series… but is basically irrelevant in this one. Predius lets Kata-Zor win, and then Ty-Zor comes in, informing his father that Kal-El has been found, on Earth… and requesting to be the one to kill him himself. Kata-Zor, the Devil himself, gives his approval and Ty-Zor takes off in a warship.

We cut to Smallville and Jonathan’s funeral and have a moment that could have been genuinely touching of Clark going through his things and remembering his father’s life. Martha comes in and, after a brief chat with Clark, has something to show him – some strange metal tokens, standing for Courage, Sacrifice, Wisdom, Faith and Love, that a strange man who visited the farm before Clark landed. Clark fears that it was the news of him that caused Jonathan to have a heart attack, and vows to never be Superman again. We cut to Lex and the CIA Director at a meeting of the Appropriations Committee, trying to convince a group of legislators (which house isn’t specified) to give them funds to hunt Superman. The “legislators” are skeptical, wondering just why Lex hates aliens so much; considering how popular Superman has already become, they don’t want to be the ones responsible for locking him up; Lex furiously calls the Director and the legislators cowers as the meeting devolves into a shouting match; the legislators finally order the Director to remove Lex from active duty.

We cut back to the Daily Planet, where Lois has officially named “the Stranger” as Superman, while Perry chews her out for freezing up and not getting an interview with him, makes a bunch of edits to her story, and informs her Lex Luthor was just fired. Later, Lois fills Jimmy in on the meeting at Congress. Back at the Kents’, Clark promises his mother he’ll handle their bills from now on, and wants to know more about the strange man who gave her the tokens. We see that the tokens form together into Superman’s logo; this inspires Martha to reminisce more about the stranger and how he wanted to know everything about her and Jonathan. She pulls out an old photo album where they had pictures of the three of them together and shows Clark, who recognizes this man from somewhere – it’s Jor-El, in Earthling clothes! Clark realizes someone sent him here for a reason. Martha thinks he’s right and apologizes for trying to teach Clark to keep himself a secret. Clark assures her she didn’t do anything wrong and that no one will ever take him from her. Martha gives him her blessing to be true to his calling… and we cut to a montage of Superman helping people around the world. Rescuing fishermen from a tidal wave in Japan… saving a woman from her abusive husband in Italy… stopping a volcano in Peru… all intercut with Lois spying on Lex and trying to figure out what he’s up to.

She tracks Lex to a meeting with some of his former agents in an old, rundown building, where he tells them they’ve been loyal to him even now that he’s been fired. He rants about how the CIA were fools to sack him, and that as a young boy he had a vision that someday a “Super-man” would come from space, and others would come hunting him – and if he assisted the hunters, he would attain absolute power over the Earth. As Lois listens, shocked, Lex promises to share that power with his henchmen and tells them that he lied at the press conference – the CIA did find a body in the alien pod they recovered, killed on impact. By studying this body, they learned it was vulnerable to radiation emitted by Kryptonite, an element that had already been discovered by probes and returned to Earth. The National Air and Space museum has a sample, and he wants his men to steal it for him. Suddenly, they realize they’re being observed, and the other two agents chase after Lois. She flees, but at the end of the chase sequence Lex himself suddenly appears in front of her, asking if she got what she wanted. He threatens her menacingly, but the sound of police sirens approaches; he only tosses her into some nearby garbage cans, and when she gets up, he’s gone.

We cut to space, where the Kryptonian warship drops out of hyperspace. Inside are Ty-Zor and three other warriors, two men and a woman. The ship disgorges one of the combat mechs we’ve seen earlier, while Ty-Zor tells the others to arm the cannons. We cut to the Daily Planet, abuzz with Superman news. Jimmy asks Clark about his mom, but they’re interrupted by Perry firing Lois for failing to interview Superman and getting into an incident with Lex the night before. Perry leaves the building, Lois following and begging him to reconsider, but he’ll have none of it. Suddenly Superman appears, asking Lois for an interview. Perry is stunned; Superman introduces himself, shakes his hand in a vice-like grip, and calmly asks if he really just fired his favorite reporter. Perry backs down, and Superman promises to meet Lois on the roof that night. Superman flies off, everyone – including Perry – watches in awe, and Lois is smitten. In space, the mech approaches Earth and we cut to the Daily Planet roof that night, while inside Clark and Lois talk about her upcoming interview and if she’s nervous. She denies she is, but ends up rambling about Superman and how powerful and attractive he is, which Clark wouldn’t understand (but Jimmy would); Clark almost tells her the truth but thinks better of it. Lois heads out to the roof and Superman appears. They say hi, and Superman admits he doesn’t know much about his origins or his powers, so this may not be a very interesting interview. They run through a bunch of questions he can’t answer, and finally Lois can’t hold back anymore and tells him she knows a man who wants him dead. Superman, confident, admits he’s familiar with Lex but isn’t the monster he thinks he is, while Lois starts practically swooning over him. She finally starts to explain about Kryptonite, but as Superman promises he can take care of himself, she ends up kissing him instead.

