It was a dank, dark room. Red wallpaper once lined the walls but was now faded and torn; large stains showed through where they pleased. Devoid of furniture, the small square room still seemed large to Yakov.
     Yakov was tall for a kid his age; his slender frame made him appear even taller. Though his hair was jet black, it was too dirty to tell it’s true colour. In fact, he bathed so rarely it was difficult to determine his skin colour. He stood, towering over the others in the room, who remained seated, cross-legged.
     “Sun’ll be going down soon, I should get going,” he muttered to no one in particular, and strode from the room. Barely-audible goodbye mumbles followed him down the hallway and out the door which, no longer supported, had not fared well since being exposed to the elements.
     Peering into the sky, Yakov noticed the sun was far lower in the sky than he had expected. Cursing under his breath, he pushed aside the rusty bicycles covering his and mounted up his slightly-less-rusted bike. Being late home was not a big deal, at least not to him, but the pointless and wordy lecture he would receive bothered him.
     As Yakov sped along the empty street, his eyes scanned the streetscape. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t find fault. The rusted cars or charred and blackened buildings certainly weren’t out of place. Nor were the scattered piles of debris — not for this part of town. The adults no longer came here; they said there was nothing worth scavenging. It followed, then, that the kids adored the deserted suburb. Maybe there was nothing wrong after all — perhaps the imminent tongue lashing that troubled his thoughts.

     His lateness this evening was exactly what saved Yakov from yet another chiding. As he rounded the corner to Block 34 — the area his family called home — he saw his parents in the distance, standing outside his communal home. Though he could not hear their conversation, he knew his father was displeased.
     “You’re late,” announced Hans — Yakov’s father, stating the obvious. Hans’ accent was thick but not Australian, even though he had lived in Australia all his life. Some felt he emphasised the accent, perhaps to stand out. He was shorter than Yakov by almost a foot but a stern, stocky man.
     “So? I’m old enough to look after myself,” Yakov retorted.
     “I doubt that,” replied Hans, “but tonight you’re looking after Pietra — you know she can’t walk far and I’m not carrying her. We had to ask your brother but since you’re here, he’s coming with us.”
     “Where are you going?”
     “Town meeting, get inside and tell your brother to catch up with us.” What that, Hans turned and walked over to his wife. Yakov went inside, for a short while. Suddenly, he stood straight up and grabbed Pietra’s hand.
     “Why should we miss out on all the fun? Come on, we’re going to that meeting.”

The long shad­ows cast by the falling sun fright­ened Pietra and she squeezed her brother’s hand tightly.
“Ow. Not so hard.”
“Sorry.”
“Did Mum and Dad tell you any­thing about the meet­ing?”
“They never do. You know that,” she said indig­nantly.
“Sorry. I thought you might’ve heard some­thing.”
“well I didn’t.”

Yakov thought of his father and the look on his face as Yakov had pulled up. Some­thing big was def­i­nitely happening.

A large group of adults were milling around the front of the old church so he ducked around the side and clam­bered up the rick­ety fire escape, half drag­ging his sis­ter the whole way. They sat in a win­dow sill and watched silently as the adults scat­tered them­selves around the pews.

“Order! Order, please!” bel­lowed a large man stand­ing at the altar. “The sooner we get this started, the sooner we can all leave.” The crowd hushed. “Right then. Ahh…umm…”
“Get on with it!” said a voice Yakov imme­di­ately recog­nised, to his embar­rass­ment, as his father’s.
“See, here’s the thing. We’ve got noth­ing left.”
“What are you talk­ing about?” His father again.
“Every­thing we thought we had. We don’t. The cans of food, the stock­pile of com­busta­bles. We only have the emer­gency rations now. It was an admin­is­tra­tive error.”

The hall exploded. Anger boiled and epi­thets were thrown. The front rows began to angrily march on the sweaty man.

