In 2006, Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" came out. The film was not terrible, but it recycled a lot of the plot from "Superman: The Movie", had a poor handle on the characters and it was just kind of boring.
As it's customary for big Hollywood blockbusters, a novelization was penned and published, this one from none other than Marv Wolfman: veteran comic book writer and author with decades in the medium, having worked for both DC and Marvel and being one of the masterminds that orchestrated the 1986 Superman reboot following "Crisis on Infinite Earths" a year earlier.
Sadly, good as a writer as Wolfman may be, he still had to follow the film's script as closely as possible and thus condemn his work to the same issues that plagued the movie.
To his credit, when he has the leg-space to expand on the material, the book shines. Using his extensive knowledge of Superman lore and adding original bits, he paints a lively and grandiose picture of Krypton in Jor-El and Lara's younger life, then juxtaposes it to the utter destruction of the "Return to Krypton" sequence.
*** The "Return to Krypton" sequence was the scene showing Superman's visit on the ruins of his home-planet. A significant portion of the budget went into making it, but Singer decided to keep it out of the film anyway, because he felt it didn't flow with the rest of the story. The sequence itself is visually impressive, but I always found it underwhelming, as there are no emotional connections established toward the planet, its inhabitants or even the celebrated super-hero at this point in the movie.
Thanks to his descriptive narrative regarding Krypton's society, customs, history and even topography/geography, the haunted ruins of that once great people resonate with the reader. Combined with several flashbacks from Smallville and Metropolis that tangle in the exhausted Superman's mind, the character's pain over his home-world's destruction makes his pathos tangible and easy to connect to.
Which is far more important than it sounds, because once Superman returns to Earth and the film's story gets under-way, the narrative starts crumbling.
It's not Wolfman's fault; he does the best he can considering what he has to work with. The biggest problem with Superman Returns, though, was never the plot. It was the characters and especially Superman and Lois Lane.
Superman's loneliness rings hollow and actually kind of dishonest. The efforts to show his closest people moving forward are forced and his brooding is severely overplayed, considering he is welcomed back on Earth by everyone, he gets his job back and even though Lois has moved on and has a family (painful, I am certain), he gets his life back almost intact.
Honestly, the whole Lois thing never worked in this story. Superman leaves without telling her and he's surprised to come back and see her having a life? Sorry dude, but no matter how you try to rationalize it, if you left her without a word she really couldn't have meant that much to you.
Unless you take your love-advice from Twilight and Dawson's Creek.
Having said that, Wolfman does manage to redeem him, at least in part. Thanks to the strong groundwork he lays during the Krypton chapters, it becomes clear that Superman is suffering from a light form of PTSD over seeing Krypton's ruins. His alienation from humanity is because he saw his people's floating carcasses in deep space and came close to death up there himself.
Even so, by the time the book hits its second chapter, all of Clark's inner monologue regarding his pathos comes off as padding.
The other, even bigger, crime of that original story was Lois Lane. In one of the worst interpretations of the character, Lois isn't her own person but rather Superman's own plot device. She smacks you right in the face with her "sassiness" to the point of just being a bitch and the rest of the time she's only there to make Superman sad and stuff.
Strong, independent "girl reporter" she is not. She uses and manipulates and throws hissy-fits like a teenager. The worst thing about her in the movie was that she clearly seemed to not care about her fiance, Richard, all that much and he was just convenient. It doesn't help that Richard was probably the nicest, most sympathetic character in that entire film.
While Wolfman can't salvage that wreck, he does contribute to her redemption as well, again thanks to the all-too-important inner monologue. Unlike the film, in the book Lois concludes early on that she likes her life. She loves Richard and she's happy. That's the life she wants to have, not one with an alien demigod.
In the book, there is no love triangle. It's mostly about Lois and Superman dealing with the consequences of their actions and realizing nothing stands still and they have to move on, rather than open the possibility of getting back together.
Lois still lacks the agency and depth she needs to be a good character, but at least this makes her just a tad more sympathetic.
But fret not, because there is an exception amidst the mediocrity: Lex Luthor. In the movie, Lex was insignificant. Spacey played him considerably more menacing than Hackman had, but he still had the same sense of humour and had the same real-estate obsession that just doesn't make good material for a super-hero story.
It is perhaps because Wolfman knows Luthor well considering his contribution to the character in 1986, but he does wonders with him. He expands with original details on his family history and his own background (adding in even both a LexCrop and a Luthorcorp reference) and details his desires, motives or even his simplest likes and dislikes. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are those that study him, both as an individual, but also through his relationship with Kitty.