Lois is shocked by what she just did, but Superman tells her he believes in her, and that Perry is wrong about her judgment. They talk about flying, which Superman compares to surfing, and then he picks Lois up and we have a montage as they fly across Metropolis before returning to the Planet. Superman promises to be in touch, and flies off. The next day, Lois’s interview is published, but Clark is distracted by the news – the Kryptonian mech has landed on the National Mall. Clark, Lois and Jimmy watch the story in horror; Lois tells Jimmy to get all the info he can on something called Kryptonite, before telling Perry they need to talk. Clark quickly changes into Superman and heads out. In Perry’s office, Lois starts rambling about how she was afraid this would happen and she needs his connections – they have to stop Luthor. The phones in the building are dead because of interference from the alien ship, but Perry gives her the name of a contact at the Pentagon. He reluctantly loans Lois his car, and she heads out… crashing into some other cars in the parking garage as she goes. Oops.

We cut to the Mall as Superman approaches the mech while Ty-Zor watches remotely. Superman uses his x-ray vision to study the mech and tells everyone nearby to leave; they do, except for Lex’s agents, who aren’t worried. They use their CIA IDs to get into the Air and Space Museum, while Lois drives to DC and Superman approaches the mech. Ty-Zor, watching, whispers for Superman to come closer, but something holds him back. Suddenly a woman pops up from nowhere, begging Superman for an autograph; Superman tells her to get away as she pleads that it’s for her daughter – he barely manages to get away as the mech opens fire, tearing a massive hole in the Mall ground. Inside the Air and Space Museum, people start panicking, as Lex’s agents vow to get the rock and get out. They find the display with the Kryptonite and take it, as the mech advances. Superman puts down the woman and engages the mech as it opens fire. Meanwhile, Lex intimidates the guards at a military base, trying to get access even though his clearance has been revoked. He does… something… to the guard, while Superman has an extended fight with the mech (and indirectly, Ty-Zor who is controlling it) and Lois arrives at the DoD headquarters, which is in a panic mirroring that of the Kryptonian senate at the beginning of the movie. She finds Perry’s contact, and important general, and tells him they need to warn Superman that someone wants him dead (the general is nonplussed, since someone clearly does, and they sent a giant robot). Lois explains about Luthor, which catches the attention of the nearby CIA Director.

We cut to Superman as he continues fighting the mech, until it finally blasts him out of the sky. He narrowly avoids a killing shot and leads it towards the Washington Monument and across the Reflection Pool; when it’s partway across, Superman dives into the pool and comes up beneath the mech, knocking it over. As Superman starts ripping the cannons off it, Ty-Zor fires one final time, but with the weapons damaged the mech just blows itself up instead. Superman is blasted away, weary but alive; aboard his ship, Ty-Zor is shaken and furious. Alta, the female warrior, approaches him, saying that they’ve received a message from Earth – Lex Luthor calling. We cut to Earth as the Director tells Lois he always knew Lex was brilliant, but dangerous – Lois agrees, ranting about all of Lex’s negative qualities but gets cut off ironically before she can say “misogynist.” The general thinks they have bigger fish to fry, but the director isn’t sure – he doesn’t know what resources Lex has, but if he gets his hands on Kryptonite, he really could kill Superman. And indeed they soon receive a report that three guards have been found dead at an important lab, and the Director guesses it’s Luthor.

In the ruins of the National Mall, a crowd has surrounded Superman but are clearly wary of him after witnessing the battle, while a news report wonders at the cost of Superman’s heroism. A military convoy arrives at the base Lex broke into, intending to take him alive. Lois is here too, recording events; the CIA Director compliments her. Inside they hear gunfire… and then nothing. And then Ty-Zor walks out, followed by the other Kryptonians. The military demands their surrender, but Ty-Zor doesn’t care. He draws his blastaff and incinerates the nearest troops, as he and his warriors then tear into them. Lois barely escapes but is cornered by Alta; she tries to fight back, but isn’t capable of harming her. Alta nearly kills her, but Lex appears, and tells her they need her alive. Back at the Daily Planet, Perry is working on a story about whether Superman can be trusted when Superman himself shows up, asking for Lois. He pauses, seeing images on the news of people burning him in effigy around the world. He says he’d never have come here if he knew he had enemies like this, and promises to leave Earth forever, to save the planet.

He’s suddenly interrupted by Ty-Zor calling for Kal-El, a shriek that can be heard around the world. He follows the sound to Giza, where he finds that Alta and the other two warriors – Baz-al and Caan, if we care – have already destroyed one of the pyramids. The three of them proceed to beat the crap out of him and leave him prone on the ground to find Ty-Zor standing over him and greeting him – in English – as “cousin.” We then launch into an extended battle scene as Superman takes on Ty-Zor, battling the four Kryptonians around the world, causing all the massive devastation we heard about in the prologue. Finally we end up back where we began, in Gotham, and then have a quicker version of the battle we saw at the beginning of the script as Superman and Ty-Zor end up at NASA. There we see what Superman saw then – Lois, bound in a tank full of water, Kryptonite by her side. Superman, weak from Kryptonite poisoning, tries to break the glass to free her, to no avail. Finally, knowing that he and Lois are both close to death, he musters all his remaining strength and shatters it. The water bursts out and Lois scrambles free, hurrying to Superman’s side; she cradles his body, calling out to her, but he can’t hear her. Lex’s agents arrive and lock the Kryptonite up, and Ty-Zor comes in; he announces that he can see that Kal-El’s heart has stopped. He’s dead. Lex comes in and offers her a handkerchief, snarking that she needs it and since it bears his monogram – LL – it looks like it belongs to her already. Lois, hating him, lets it drop…

