FanFilmFriday: The Death and Return of Superman

Here's a "fanfilm" for the day!

Remember when Man of Steel died and returned in the '90s?
Well Max Landis here certainly does. (though he's waaaay too young to have actually followed the whole thing originally now that I think about it..)
Who's Max Landis? He's the son of the legendary comedy and horror movie master John Landis.

Back then, the epic Death and Return of Superman story was such a success it launched a boom in comics that marked the generations to come, changed the whole comic book industry regarding mega-events and tie-ins, was adapted into a videogame..
Warner even tried to make a movie out of all this..but only that lame lackbuster Steel was made - with no connections to Supes whatsoever due to all the delays and cancellation of the other related movies. (a Superboy, Cyborg and Eradicator movies were also planned to accompany a Death and Return of Superman)

Anyway, Max did this whole summary and critique of the whole Death and Return saga, featuring various talents such as Mandy Moore as Lois Lane, Elijah Wood as Hank Henshaw, Simon Pegg as John Landis, etc...

Enjoy this ~17 minutes video!

Epic!
Funny enough, accurate and entertaining!

Max Landis adds:

The original rant was 45 minutes long, so of course we had to cut a bunch of stuff out for time, and because it was just too stupid. Like for instance the part where Pa Kent dies of a heart attack and literally GOES TO HEAVEN. AND SEES SUPERMAN.

If I saw this video, I might nerd rage out so hard. But luckily I made it, so I'm pretty happy. Really I'd hope people just are with me, and happy that Guy Gardner and Bloodwynd get to be in a movie.

Guy Gardner, haha!
Gotta love seeing all these characters portrayed, even if briefly!

Kids these days, always complaining about everything..
Even more so on the interwebz :P

Anyways, besides that, the video was actually sort of fun!
I actually like Death and Return of.. but managed to enjoy this lil' video nonetheless.

AtoZ - D is for... Doomsday

Eyz' ComicBook Alphabet Challenge! 
Today, D is for... Doomsday!!

You thought it was going to be Deadpool, right?

Well, nope sorry!
Doomsday is an important character from me. He was the reason that made me start reading Superman comics and finally give Kal-El a chance. And now? I have read tons more of Supes thanks to this ugly mug! (even if I didn't jump in during the 90s but much later thanks to the couple of collected Doomsday-arc comics)
Today's character is © by DC comics

Deleted Scenes - Superman: Death & Disco

In the Superman movie history, there's been a lot off would-be movies starring big blue that never made it past the pre-production stages.

Including a 5th classic Superman movie with Reeves, a Tim Burton Superman movie, another Tim Burton take with Supes on a wheelchair, a Kevin Smith-written one also directed by Burton, a Superman/Batman movie and a hundred more concepts that we may never know about! (including at one point having Nic Cage as Superman himself!!)

With a new movie announced, directed by Zack Snyder, in the work, some scrapped projects have been revealed since some key players, directors or producers won't be involved anymore.

Very nice subtle redesign by BeyondComics.TV, a more colorful and faithful approach

Back in the 90s, there wa sa big boom in comics thanks to the event called "Death of Superman".
For those who dare not know about this, the story goes like this:
A monster (Doomsday) awakes beneath the earth, goes on an unstoppable rampage until he reaches Metropolis. Many heroes try to stop him... Then Superman and Doomsday clashes in one of the most epic comic book fights ever written or drawn. Doomsday is temporary defeated and Supes dies... Then 4 fake Supermen appear from nowhere (a Kryptonian, a Clone, a Cyborg and a Human!!) before one of them is actually revealed to be the actual villain. The real Superman heals back and comes back to stop that monster.

It was a huuuuge hit for comics, sales were at their highest, people talked about it on TV, Newspaper, etc..

Anyway, this fantastic event was almost adapted into several movies back then.
The plan was, while Batman was still selling a lot with Batman Forever (despite as bad as it was) to adapt the Death of Superman event as a movie, make 4 spinoff titles for each fake Superman and then have a final Return of Superman movie...which never came to be.
While this Doomsday-event made it into a pretty fun and faithful videogame and much later a great animated movie, the live movie never made it past pre-production.
It was too ambitious and not well coordinated enough.
Finally, only the Steel solo project movie (the Human Superman) was made, "loosely" based on the actual comic book character with no ties to Superman with Shaquille O'Neal as Steel.