Where Kitty was mostly a bit-character in the movie, in the book she is vital in understanding Lex, looking at him through the eyes of someone who is infatuated by him, even though she's not blind to his insanity.
Lex Luthor is the best thing about the entire book and the chapters that focus on him turn the novelization into a great read; fitting, too, since Wolfman manages to completely detach Lex from Kevin Spacey's portrayal and deliver the character we know and love from the comic books; complex, intriguing, charming and menacing.
The supporting cast doesn't get much in terms of focus, even though what little is there is good enough. Especially in Jimmy Olsen's case, who has been in a bit of a rut and falling into depression in Superman's absence.
Also of note is the fact that all hints that Jason is Superman's son have been removed from the story. This was likely done to avoid spoilers, as novelizations usually come out before the films they're based on and Singer was -for some reason- banking a lot on that revelation that everybody had already discovered as soon as the plot synopsis hit the web.
I know many fans -myself included- hated the addition of Jason in the story, but his relative exclusion in the book doesn't work as well as one might have hoped. Considering the rest of the story remains intact, some bits just don't make sense anymore.
Particularly the ending, when Superman visits the White-Lane homestead and leaves apparently having now found a place to belong, even though nothing has really changed. Before that, Jason's heavy involvement in the third act/part of the story feels forced, since he no longer serves the plot and can only be excused if seen as Richard, Lois and Jason are a unit, just another family saved by Superman-- a new dynamic in his relationship with the Daily Planet ace reporter and their previously romanticised rescue encounters.
In the end, I enjoyed "Superman Returns: The Novelization". I've always held the opinion that the film was gorgeous and as such some of the more visually-demanding scenes don't work as well in the book (the train-set sequence or the plane rescue for example), but Wolfman's efforts to expand on the material and his great handle on Lex Luthor give the novelization a certain edge.
If there is something that this book really did for me, however, was to finally and definitively reveal to me the real problem with Singer's original story. Like most detractors of the movie, I was hung-up on the logical inconsistencies of the story, or the lazy plot, or the characters or details like continuing off from the Chris Reeve series (I wanted an original look and feel) or things like the super-stalking.
The real issue, it seems, is a far larger one; mainly that the story has meat and it could have been done a lot better.
This is a particularly sore point from where I'm standing, because Singer had full-reign over it. This wasn't a studio mandate with a struggling crew trying to make the best of someone else's story. Singer came up with it and loaded it with subtext that came directly from his heart. It was his story through-and-through and it was one he really wanted to tell (the screenwriters have gone on record saying they'd have done it differently). Remember; HE jumped ship from X-Men and went to Warner with this story.
So when I came to the realization that the concept had meat and Singer butchered it, I had to wonder how that was even possible! Thanks to Wolfman's contribution, it's clear that there are several better directions this same story could've taken.
One of those directions would be to tell the story through the eyes of the supporting cast and show how much the world was affected by Superman's absence (something only barely touched in the original script). Jimmy Olsen in the book is the perfect example of this, having lost practically all hope during that time.
Alternatively, the story should've been more consistent in its approach to the theme of alienation and looking for a home. Singer shoe-horning the child in it greatly distracts from the subtext, which is otherwise very well-plotted.
In the movie there is a great line that's sadly missing from the book: during the beat-down sequence on New Krypton, when Superman affected by the Kryptonite on the continent and he's being brutalized by Lex and his men, the last son of Krypton screams "I am still Superman".
Many cringe at that line, but honestly it's fantastic. At that point, Lex has stolen the last remnants of his home-planet, has turned them into a weapon and has stolen his powers as well. Between this and Superman's detachment from humanity with Lois and his mom moving on and away from him, he is left with literally nothing to connect to. That line is a man's desperate cry to hold on to something he can call his own. It presents a bigger challenge and threat to his character arc, than the actual violence and the physical effects of the Kryptonite.
If the story was better-plotted to signify those bits and themes more, the film would've received better reception. But as it is, the story is slow and doesn't flow well, while it's extremely busy and ultimately burdened with far too many unneeded subplots, all the while it comes off as extremely indulgent.
Most of these problems plague the book as well. However, Wolfman's efforts aren't wasted, as his expertise on the mythos and his descriptive narrative are enough to draw the reader in and shower them with an enjoyable, albeit flawed and fairly anti-climactic, classic super-hero story.