And we cut to Jor-El, in prison on Krypton, as he realizes his son is dead. He cries in agony, as elsewhere Kata-Zor, receiving his son’s report, cries out in victory and literally dances around his throne room, promising to give his brother the news in person. Back on Earth, Ty-Zor tells his father that Lex Luthor wants something for helping them; Kata-Zor says to give him anything he asks for. Turns out Lex wants to rule the Earth. Ty-Zor tells him they’re good. We cut to literally millions of mourners at Superman’s funeral; Lois gives the eulogy as he’s buried, with literally everyone from Jimmy to Perry to the President in attendance. On Krypton, Kata-Zor goes to see his brother, while Jor-El slowly sharpens a piece of rock in his cell. As Lois continues speaking about Superman’s ability to inspire goodness in people, and Martha Kent arrives at the funeral, Jor-El finishes the shiv he’s making and stabs himself. Kata-Zor enters the cell just in time to find his brother dead, as Lois’s eulogy ends.

In a strange limbo, Superman appears, back in pristine condition; he is approached by Jor-El, once again dressed as a king. Superman realizes he knows him, and Jor-El says yes – Superman is his son. He tells him that Ty-Zor must be stopped, and his destiny, and the lives of billions, depends on it. He explains that Krypton is a planet torn by civil war, and there is a prophecy that speaks of a prince raised in exile who will return to his home world and deliver Krypton from evil. Kal-El is that prince. Superman doesn’t understand, but Jor-El says he will, when he meets Hen-Gra, his guide, on Krypton. Until then, the Kents raised Kal-El to be a good man – he knows good from evil, and he knows what to do. Jor-El handpicked them to raise him for that reason. Jor-El tells Superman he can give his life for him, but only Superman can be the Savior (yes, it’s capitalized). Superman wants to know what happens if he fails; Jor-El says he won’t, and hugs him. And suddenly Superman erupts from his coffin in the living world, his suit and body restored. He burrows his way through the earth… and suddenly Lois, leaving the funeral, is met by Clark Kent. He tells her it’ll be okay; Lois admits she loved Superman, but Clark wants to know all about Kryptonite. Lois and Jimmy both explain, with Jimmy adding that there’s a lot more, and after processing this, Clark says he has to go.

We cut to the United Nations, where Superman appears. He announces he’s not dead, but the invaders are still on Earth and are still dangerous. He needs every nation on Earth to help stop them. We suddenly cut to a TV broadcast – Lex Luthor is making an announcement from the Oval Office. With the help of the Kryptonians, he’s occupied the White House and declared himself President. He gives a monologue about working with their “visitors” before signing off. Lois, watching further reports on the funeral, turns off the TV in disgust – and then Superman himself appears in her apartment and says hi. We cut to a montage of the world preparing to fight the Kryptonians, gathering resources, building weapons, and stockpiling Kryptonite. At the White House, Lex is meeting with his agents and Ty-Zor’s Kryptonians, plotting their conquest of the world (one of Lex’s agents has a sister in Taipei, one of their targets; Lex cares not) when Superman suddenly shows up on the front lawn. The Kryptonians pursue him to Iceland, where Superman is fortified; he’s received the Jor-El Touch – and he’s here to win. This turns out to be literal, as the four attack but Jor-El somehow passed on his knowledge, so Superman is a master martial artist now able to hold his own easily even when outnumbered four to one. But it’s not enough to win.

Suddenly a swarm of fighter jets arrive. They start blasting Kryptonite missiles, causing a massive dogfight as the Kryptonians evade. Superman duels Alta one-on-one until she’s blasted by a missile and killed. Baz-al and Caan also go down quickly, leaving the final battle – Superman vs. Ty-Zor. They trade blows furiously until Ty-Zor is on his knees; Superman gets out of range just as a dozen missiles blast him to nothing. Superman is triumphant, but still saddened by his cousin’s death, even though he was evil – and on Krypton, Kata-Zor drops his glass to shatter on the floor as he senses his son’s death, just as Jor-El did. But his shock is less grief, and more a horrified realization that the prophecy might come true and his own days are numbered.