“Peo­ple! Peo­ple, please. We can fix this.” The crowd con­tin­ued to con­verge. He fum­bled for any­thing the thought would stop them from killing him. “The Rite!”
The crowd paused mid step and the fat man fell on the open­ing like lion on an ante­lope.
“We can use The Rite to find new food sources. Ones far beyond the reach of the other Sub­urbs.”
“The Rite is noth­ing more than basic ori­en­teer­ing. In areas we know are safe. You want to put our kids at risk? By send­ing them into the bad­lands?” asked Hans.
“Don’t you see? It’s per­fect. There’s got to be plenty out there. Just wait­ing for some­one — us — to come claim it.”
A woman on the other side of the church piped up: “You want to risk our chil­dren on your the­ory?”
“Not the younger ones, but cer­tainly those closer to 18 should be considered.”

After that flaw­less argu­ment the fat man felt he was win­ning over the crowd. They’d stopped mov­ing towards him now. That, plus the pos­si­bil­ity they were con­sid­er­ing his pro­posal made him very happy. He began mop­ping his brow, then stoped when he saw Hans bar­rel towards him. Appar­ently mak­ing up his mind far quicker than the othes.

“You want to change our one remain­ing sacred act? The one thing that keeps us bound to the old days? This is not your deci­sion to make.”
Yakov stood up and cupped his hands to his mouth. The final rays of light framed him in the lead­light­ing. “He’s right, Pop. The deci­sions not any of yours to make. It’s mine. I’m going to do this.”

Light­ning crack­led omi­nously outside.

     For three days after the meeting, Yakov barely saw his father. He was so busy he barely saw anyone. As Yakov made his way toward the Meeting Point for all beginning the Rite, he mind wandered. Would he find anything? In which direction should he head? Did it even matter?

     At the Meeting Point, the crowd still argued. They sounded like squawking birds to Yakov; he knew the arguments and didn’t care to get involved. He was going, regardless of the outcome. The others about to embark on the Rite were nervous; they gazed at the ground, shifting their heavy packs and shuffling their feet. Yakov knew the odds of finding what they sought, and had resolved to find it anyway. The wind picked up and whipped through the crowd, causing Yakov to pull his coat tight; even the Earth was concerned.

     Goodbyes were short and without ceremony. The mood was somber and, in response, the heavens opened with a steady downpour. Yakov headed inland hoping he may escape the rain. For two days he and another traveled before parting ways. The rain persisted; days passed. Since separating from his companion Yakov had seen no signs of inhabitation. Soaked to the core, he decided to camp for a day to take stock — he needed to start rationing to survive. Basic training for those undergoing the Rite had been forgone in haste; Yakov had not been taught how to ration or even how to weild his father’s gun, despite having just six bullets.

     Sheltered in a house with partly intact but blackened walls, Yakov camped for two nights. On the third morning the rain stopped and morning light shining through the windows woke him. Spirits high, Yakov walked with a spring in his step for the next week; gaps between houses grew as he made his way to the edge of suburbia and into the badlands. Tired but resolute, Yakov pressed on. Approaching the top of a hill one afternoon, Yakov heard a sound he would later describe as the town’s attack warning siren, crossed with gas being passed. Further down, Yakov recognised the source of the strange noise as a cow, he had never seen one in person. There were dozens of them beside a small group of ramshackle houses.

     Nearing the complex, Yakov was startled by a voice from behind a cow.
     “Hello?” The voice was feminine but gruff.
     “Uh, hi,” Yakov replied, voice crackling from misuse, “where am I?”
     “My name’s Jane, thanks for asking.” Yakov was smitten instantly. Jane was short and her cheekbones were gaunt; auburn hair fell around her face, just like his mother’s.

     Yakov was tolerated by the commune; because he showed aptitude for repairing machinery, some even welcomed him as time passed. Soon, Yakov realised the commune’s isolation was not it’s best asset, they grew their own food! Weeks later, Yakov overstepped his bounds and asked to sleep in Jane’s room. Once notified, the community leaders demanded he leave there and then.

     He had failed; the journey home was long.

“Yakov? Is that really you?”
“Yeah, Mum. It’s me.”
The grey-haired woman hugged her disheveled son tightly.
“Is that you, boy?” Hans stomped into the entry and glared at his son. “What? You didn’t bring any­thing?”
“Hans, be nice. Your son is back. Quickly, gather the town.”