As it's customary for big Hollywood blockbusters, a novelization was penned and published, this one from none other than Marv Wolfman: veteran comic book writer and author with decades in the medium, having worked for both DC and Marvel and being one of the masterminds that orchestrated the 1986 Superman reboot following "Crisis on Infinite Earths" a year earlier.
Sadly, good as a writer as Wolfman may be, he still had to follow the film's script as closely as possible and thus condemn his work to the same issues that plagued the movie.
 |
| Not actually from the book. Obviously. |
To his credit, when he has the leg-space to expand on the material, the book shines. Using his extensive knowledge of Superman lore and adding original bits, he paints a lively and grandiose picture of Krypton in Jor-El and Lara's younger life, then juxtaposes it to the utter destruction of the "Return to Krypton" sequence.
*** The "Return to Krypton" sequence was the scene showing Superman's visit on the ruins of his home-planet. A significant portion of the budget went into making it, but Singer decided to keep it out of the film anyway, because he felt it didn't flow with the rest of the story. The sequence itself is visually impressive, but I always found it underwhelming, as there are no emotional connections established toward the planet, its inhabitants or even the celebrated super-hero at this point in the movie.
Thanks to his descriptive narrative regarding Krypton's society, customs, history and even topography/geography, the haunted ruins of that once great people resonate with the reader. Combined with several flashbacks from Smallville and Metropolis that tangle in the exhausted Superman's mind, the character's pain over his home-world's destruction makes his pathos tangible and easy to connect to.
Which is far more important than it sounds, because once Superman returns to Earth and the film's story gets under-way, the narrative starts crumbling.
It's not Wolfman's fault; he does the best he can considering what he has to work with. The biggest problem with Superman Returns, though, was never the plot. It was the characters and especially Superman and Lois Lane.
Superman's loneliness rings hollow and actually kind of dishonest. The efforts to show his closest people moving forward are forced and his brooding is severely overplayed, considering he is welcomed back on Earth by everyone, he gets his job back and even though Lois has moved on and has a family (painful, I am certain), he gets his life back almost intact.
Honestly, the whole Lois thing never worked in this story. Superman leaves without telling her and he's surprised to come back and see her having a life? Sorry dude, but no matter how you try to rationalize it, if you left her without a word she really couldn't have meant that much to you.
Unless you take your love-advice from Twilight and Dawson's Creek.
Having said that, Wolfman does manage to redeem him, at least in part. Thanks to the strong groundwork he lays during the Krypton chapters, it becomes clear that Superman is suffering from a light form of PTSD over seeing Krypton's ruins. His alienation from humanity is because he saw his people's floating carcasses in deep space and came close to death up there himself.
Even so, by the time the book hits its second chapter, all of Clark's inner monologue regarding his pathos comes off as padding.
The other, even bigger, crime of that original story was Lois Lane. In one of the worst interpretations of the character, Lois isn't her own person but rather Superman's own plot device. She smacks you right in the face with her "sassiness" to the point of just being a bitch and the rest of the time she's only there to make Superman sad and stuff.
Strong, independent "girl reporter" she is not. She uses and manipulates and throws hissy-fits like a teenager. The worst thing about her in the movie was that she clearly seemed to not care about her fiance, Richard, all that much and he was just convenient. It doesn't help that Richard was probably the nicest, most sympathetic character in that entire film.
While Wolfman can't salvage that wreck, he does contribute to her redemption as well, again thanks to the all-too-important inner monologue. Unlike the film, in the book Lois concludes early on that she likes her life. She loves Richard and she's happy. That's the life she wants to have, not one with an alien demigod.
In the book, there is no love triangle. It's mostly about Lois and Superman dealing with the consequences of their actions and realizing nothing stands still and they have to move on, rather than open the possibility of getting back together.
Lois still lacks the agency and depth she needs to be a good character, but at least this makes her just a tad more sympathetic.
But fret not, because there is an exception amidst the mediocrity: Lex Luthor. In the movie, Lex was insignificant. Spacey played him considerably more menacing than Hackman had, but he still had the same sense of humour and had the same real-estate obsession that just doesn't make good material for a super-hero story.
It is perhaps because Wolfman knows Luthor well considering his contribution to the character in 1986, but he does wonders with him. He expands with original details on his family history and his own background (adding in even both a LexCrop and a Luthorcorp reference) and details his desires, motives or even his simplest likes and dislikes. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are those that study him, both as an individual, but also through his relationship with Kitty.