Back in Metropolis, the news reports that the President has been reinstated and Lex’s supporters are in custody. Perry compliments Lois on her reporting, and shortly afterwards Superman appears. They need to talk. They go outside, and Superman admits he’s here to say goodbye. He has to go – his planet needs him. But he promises to come back… for her. They kiss, and thank each other for all they’ve done. And that… is when perhaps the most notorious scene in the whole script happens. Lex Luthor suddenly appears on the roof, saying he has to thank Lois too. She led him right to Superman. In fact, Lex admits that the whole reason he’s here is for Superman and starts ranting about what a good soldier he is, fulfilling his mission by living for years as the thing he hates most… a human. The pod the CIA recovered wasn’t Clark’s – it was Lex’s. He was one of the Kryptonian seekers Kata-Zor sent out, living undercover on Earth all this time! Lex leaps into the sky, and Superman tells Lois to run. Superman and Lex do battle, but Lex is an elite soldier who served Kata-Zor for decades, compared to Superman he’s like the Sensei (but presumably not Batman Odyssey’s Sensei). Inside, Lois hurries to her desk and pulls out a piece of Kryptonite she got during the montage earlier. Running back outside, she shouts to get Lex’s attention. He divebombs her and manages to grab her before she can get the Kryptonite out. Even so, as he carries her off the poisoning starts to take effect. They fall; Superman manages to catch Lois, but Lex plows into the asphalt, three feet deep. Superman and Lois assure each other they’re okay. Later, Lex is arrested, and Superman warns the cops to keep Kryptonite near him at all times (wouldn’t that kill him, by the movie’s own logic?). He flies her back to the Daily Planet, tells her he loves her too, and flies off. Since she only told Clark that, Lois is left wondering about the connection between the two of them…

Later, Jimmy tells Lois that Clark quit. Lois is left confused as we cut back to the Kent farm, where Superman lands outside the barn and braces himself. He enters the underground shelter below the barn and finds his pod; later, he embraces his mother. She tells him to be safe, and then Clark sets off in the pod beginning the journey of his lifetime. Martha watches him go, proud of her son, and the script ends there.



2003 Script/ “Flyby”

This script is dated October 24, 2003 and officially bears the title Superman: Flyby. The version I found was from: https://thescriptsavant.com/movies/Flyby.pdf

This version of the script is essentially the same story as the 2002 script. It has the same major story beats – the cold open fighting Ty-Zor, the flashbacks to the war on Krypton and Clark’s childhood in Kansas, Clark meeting Lois at college, joining the Daily Planet, debuting as Superman to rescue Air Force One (and Pa Kent having a heart attack when he hears the news), the montage as Superman, the interview and flight with Lois, Ty-Zor coming to earth, Lois trapped in the tank with Kryptonite, Superman’s death and resurrection, defeating Ty-Zor and leaving Earth to free Krypton. A lot of the specific dialogue and descriptions are also the same, or close to it. A number of details are different, however. The script is about ten pages shorter (so probably about ten minutes shorter in movie time) and is noticeably tighter. The early sequence of Clark discovering his powers throughout childhood is shorter (and while he still finds his suit in his pod, it’s a normal suit, not a pointless Venom ripoff) as is the battle with Ty-Zor, which takes place mostly in Metropolis rather than spanning the whole planet (though it’s still very destructive); the trap with Lois is still there, but at a local observatory rather than NASA. Ty-Zor comes alone, with no other Kryptonians as backup, and the mech fight is composited with the Ty-Zor fight, so Ty-Zor is piloting it for much of the final stretch of the battle, after Clark first comes back to life. Speaking of which, Clark resurrects almost immediately after dying and heads back to the fray, so there’s no funeral, no eulogy from Lois, and no montage leading up to the final battle (instead of installing Lex as president, Ty-Zor is instead threatening to destroy the planet with his mech to punish them for harboring Superman). Some of the more “questionable” elements are removed – no super-poop, no Jimmy being the butt of jokes for being gay (if he’s still meant to be gay, it goes unmentioned), Perry is less of a grade-a jerkass and closer to his usual jerk with a heart of gold portrayal, and Superman never threatens him to stop him from firing Lois, since he doesn’t try to do that in the first place. The landlord trying to rape Martha Kent is still in (ick) but the scene is shorter and less bloody, with Clark just throwing him across the field rather than beating him to a pulp (unfortunately, Clark seeing through Mrs. Lang’s clothes and noticing she’s not wearing panties remains largely unchanged).

The Krypton stuff is still there, but mostly feels much less ambitious. The Kryptonian language is mostly cut, except for some initial dialogue (which makes me wonder why Abrams bothered leaving it in at all). The environments the 2003 script describes sound significantly less elaborate and lavish compared to the 2002 script, there are fewer random aliens around (mostly just Kryptonians, who can, of course, be played by human actors without needing prosthetics or CGI) and the cities are renamed to be actual Kryptonian cities from the comics (Kata-Zor’s capital becomes Kandor). While Krypton under Kata-Zor’s rule is still a dystopian dictatorship, the concentration camps as an element are removed. Kata-Zor himself has his decadent, opulent and kind of silly elements from the original script toned down or removed, which unfortunately mostly just leaves him as a generic dictator. He gets a few more scenes, but mostly just serves to stand around in his control room, giving and receiving exposition and setting up his role as the overarching big bad for this potential “saga” without actually doing much now; kind of like Fire Lord Ozai in Shyamalan’s Last Airbender. Ty-Zor, meanwhile, is not only Lara’s murderer, but the one to capture her in the desert, and her final scene with Jor-El is longer. The biggest change is that the nature of the conflict is presented as being much more overtly religious in nature, with Jor-El and Kata-Zor seeming to belong to rival sects that are fighting for control of a “holy land” on Krypton called Menna… the prophecy is also somewhat different, describing a battle between two princes (Kal-El and Ty-Zor) to determine which one will be Krypton’s savior. And speaking of, while Krypton survives to the present as in the original script, it’s been badly damaged by the civil war and is clearly in the process of dying.