*****

Yakov was lean­ing against the rail­ing look­ing down at the assem­bled crowd. It seemed to him that the entire pop­u­la­tion of Kilda had turned out to hear him speak.
“Where’s the oth­ers?”
“They..umm…didn’t make it.”
“What do you mean?”
The fat man was stand­ing to close to Yakov. He could see every bead of sweat rolling down his pink, bloated face. He was wring­ing his hands and fid­get­ing at the same time. Almost like he was try­ing to dance.
“I..err…that is too say…they never made it back here.”
“What?” Yakov began to hyper­ven­ti­late. “I can’t do this. I just need to rest for a while. Maybe I’ll do this tomor­row.”
The crowd began to stir. “Tell us what you saw!” Shouted a woman cradling a baby.
“Yeah! What are you hiding?”

Yakov turned back to the crowd, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them the first thing he saw was Pietra stand­ing in the mid­dle of the crowd gnaw­ing at some­thing black and gnarled. An apple maybe? His shoul­ders stiff­ened. He knew what he had to do.
“You want to know what I saw?” The crowd yelled it’s approval. “O.K. I saw lush, green plains. Open space as far as the eye can see. Peo­ple farmed this land. Grow­ing what they needed instead of scavenging.”

The crowd seemed to wane. He wasn’t grab­bing their imag­i­na­tion. He noticed his sis­ter again.

“And I saw apples. Huge, red apples. So big they bent the branches that they hung from.” His sis­ter looked up at him, dropped the apple from her mouth and shouted up to him “Show me!” Then quickly added, “Please.”

A mur­mur went through the crowd. Then was sud­denly silenced by, of all peo­ple, his father.
“Stop this. Stop this lying, Yakov.”

The old Yakov, the one whose life expe­ri­ence was dis­tilled from his father’s would’ve backed down. But not after every­thing he’s seen. He was his own man now.
“You stop, Dad. You think you’re the voice of rea­son? You’re not. You’re the voice of fear. You’re afraid.”
“I have every right to be. You for­get that you were the only one to come back.” Yakov felt a lump rise in his throat.
“I did, and now I’m going back there.”
“To what? A land of milk and honey? Where apples fall from the sky?” His father snorted.

“I’m going back. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

Every kid in the crowd cheered. They’d never heard of any kid stand­ing up to any adult before, and now, right in front of their eyes Yakov had stood up to his own father. They began chant­ing his name as loudly as they could.

     Over the next few weeks Yakov was the most and least popular person in Kilda. The adults scoffed at him while the kids reveled in the possibilities his speech had planted. Yakov — as constantly reminded by Hans — tried to forget his adventure and focus on the tasks at hand; finding food for the impending winter was top priority for all non-essential townsfolk. Town guards worked double shifts, alternating between minding search parties and ensuring raiders kept their distance. Tensions were high.

     The fat man had called another meeting shortly before Yakov’s return. Yakov gathered that amidst all the blubbering, sweating and weaseling the fat man managed to convince the town to go on the offensive, to perform raids against other suburbs. After all, argued the fat man, they needed to survive and taking supplies by force was the easiest way — at least until casualties mounted. While Hans avoided duty on account of his back, Ivan was not so lucky. Yakov could’t stand the thought of his brother under fire, or worse.

     Pushing these thoughts from his mind, Yakov suddenly realised where his feet had taken him: back to the deserted suburb. The house with the red wallpaper seemed empty now and it was his fault; if only he had returned sooner instead of wasting time fawning over Jane. He sat with his back against the wall, head in his crossed arms, and shut his eyes. It was pointless to think about that wonderful place, yet Yakov let his mind wander back at every opportunity. Since he had never learned the name, Yakov christened it Eden.

     Yakov looked up, tears welling in his eyes. It would be difficult but he knew what he must do.

* * *

     Under cover of darkness, Yakov looked back towards his house. He commited the vision to memory; the row of two-storey terrace houses, most missing front doors or windows, had been integral to his childhood. There had been no goodbyes, though he had written notes to all — including Ivan, should he return; writing Pietra’s note had nearly broken his heart, he wished he could scoop her up in his arms and carry her but he had to face facts, she would just slow them down. He promised to return for her, one day.