Now, flash to the year 2000s.
Before Zack Snyder took in the franchise recently, there were some scripts by J.J.Abrams featuring more kryptonians-inspired science fiction with Bryan Singer (X-men 2, Superman Returns) on board as director (with Brett Ratner as another possible director).
The movie would have been called Superman Fly-By (also rumoured as Superman: Man of Steel).
We didn't knew a thing about this movie...only it would have probably also featured Brandon Routh as Clark Kent.

Thanks to special effects designer Steve Johnson, we now can guess what the direction and even the plot would have been thanks to some pics he revealed.
And the reason I talked about Doomsday... it seems it would have been another shot at bringing the Death Of Superman to the big screen (guess who that monster is supposed to be):

The costume looked sort of inspired by some Elseworlds comics and the DC One Million lineup.
This makes me ask...why should adaptations be only taking from the classic/modern characters and not some variations of 'em as well?
Doomsday looks sort of generic, like the Abomination was in the Incredible Hulk movie. Typical over-complicated CGi hollywood modern monster-stuff. Yet I like that genetically enhanced creature look he gives me.

Will the actual new movie/reboot by Zack Snyder be actually better/worse? Will it feature a better_/worse costume design for Supes? (please, let him sport a big-ass S-shield logo!! not that ridiculous tiny one from Superman Returns!!)

And finally, if you tought all this was awful, be ready for worse now!
Something more....disco!

In the late 90s, Tim Burton wanted to have another shot at Superman -which none of his proposed ideas came to be before.
His last script, born from the ashes of the Kevin Smith synopsis was called Superman Lives.
It was supposed to be a gritty retelling and re-imagining of Supes.
And Steve Johnson also revealed concepts and tests of Superman's costume for this disaster:

 

 

 °___°
I'm glad this catastrophe never made it past testing!
I don't even wanna think what Burton really had in mind for Supes here...


Hey, it doesn't even beat Nicolas Cage's Superman! :P

 Another concept/test for yet another Tim Burton Superman project.

It's a picture of Nicky's head over a fake-Superman toy.

ComicNEWS! Reign of Doomsday

Doomsday's coming back! YaY!
What? Who is Doomsday??
Alright, alright.. I'll do a Doomsday ComicBookReview before he's brought back...

Anyway, basically, Doomsday's this unstoppable unkillable machine. He's te monster who "killed" Superman once.

Oh! That you know.
Superman "died" in the 90s (but really, wasn't that dead, more like almost-dead).
It was THE comic event of the 90s, everyone heard of that. The book was selling mad, newspaper, people on tv, everyone talked about that.
Etc..Etc..

Doomsday will be back in all his glory next year!
And the regular impossible to defeat Doomsday.
He will be making his way through the DCU starting January.

I guess that's a way to stop the current "Grounded" storyline (for those who haven't been following it).
Specially since ex-Marvel writer, J. Michael Straczynski, left the book.
It's funny to see now this Superman walking all over the places, never stopping his single-minded objective as a parallel to Doomsday's march. And now with the actual Doomsday showing up!...

Here's the first part, what comics to follow for you, issues-buying guys and gals:

STEEL #1
OUTSIDERS #37
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #55
SUPERBOY #6
… ????

I'll personally be waiting for the TPB, to join the other Doomsday collected stories~

His path makes sense.
He's gonna face off the Superman-related characters that way!Steel, Supergirl (JLA), Superboy/Kon-El, The Eradicator (Outsiders)...


And DC's official press release:

"Doomsday is coming back.
(...) we’ll confirm here that the Kryptonian killing machine will return to Earth early next year - and you don’t need me to tell you that’s never a good sign for the heroes of the DCU.
Doomsday will first make his presence known this January in STEEL #1 - but I can promise you, he won’t be the only hero facing Doomsday’s wrath for long.

Doomsday is one of the most popular villains in Superman’s canon of foes,” says Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras, “He injects a feeling of dread and chaos into the DC Universe that few other characters can.”
In other news, one of the exciting pieces of news to come out of last week’s DC Digital Store launch is the launch of some amazing back list titles in digital format - including The Death and Return of Superman. And if you haven’t read those stories before, you might want to do it sooner rather than later. Y’know, just sayin’…"


Alright!
People often say Supes doesn't have any interesting villains.
I really dig Doomsday! Can't wait to see him back in his full glory!
(unlike his last appearances..)