But the biggest change to the script is Luthor. In some ways, 2003!Lex is truer to the text compared to his original version, being a ruthless Machiavellian tech billionaire and CEO who has a big ego, big ambitions and hates Superman. He still has a Kryptonian connection, though – a younger Lex (then a high school science teacher who got fired for being, like his 2002 counterpart, a deranged conspiracy theorist) found one of Kata-Zor’s scouts in his crashed pod and got his knowledge uploaded into him (said upload also making Lex bald!), and then used his new knowledge and the alien tech he found to make his fortune (Kryptonite, in this version, is the fuel for the Kryptonian ships, which is toxic when not properly contained). However, after he gives Superman a “we can rule together” spiel and gets rejected, he angrily uses the scout ship’s tech to send a signal to Krypton in a fit of spite (instead of Krypton just picking up random transmissions from Earth) and once Ty-Zor arrives he basically becomes his sycophantic Renfield; the narration even makes the point that Ty-Zor is Superman’s real enemy, and this version doesn’t plan to give Earth to Lex to rule at all, but betray him and destroy the planet instead. When Ty-Zor dies (and his death is different in this version as well; after rejecting an offer from Superman to renounce his tyrant father and help overthrow him, he ends up getting dropped onto a spike of kryptonite and impaled – yeeesh; Clark doesn’t kill him directly, but it still feels like it makes the “snapping Zod’s neck in Man of Steel” bit look tame) his last act is to transfer some part of his consciousness or memory to Lex, presumably continuing his enmity through him postmortem had the series been made. Sadly(?) the fully human Lex doesn’t get to fly or be “the Sensei” in this version.

Overall, my biggest takeaway from this script is that Abrams really wanted to tell this story, but his ambitions had fallen considerably. It’s still epic and flashy, but in a way that seems like it would be significantly less expensive to film; the fights and alien environments are scaled back, as are elements like the Kryptonian language. It’s also clear that some of the most obviously obnoxious elements from the first script got negative feedback, because of how Abrams clearly removes them, ranging form small elements like the “super-poop” joke to big ones like Lex’s entire role and characterization. But is it any better? Well… in certain respects, yes. But a lot of my underlying problems with this script are consistent across both versions. So let’s take a look at those in a bit more detail.



Final Thoughts

Going into this script knowing its reputation, I was expecting it to be “Superman in name only,” a generic sci-fi epic with Clark Kent and Krypton’s names stapled onto it. And it was… less that than I feared. The basic skeleton of Clark’s time on Earth is pretty solid Superman stuff, really. A bit too much, actually. Because, like so much Superman media, it really, really can’t escape the trap of “let’s just remake the first two Reeve movies.” We have Clark landing on Earth, his feelings of alienation as a child, discovering his powers and legacy, becoming Superman, facing Lex Luthor, and ultimately doing battle with a group of evil Kryptonians who were his father’s enemies. Like, all of that is very familiar – honestly, a bit too familiar. Several story beats – the Kents finding the pod, debuting as Superman by rescuing an endangered aircraft, Pa Kent dying of a heart attack, flying with Lois, even the montage of Clark’s early exploits as Superman – feel taken directly from Superman: The Movie. Hopefully, with the 2026 movie going in a quite different direction, Superman media can finally wrap its head around the fact that there are more stories you can tell with this character (not to knock the Reeve movies at all, which are classics for a reason).

But there are certainly problems in how this story is told. While it’s hard to tell tone from the scripts, a lot of the movie just feels needlessly mean-spirited and cynical in a way a Superman movie really shouldn’t. It’s clear Clark is miserable growing up in Smallville and feels like a freak or even a demon, not helped by weird bits like all the interactions with Lana’s family (when Lana’s usual role is as Clark’s childhood best friend and first love) or the rapist landlord. Perry White is usually a curmudgeon but goes beyond that into full-on J. Jonah Jameson asshole territory. The people of the world turn on Superman almost immediately given the opportunity to do so. And of course the fight scenes are incredibly violent and destructive, absolutely devastating the world on a level that Man of Steel could barely dream of. And while Clark should be a heroic presence to counteract the darkness, it’s hard to get a grip on what his character is even supposed to be in this movie; he mostly seems to be defined by what other people (the Els, the Kents, the people of the world at large, Lois) think of him or want from him rather than what he thinks or wants. Perhaps whoever played him could have done a better job of bringing it out, but as it stands he doesn’t feel like he’s enough of a character to be a counterweight to the cynicism and violence; while we hear about how much he inspires people, we don’t really see it until the montage leading up to the final battle in the first draft. The second draft is quite a bit better about this but still doesn’t solve issues like the excessive ultraviolence or rapist landlord being a thing. Lois also gets treated pretty shabbily in the first draft, being constantly belittled, talked over, threatened and nearly fired by the men around her, while her investigations mostly serve to put her in danger from Lex or Ty-Zor and needing to be bailed out. She does get to take down Lex with the kryptonite at the end, but it still feels too little, too late. And while I certainly don’t object to a gay Jimmy Olsen in principle – and I’m kind of amazed that a script written in the early 2000s dared even imply a classic Superman supporting character was anything but straight – I hate that it’s literally only played as a joke (as in, the only times Jimmy is gay is brought up is to make fun of him for it – we never see his boyfriend or actually see him show interest in dudes). Yuck.