     “Is everyone here?” Yakov asked the assembled crowd. Convincing others to follow him to Eden had been easy.
     “I think so,” whispered one, “Dudley chickened out but won’t dob.”
     “Let’s go before any of us do, too,” said another, unable to hide his apprehension. Yakov recognised him as the younger brother of one who hadn’t returned.
     “Agreed. Move out,” Yakov ordered; his voice unexpectedly sounded like a leader.

     As the view of Kilda’s rickety guard towers faded, Yakov sighed. A crashing sound ahead roused him from his daydream, the kids slipped behind the nearest cover. Yakov approached the source of the sound.
     “Hello?” he whispered. Someone dwarfed by a backpack stood from behind an overturned car.
     “Why should I miss out on all the fun?”. It was Pietra!

They trekked for days through the burnt detri­tus that encir­cled their for­mer home. Rain poured down from the dark grey sky soak­ing each child through to the bone. Morale was low and more than once mem­bers of their lit­tle band had given up and turned back.

They fur­ther they went the less inclined they were to idle chat­ter. Yakov could sense a full scale mutiny approach­ing if they didn’t find Eden soon, but the con­stant rain was mak­ing it hard for him to get his bearings.

It was only through sheer luck that, early one evening, he found a path through the black­ened land­scape to the green-hilled utopia beyond. He grabbed Pietra and gave a loud whoop. The chil­dren rolled out onto the sod­den grass laugh­ing and cheer­ing. Pietra watched them for a moment then turned to Yakov.
“Where’s the farm, Yakov?” He scanned the unfa­mil­iar hori­zon, pointed in an arbi­trary direc­tion and replied, “Umm…that way.”

The group marched all night through the wet grass. With­out cover Yakov didn’t want to risk them stay­ing out in the open exposed to any­thing. And any­one. As morn­ing broke they crested a small rise and looked out on to acres of graded land and beyond that: a large farm­stead.
“Wow,” gasped Evan, the brother of Yakov’s pre­vi­ous trav­el­ling com­pan­ion.
“Race you!” shouted another as he took off down the slope. The other kids launched them­selves down the hill towards the farm­house. Yakov stood watch­ing them all until his sis­ter tugged at his arm and said “Come on, Yakov. You don’t want to be the rot­ten egg!”  He laughed and raced her down. Care­ful to let her pull ahead and win at just the right moment.

*****

Yakov and a few of the oth­ers spent the whole morn­ing doing an inven­tory of the farm. The pre­vi­ous own­ers had left the place in rel­a­tively good con­di­tion, but they’d taken almost all the food. In a crawl­space — so small that only the youngest boy could fit — they found a stash of alu­minium cans, the labels long since faded; a Tup­per­ware con­tainer filled with seeds and a dusty leather jour­nal. In the front of the jour­nal Yakov found a folded piece of paper, a check­list for get­ting the farm up and run­ning again. The seeds, the jour­nal told him, were wheat, or would be once they’d weeded the field and sown them. He looked up to see Pietra and two of the younger girls walk past munch­ing on hand­fuls of black­ber­ries.
“We found a bush,” she said, matter-of-factly.

Surely it couldn’t be this easy? He thought to himself.

He organ­ised a few of the older kids into groups to help him work through the check­list. There was a well some­where nearby that they would need and with the rain stopped and the sun out they could begin to clean up the field. Pietra, ever help­ful, put together her own group to help pick the rest of the blackberries.

     “Can we open another tin, Yakov?  I’m still hungry.”
     “Evan, we have to ration now.”  Yakov had been unable to shake his lethargy for weeks.  He underestimate the physical effort required to transform an overgrown patch of land into a farm.  Spirits were still high, but goodwill and promises only went so far.  In their time at Eden, they had nearly exhausted their supplies and grown nothing.  The blackberry bushes had long been picked clean.  Despite the difficulty working the land, Yakov enjoyed life at Eden.  He dared not tell the others this was not the place sought but instead continued with his lie: The previous occupants must have abandoned the farm; the journal was left for him.  The lie had been eagerly accepted by all; whether they knew the truth was unclear.