Where Kitty was mostly a bit-character in the movie, in the book she is vital in understanding Lex, looking at him through the eyes of someone who is infatuated by him, even though she's not blind to his insanity.
Lex Luthor is the best thing about the entire book and the chapters that focus on him turn the novelization into a great read; fitting, too, since Wolfman manages to completely detach Lex from Kevin Spacey's portrayal and deliver the character we know and love from the comic books; complex, intriguing, charming and menacing.
The supporting cast doesn't get much in terms of focus, even though what little is there is good enough. Especially in Jimmy Olsen's case, who has been in a bit of a rut and falling into depression in Superman's absence.
Also of note is the fact that all hints that Jason is Superman's son have been removed from the story. This was likely done to avoid spoilers, as novelizations usually come out before the films they're based on and Singer was -for some reason- banking a lot on that revelation that everybody had already discovered as soon as the plot synopsis hit the web.
I know many fans -myself included- hated the addition of Jason in the story, but his relative exclusion in the book doesn't work as well as one might have hoped. Considering the rest of the story remains intact, some bits just don't make sense anymore.
Particularly the ending, when Superman visits the White-Lane homestead and leaves apparently having now found a place to belong, even though nothing has really changed. Before that, Jason's heavy involvement in the third act/part of the story feels forced, since he no longer serves the plot and can only be excused if seen as Richard, Lois and Jason are a unit, just another family saved by Superman-- a new dynamic in his relationship with the Daily Planet ace reporter and their previously romanticised rescue encounters.
In the end, I enjoyed "Superman Returns: The Novelization". I've always held the opinion that the film was gorgeous and as such some of the more visually-demanding scenes don't work as well in the book (the train-set sequence or the plane rescue for example), but Wolfman's efforts to expand on the material and his great handle on Lex Luthor give the novelization a certain edge.
If there is something that this book really did for me, however, was to finally and definitively reveal to me the real problem with Singer's original story. Like most detractors of the movie, I was hung-up on the logical inconsistencies of the story, or the lazy plot, or the characters or details like continuing off from the Chris Reeve series (I wanted an original look and feel) or things like the super-stalking.
The real issue, it seems, is a far larger one; mainly that the story has meat and it could have been done a lot better.
This is a particularly sore point from where I'm standing, because Singer had full-reign over it. This wasn't a studio mandate with a struggling crew trying to make the best of someone else's story. Singer came up with it and loaded it with subtext that came directly from his heart. It was his story through-and-through and it was one he really wanted to tell (the screenwriters have gone on record saying they'd have done it differently). Remember; HE jumped ship from X-Men and went to Warner with this story.
So when I came to the realization that the concept had meat and Singer butchered it, I had to wonder how that was even possible! Thanks to Wolfman's contribution, it's clear that there are several better directions this same story could've taken.
One of those directions would be to tell the story through the eyes of the supporting cast and show how much the world was affected by Superman's absence (something only barely touched in the original script). Jimmy Olsen in the book is the perfect example of this, having lost practically all hope during that time.
Alternatively, the story should've been more consistent in its approach to the theme of alienation and looking for a home. Singer shoe-horning the child in it greatly distracts from the subtext, which is otherwise very well-plotted.
In the movie there is a great line that's sadly missing from the book: during the beat-down sequence on New Krypton, when Superman affected by the Kryptonite on the continent and he's being brutalized by Lex and his men, the last son of Krypton screams "I am still Superman".
Many cringe at that line, but honestly it's fantastic. At that point, Lex has stolen the last remnants of his home-planet, has turned them into a weapon and has stolen his powers as well. Between this and Superman's detachment from humanity with Lois and his mom moving on and away from him, he is left with literally nothing to connect to. That line is a man's desperate cry to hold on to something he can call his own. It presents a bigger challenge and threat to his character arc, than the actual violence and the physical effects of the Kryptonite.
If the story was better-plotted to signify those bits and themes more, the film would've received better reception. But as it is, the story is slow and doesn't flow well, while it's extremely busy and ultimately burdened with far too many unneeded subplots, all the while it comes off as extremely indulgent.
Most of these problems plague the book as well. However, Wolfman's efforts aren't wasted, as his expertise on the mythos and his descriptive narrative are enough to draw the reader in and shower them with an enjoyable, albeit flawed and fairly anti-climactic, classic super-hero story.
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