The pacing of the script is also weird. We spend a long time on Krypton at the beginning, and more time in Smallville, seeming to have to run through Clark discovering literally every power he has. The movie is almost halfway done by the time we get to see him actually get to Metropolis and be Superman, and then we quickly race through his various exploits before the Kryptonians (or just Ty-Zor) show up. The result is that it feels like the people of the world embrace Superman, turn on him, and embrace him again far too quickly, both in terms of movie time and in-universe (based on dialogue, it sounds like a few weeks at most pass between Clark’s debut and Ty-Zor’s arrival in both versions). Then most of the final third of the movie has the Man of Steel problem of being nothing but a string of fights, then Clark dying, then the funeral, than coming back to life, and then round two with Ty-Zor and Clark’s victory , and then a second final battle after Lex reveals he’s a Kryptonian (the second draft, again, corrects the biggest part of this by compressing and streamlining the fight, and omitting the funeral sequence and Lex reveal and fight entirely). Even so, the Clark/Lois romance still feels very rushed, and doing a version of The Death of Superman when the character has barely been around a month in-universe – and in the first movie of this series out of universe - feels like an absolutely bizarre choice.

But the scripts have two major problems that are consistent across both of them, and I think represent a fundamental issue with their understanding of the character and his mythos. The first is the Krypton stuff. A criticism Linkara made of Man of Steel, and that I largely agree with, is that the movie front-loaded itself with Krypton much to heavily for what was supposed to be an origin story. For Clark, Krypton is part of who he is, but part of his past – an ancestral homeland and heritage he can never really know. His life is Clark Kent of Earth, not Kal-El of Krypton. And even more than Man of Steel, Flyby is all about Krypton. Krypton is what makes Clark special; Krypton is what drives the whole story. Krypton specifically survives to the present instead of being destroyed in the backstory so everything can center around it. Jor-El is made into a king to give Clark a royal heritage (sure, the Els are usually a prominent family; sure, Jor-El usually, in addition to being a prominent scientist, holds a seat on the senate/high council/whatever this continuity is calling Krypton’s governing body, but he’s not usually literally a king), implying Clark’s specialness is related to his special bloodline (and we establish Jor-El as a total badass, just to underscore this) which isn’t really a thing in most version of the character. His purpose in life is to return to Krypton to fulfil a Kryptonian prophecy; his worst enemies are Kryptonians. Even his upbringing by the Kents and being raised by them to be a good person and a true hero is a result of them being specifically selected by Jor-El to be his parents (running into Lois at college has a weird whiff of destiny about it too, though it’s unrelated to the Krypton stuff). The end result is to make Clark less human and relatable, not more; he’s not a fundamentally decent man who happens to be an alien with the powers of a god, he’s a space messiah who ultimately has to leave Earth behind to fulfil his destiny. Earth is his tutorial level; Krypton is where his story will end, seemingly. The second draft of the script being called Flyby seems weirdly appropriate; this version of Superman is just passing through Earth on his way to his true destiny elsewhere.

And sure, Superman stories often have one foot in space opera as a genre because of his extraterrestrial origins, but Earth is where his feet are firmly planted. I think Abrams missed that totally (Supergirl, in contrast, tends to be depicted as much more of an alien, especially in modern takes on the character – after all, she knew Krypton and its people, or a remnant of them, in a way Clark never did, and she’s Kryptonian to her bones in a way he’ll never be). You can certainly do Superman stories heavily centered on Krypton – I’ve already mentioned that I’ve been enjoying My Adventures With Superman a lot, and its second season arc is all about Krypton’s fate and legacy – but this feels like the wrong way to go about it. Something Linkara said about Man of Steel, I also think is true of this script – it’s a mistake to frontload the Krypton stuff without spending enough time establishing Superman on Earth first. The Reeve movies spent the whole first movie with Earth-based stuff and only giving us the battle with Zod and his followers in the sequel, and IMO that was very much the right choice, and something both Abrams and Snyder should have learned from.