     In their haste to begin planting, investigations of the large shed near the homestead had been neglected.  A cursory inspection had found nothing but rusted machinery which Yakov supposed was for farming but otherwise ignored.  On Pietra’s advice, Yakov took a group of boys to investigate the machinery.  Yakov had dismissed her suggestion, but when Pietra put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot he knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer twice.  Yakov looked over the machines with a close eye and tried to understand each machine’s purpose.  He knew Pietra would be smart when she grew older; probably already was smarter than him, Yakov thought, but machines were his specialty and after careful consideration he ordered the other boys to pull a small tractor from the shed.  They dubbed the tractor ‘Daisy’ after the only flower they knew.  Yakov began to repair the machine immediately; he worked from dawn until dusk every day, leaving Evan and Pietra in charge.

     Repairs of the tractor were interrupted one sunny morning when Yakov heard yelps of excitement from some of the children.  On investigation, he saw all had gathered to meet a visitor.  One of those who had abandoned their group early on had, instead of wandering home, stumbled upon Eden!  The children celebrated Abdul’s arrival into the early hours of the morning; their parents would have disapproved.

     Yakov resumed work early next afternoon, eager to complete his time consuming project; the tractor was close to functioning, he knew it was only a matter of time.  Sitting in the driver’s seat, Yakov impusively leaned over to connect a loose wire.  His impatience, brought on from the previous night’s festivities had dulled his senses; he noticed the tractor tipping too late.  Legs crushed beneath the beast, Yakov passed out.

* * *

     Thanks to Pietra’s splint, Yakov became mobile earlier than she had expected.  She said it had probably been a fracture since his legs weren’t swinging forwards, but it still hurt to walk and Yakov had taken to staying indoors for long periods.  Abdul came to visit Yakov as sat in his room, alone.  “Yakov, ” he started, “I have something I need to tell you.”

There was no time to waste.

As promised, Abdul had left the farm before dawn, but not before pass­ing on a warn­ing: They knew where he was and they were com­ing. “They” of course were the adults. Yakov called in the three old­est kids, plus Pietra. When he’d told them what Abdul had said they just stared at him. Then Pietra began to cry. Yakov hugged her tightly.

Why are they doing this?” She asked between snif­fles.
“They’re just hun­gry.”
“But so are we.”
“I know. Lis­ten to me. I want to you round up every­body around your age. Take them to the barn and lock it from the inside. Bar the door with any­thing you can find.
“But what about you? You can’t even walk!”
“No argu­ments, Pietra. Go!”

It looked like she was going to cry again, but she ran out of the house before Yakov could be sure. He turned to look at the other three.
“Help me.”
“We’re not fight­ers, Yakov,” said Evan.
“I know that, but we can’t let them take this away from us. We can’t go back.”
“Then what?” This was Sally.
“We’re going to have to learn how to fight. This place is too valu­able to lose.”

When he thought about it, it had been too easy. The escape from Kilda, the unevent­ful trip through the bad­lands, and then find­ing the farm laid out wait­ing for them. He wasn’t sur­prised karma had come to collect.

Yakov had clam­bered onto the roof of the farm­house for a bet­ter look. With his leg the way it was this was the best he could do for their group. Down below he made out pairs of kids hid­ing and wait­ing. Sun­light glinted off the pots and pans a few of them had scav­enged from the kitchen. Then some­thing else caught his eye. A black mass had begun to form at the top of the ridge. A lump caught in Yakov’s throat. There were too many of them.
Get ready!” He shouted. He heard a few sobs in response. The mass was get­ting closer now and sep­a­rat­ing into indi­vid­ual fig­ures. At the front of the group he recog­nised his father.

One of the adults threw a rock through the win­dow and then it was on. The adults swarmed over the farm tram­pling the newly sown crops. A group of kids ran out and tack­led those clos­est to them. Once the other adults saw the pot dan­gling from Sean’s hand they pounced like wild ani­mals, scream­ing “We’re hun­gry. You have to feed us.”

Other kids ran out from their hid­ing places swing­ing in wide arcs in an attempt to ward off the rav­en­ous horde. Yakov saw the car­nage below and braced him­self on the win­dow sill.
“Stop it! Stop it all of you!” Hans pulled a woman off the still body of Sean and stared at Yakov through sad eyes.
“Oh no,” she cried, “What have I done.”
The kids quickly formed a wall between the adults and Sean.
“Get out of here. Just go.”

     The adults may have left, but they didn’t go far.  They came prepared and retreated to their camp which Yakov realised must not have been far.  As the sun rose beyond the hill over which their attackers had marched, he saw two dark figures shrouded by the morning fog standing, waiting.  Watching.

     Yakov watched the adults stand still for what seemed an eternity; he ordered Evan to take the youngest and hide in the barn.  They were not to come out under any circumstances.
     “If I don’t come back, you’re the leader,” he started, “don’t let them take us back.” Yakov made for the two adults, fighting the urge to head back and cower with Pietra, who resumed sobbing.  During the restless night he had toyed with the idea of setting up an ambush, but he understood nothing of such things and figured it would end up in disaster.  Setting aside the dead had been terrible enough.

     He neared the two adults, they extended their arms upwards and outwards to show Yakov they meant no harm.  The tall dark man on the left lurched forward; Yakov gasped and slunk back, tripping and falling backwards.  The dark man caught Yakov’s arm and spoke in a deep, gravelly voice, “Sorry mate.  Didn’t mean to scare ya.  We just want to talk.”
     “Talk?  You tried to kill us!”
     “Look, things got out of hand; we didn’t want this to happen.  There were two groups of us and the group I’m representing tried to talk everyone — including your Dad — out of taking you home by force.”  Yakov looked at him skeptically.
     “What is it you want?”
     “When Abdul told us where you were we wanted to,” the man blushed, though it was difficult to see, “that is to say we do want to,” he stopped mid-sentence.
     “Oh you big girl’s blouse,” chastised the woman, her flowery voice chirped with restrained excitement.  She bent down to meet Yakov face to face, “Yakov, we think you’re right.  You’ve ignited hope in us; we realise there’s a better way and we want to be a part of it.”
     “I don’t believe you,” Yakov snorted.  He knew they needed protection.  He knew they needed help.  “Wait here,” he ordered, returning down the hill.

* * *

     That the others had voted to accept the adults into Eden had not surprised Yakov.  That they maintained he continue leading had.  Even the adults accepted the decision; whether or not they liked it he dared not guess.  Some of the kids returned to Kilda, deciding the mistake had been theirs and not the adults’, but there were more than enough hands to work the land.  Over the following months, the harvest had been long and ardous, but the results were worth the extended hours and aching backs.  The crop they yielded was more than enough to feed all and to celebrate they danced all night around a large bonfire. Yakov’s leg was still weak but the fresh air and sun made him feel alive.

     Life was good.

The city howled with an icy wind. Two fig­ures hud­dled as they made their way along the cracked bitu­men. Being care­ful to step over the spots where green vibrant grass had pushed through.

The taller fig­ure, a man, walked with pur­pose. He knew where he was going. Sud­denly the smaller fig­ure, a young girl, broke off and ran to a vine cov­ered wall. She ran her hand over it and shot a con­fused look at the man.

“Why is the rock flat?”
The man laughed. “It’s con­crete.” The con­fused look remained. “Some­one made it.”
“Oh.”  She tugged at the green­ery, then went back to run­ning her hand over it.
“Come on.”

The man  picked her up and walked fur­ther along the street, they turned a cor­ner and it opened up on a court­yard. He dropped her on the ground and stared out over a thin, rusted rail­ing. He could see the grey ocean churn­ing in the dis­tance and he was lost in his head for a long time.

“Dad?” The lit­tle girl asked, ner­vously.
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“Where are all the peo­ple?”
“Long gone I think.”
“where’d they go?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So we’re safe?”
“Yeah.”

He felt her small hand grip his tightly. She didn’t like being here at all.

“You want to go?”
She nod­ded yes.

They turned around and began head­ing back the way they came.

“Where are the ani­mals?”
“They’ve been gone even longer than the peo­ple.”
“So no cows?”
He laughed again. “No, honey. No cows.” He looked down at his daugh­ter. “You like cows, huh?”
“Yeah. Rory doesn’t like cows though. He’s says they’re dumb and they smell.”

They were pick­ing their way through the grassy patches near the edge of the city again. The girl lifted her arms up. The man grabbed them and threw her up onto his shoulders.

“I wouldn’t want to live in a place with­out cows.”
“Me nei­ther, kiddo. Me neither.”