Also, not sure where else to put it, but it feels like the movie really plays up the “Superman as a messianic figure” angle, in a somewhat confusing way. Of course you’ve got the literal prophecy, which takes the elements of Supes’ origin I’ve seen described as “Moses with aliens” and cranks them up to eleven, since now he literally follows the trajectory of an infant saved from death and raised by a people other than his own, to ultimately return from exile to liberate his people from their oppressors. But you’ve also got the dying and resurrecting bit which makes him feel like a Christ figure instead, complete with coming back more powerful than he was before he died and then ascending into the heavens, in a sense… unfortunately, I don’t get a sense Abrams put a lot of thought into the symbolism of any of this, and just thought it all seemed cool.

The Krypton stuff is also kind of weird on its own merits. The religious angle is interesting but underbaked. We have a lot of Jor-El and Kata-Zor yelling slogans to each other and ranting about prophecies, especially in the second draft, but what does this actually mean? I’m really not sure? I guess it’s why some of the Kryptonians – Jor-El, Kata-Zor, Ty-Zor – seem to have some level of psychic or spiritual powers, maybe? Are they Jedi? Knowing Abrams, it was all a mystery box that was just being set up to tantalize for the next movie, if he ever had any intention of explaining it at all, sadly. As for the Kryptonian villains themselves… I really don’t know why Abrams even bothered creating an OC. As a fascist tyrant and would-be ruler of Krypton and nemesis of Jor-El, Kata-Zor is really just Zod (iirc, Zod is even Jor-El’s brother in a couple of continuities, though in most they’re just close friends who fell out over ideology, with Jor-El opposing Zod’s descent into fascism and ultimately playing a key role in foiling his coup). In the first version of the script, he’s got some bits that seem vaguely flamboyant or over the top, but I feel like they’d mostly end up making him come off as more of a decadent tinpot dictator compared to the incarnate evil the script seems to want us to see him as (the second draft, as noted, makes him more serious but also more boring). But really, I’m just not sure why Abrams bothered creating a new character and not just using Zod, or Jax-Ur or another established Kryptonian villain. Ty-Zor is the heavy of the movie, and… well, he’s boring. No matter how much the script, especially, the second version, tries to hype him up as terrifying, he’s just dull. And he barely feels like a Superman character, IMO – honestly, he mostly makes me think of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen meets Vegeta more than anything, with a bit of Doomsday for his role in the Death of Superman pastiche (and maybe a bit of evil gender-flipped Supergirl?).

Honestly, the more I think about it, something that really bugs me is that there absolutely is a place in DC lore for a story like this movie’s take on Krypton – but it’s not Superman. A larger than life war among godlike aliens, the epic battles of the champions and rulers of these peoples and their heirs, which include lost princes raised in ignorance of their heritage… a prophecy concerning one of those princes doing battle with the evil dictator who rules the enemy… the whole thing is heavily tinged in allegory and religious symbolism… Earth is an important battleground but not the true heart of the struggle… this isn’t Superman, this is the New Gods! And sure, despite what I’ve sometimes seen said that the New Gods only got connected to the Superman mythos with the nineties Superman animated series, having read the original Fourth World comics by Kirby, it’s pretty clear that they not only took place in the DC Universe, but in a part of it closely adjacent to Superman’s neck of the woods. One of the original Fourth World comics was Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen of all things (quite famously, Darkseid made his first on-page appearance in that oddball of a comic!) and Superman is not only a major player there, but also shows up in Forever People as well – and of course, the New Gods and Superman have a fair bit of thematic overlap (I wonder if people who say the New Gods were never meant to be part of the DC Universe are instead thinking of a similar Kirby creation, the Eternals; the position of the original Eternals series compared to the mainline Marvel universe and whether it was supposed to be part of the canon or not is, IMO, much more vague). But there’s a difference between having Superman interact with the New Gods and crossover with their story and trying to make him the star of a similar sort of lavish space-fantasy epic; IMO, the former works, while the latter really doesn’t. And honestly, I’d really love a New Gods movie that just went all out with adapting the source material (James Gunn, if you’re reading this…) and I’ve been a sucker for these sorts of sagas ever since I saw A New Hope as a kid for the first time… but it’s not really what Superman is about, you know?