Sure there was a lot wrong with Super­man Returns. He leaves his adopted planet for half a decade, Luthor is still try­ing to get rich from real estate, and then there’s the son.

Super­man is a pro­tec­tor. He’s there to inspire hope. To show human­ity what they can aspire to. I don’t think he’s been por­trayed that way in any of the movies they’ve put out so far.

But I think reboot­ing the fran­chise is a com­pletely unnec­es­sary step and would prob­a­bly do more dam­age. There’s a lot of sto­ries you can write using what was estab­lished in Super­man Returns. While I don’t claim that what I’ve writ­ten below is the best sto­ry­line ever, I think it does have some merit.

*******

TRAV’S IDEA FOR A SEQUEL TO SUPERMAN RETURNS

Set two to four years after the last movie. Lex Luthor is still try­ing to get his life together after almost destroy­ing Amer­ica. Nobody except Super­man, Lois, her fiance and her son know what he did. Lex pub­li­cally puts the blame for what hap­pened entirely on Super­man. Lex runs for office on a “Vote No to Super­man ticket”. His charis­matic speeches begin to sway the public.

An alien space­ship finds the kryp­tonite island Super­man launched into space and dis­cov­ers it’s point of ori­gin: Earth. The space­ship crashes in a Metrop­o­lis park and, using TV images, cre­ates a humanoid avatar that looks almost, but not quite like Lex Luthor. It teams up with Lex to turn Earth into a New Kryp­ton. Lex sees it as a way to become absolute ruler. He’s past the need for money now.

Brainaic take up refuge in Lex­Corp tower and twists it into an organic look­ing spire, that con­trasts with the art deco archi­tec­ture of Metropolis.

With the tide of opin­ion against him, Super­man is now just plain old Clark Kent. He per­forms a heroic few saves every now and then, but noth­ing that can be explic­itly traced back to him. He finds he much prefers being Clark Kent anyway.

The Brainiac kid­naps Superman’s son and uses a vial of his blood to cre­ate a way to give the city’s pop­u­la­tion Superman’s pow­ers, but at half strength. Lex likes the idea of ris­ing the pop­u­la­tion up and mak­ing Super­man less spe­cial by doing so.

Those in the pop­u­la­tion that receive pow­ers (some vastly dif­fer­ent to Superman’s) are lov­ing it. While most use their power for good, a large por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion spend their days fly­ing around and test­ing the extent of their abil­i­ties. Some have even turned to crime.

Luthor dis­cov­ers that the Brainiac means to destroy the rest of the planet leav­ing only Metrop­o­lis. Then he’ll shrink the city down and cat­a­logue it with oth­ers he’s captured.

Brainiac con­trols the large army of super­pow­ered peo­ple through nanites he included in the for­mula. This army ral­lies around Brainiac’s tower as Lex broad­casts Brainiac’s inten­tions to the world. The army attacks the tower doing zero dam­age, but accu­mu­lat­ing heavy casu­al­ties to due the super-powered bodyguards.

Super­man realises he’s the only one who can stop this. He files to the tower and takes out a few of the supers but the large group are more than a match for him.

He shrugs them off and flies into the tower itself. There he fights the Brainiac and knocks it out. Super­man finds his son uncon­scious on a bench. He wakes him up and they fly out of the tower. He drops his son on the foot­path and is then knocked down the street by a metal­lic ten­ta­cle. A big­ger, bulkier Brainiac (2.0!) appears out of the tower and begins to fight Super­man. They fight for a long time. As they trade punches and Super­man rea­sons he can cut loose on the Brainiac as it’s a robot, not a liv­ing being. The streets crack open and win­dows shat­ter as they bat­tle across the city. With one last punch Super­man breaks the Brainiac’s head open. The super-powered pop­u­la­tion regain con­trol of their own bod­ies. Super­man hurls the body into space.

At the end of the movie it’s shown that his son lost all his Kryp­ton­ian abil­i­ties due to Brainiac’s exper­i­men­ta­tion. The pop­u­la­tion hasn’t though. And even if Super­man isn’t con­sid­ered unique powers-wise, he’s still going to show those with good in them how a real hero acts.