The other big issue… Lex. I don’t think Abrams gets Lex, or why he’s Superman’s archenemy. I once saw a discussion on an old forum that you can often separate a superhero’s top rogues gallery members between who is their greatest enemy versus being their nemesis – the former is the most dangerous member of their rogues’ gallery, the latter the most personal. So, by that terminology, Ra’s al Ghul is Batman’s greatest enemy, but the Joker is his nemesis. Galactus is the Fantastic Four’s greatest enemy, but Doctor Doom is their nemesis. Trigon is the Teen Titans’ greatest enemy, but Deathstroke is their nemesis (unless you’re Raven, in which case Trigon also fills the nemesis role). Spider-man is a bit unusual, in that the Green Goblin tends to fill both roles. You can argue a bit about who Superman’s greatest enemy is (Brainiac? Zod? Even Darkseid?) but Lex Luthor is his nemesis. And Abrams totally misses why. Lex in the first draft is Lex in name only – Lex as a nutty conspiracy theorist who works for the CIA doesn’t really resemble either classic mad scientist Lex or modern corporate Lex. Far worse is the Kryptonian reveal. In hindsight it is foreshadowed, but it’s such a random decision it still feels like it blindsides you. And the fundamental problem is… Lex needs to be human, IMO. It’s vitally important that Superman’s worst foe is just a very smart man with lots of wealth and an extremely petty but vicious vendetta against him. Both in terms of the kind of threat he offers (sure Clark could pound Lex to paste whenever he wants, but in order to beat Lex he has to outthink him – and for modern Lex, wrestle with the systems that give a man like that his power). And modern Lex especially is often portrayed as a xenophobe and human supremacist, loathing Clark for being an alien interloper who has usurped what Lex sees as his rightful place as humanity’s savior, and feeding on the bigotries and prejudices of others to weaponize against him. Making Lex himself an alien who always secretly hated humanity and worked for its destruction just feels like totally flushing all that nuance down the drain. Lex ceases to be our dark mirror, and just becomes another alien threat, no different from any of a dozen others Superman has fought. And that’s a waste of the character narratively and thematically. “Alien spy who hides out pretending to be an alien-hunting nut” is a potentially interesting angle for a villain… it’s just not Lex Luthor. It’s just left feeling like Abrams threw it in because he desperately wanted a last-minute twist, coherence be damned… and to preserve the twist, it’s even left unclear whether Ty-Zor even knows Lex is a Kryptonian or not (if he does, why leave him on Earth instead of recalling him to Krypton when his mission is done and Clark is dead… and if he’s not, why humor him by giving him rule of the planet at all?).

The second draft fixes Lex… somewhat, but also introduces new problems. Lex gets his role as a wealthy, Machiavellian manipulator and powerful tech CEO restored, thankfully, along with his delusions of grandeur and desire for world domination because he believes he alone can save humanity. Unfortunately, even though he’s not a Kryptonian himself anymore, he’s still under their thumb. All his wealth and power is built on a chance encounter with a Kryptonian ship. Once Ty-Zor shows up, Lex is sidelined and basically made into a stooge, and the final scene with Ty-Zor indicates that his role in future sequels would’ve been to continue carrying our Ty-Zor’s plans at best or outright serving as a reincarnation of Ty-Zor at worst. I’m just left with the powerful feeling that Abrams totally wanted us all to see how badass his totally original do not steal villain stus new villains were by having them utterly marginalize Supes’s traditional archenemy when they showed up (even Lex in the Reeve movies got to strut his stuff the whole first movie, before getting shown up by Zod and Company in the second). Honestly, I have to wonder if Abrams only included Lex at all in either draft out of a sense of obligation, like you can’t have Superman without Lex Luthor in some capacity, but Abrams really didn’t want to actually use the character of Lex.

What do I think went wrong? Well, honestly… timing. Timing is a big one. The script is full of elements that seem to just ape elements from other popular movie franchises at the time. Seriously, you have a lavishly designed epic (Jackson LotR movies, Star Wars prequels) in space (Star Wars) featuring a constructed language (LotR) and a chosen one protagonist on a hero’s journey (Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Matrix), high-powered martial arts duels between superhumans (Star Wars, the Matrix) featuring distinctive and unusual fictitious weapons (Star Wars), as the hero discovers and explores his true heritage (Harry Potter) in a world where he feels isolated because superhumans are hated and feared (Fox X-men movies) and there are heavy religious and philosophical themes and imagery (the Matrix, Star Wars, LotR). Maybe toss in some Dragon Ball too, if we move beyond film – more superpowered aliens, more superhuman martial arts, Ty-Zor and Kata-Zor can become Vegeta and Frieza, respectively, without squinting too much. Seeing a pattern? Throw in the script’s clear love of spectacle and over-the-top action, and it’s not really surprising it would feel the need to chase trends and try to ape the superficial aspects of other popular franchises, until Superman himself gets almost buried underneath it. Admittedly, none of this explains the super-poop.

Anyway, I’m glad this script didn’t get made. Parts of it feel like they might make a fun or exciting, if cliched, space fantasy saga (still want that New Gods movie…) but a lot of it is underbaked, and as a Superman story, it kind of sucks. Had Flyby been made, maybe a few more drafts and a capable cast could’ve improved the story, and maybe it would’ve made enough money on the force of the Superman brand to get the whole trilogy Abrams had planned made… but I wouldn’t hold my breath, and even if the stars had aligned perfectly, I doubt it would’ve gone down as more than an odd curiosity in the character’s history. Still there are some interesting (and squicky, and confusing, and just gross) elements here that make it worth taking a look at, and it remains an interesting case of what-might-have-been. It also occurs to me that, weirdly, in many ways it seems to foreshadow the later Man of Steel – the heavy emphasis on Krypton, the focus on Clark’s isolation and alienation from humanity, the Kents trying to teach him to keep a low profile and his powers under wraps, the big, flashy, overlong final battle with massive collateral damage. I wonder if Snyder actually read either of these scripts, in fact, or if he just hit on similar ideas by coincidence. In any case, we should be back to my regularly scheduled sporkings (and hopefully Rebel Moon Part II: The Scargiver soon-ish? *fingers crossed*). Thank you all for joining me on this odd little journey, and Happy Holidays!