Before I get down to brass tacks, I feel it could be useful…nay, integral, to reveal some of my feelings on the iconic, spandex-clad American hero known as Superman. Let it serve as a prelude to the meaty center of this piece rather than an aimless rant. Enough jibber jabber. On with it:

Superman doesn’t really “do it” for me. I think he’s boring and past his prime. The sheer catalog of Superman lore is staggering, with the vast majority of drama therein predicated on whether or not the baddies can locate/produce/synthesize enough Kryptonite to slow our hero down. That’s a tad too linear for my taste, and having stretched that premise into the current Empire that is Superman truly astounds me. Every incarnation of Superman seems to play out like the Olympics. It sounds great, looks great on paper, people get excited, but when it arrives, everybody looks at each other and says, “Was that it?”

Let’s face it: watching a dangerously-close-to infallible character effortlessly lift continents doesn’t make for compelling, emotional literature—on paper or the screen. And often-time antagonist Lex Luthor has to be the weakest villain in the history of villains. He’s the equivalent of Trump or Ted Turner if one of them tried to destroy the world and nobody lifted a finger to stop them. Luthor is simply a rich asshole, a public figure that doesn’t even carry a firearm. For mere mortals like you or me, a rich misanthrope could be daunting. But for someone with the abilities of Superman, I don’t see why he would ever present a problem once, much less repeatedly throughout a lifetime.

Given these feelings, you might understand why I was hesitant to participate in an all-day marathon of the Christopher Reeve Superman films when propositioned by Panel-creator Tyler Swank recently. Also feeding into my reluctance was a little movie called Superman Returns. In July of 2006, I accompanied former coworker and friend-of-Panel Andy Barry to a screening of Returns. Why go, you ask, with my distaste for Mr. Kent’s shenanigans? Andy and I were supposed to be working, restoring the impaired riparian zones of Bellingham, Washington, but left the worksite to see Superman Returns instead (on the clock). I would have gone to a double feature of Contact and Mission to Mars that day if it meant being in an air-conditioned theater. Yet I still failed to enjoy the movie.

So, was I interested in a Reeve-a-thon after my stale, unexciting experience with Superman Returns? Not entirely. I’m sternly told, “No. You need to see these movies,” and eventually relented to curiosity, but insisted Rankin & Bass’s animated version of The Hobbit be wedged in the middle of the marathon to ensure at least 90 minutes of entertainment.

What took place during that marathon shook me to the foundation of my anti-Superman core. I, a confessed critic of the franchise, was forced to admit that the Superman universe has some definite highlights. Unlike the bland Returns, the original quadrilogy was made with enough imagination and gusto that despite the constant and at times completely unnecessary presence of Lex Luthor, and despite my personal issues with Superman as a character, I was greatly entertained, frequently to the point of applause. To the end of Superman IV, after about 10 hours of movie-watching (including the Hobbit), I continued to feel energized and enthusiastic. That says something.

Any person with comic book or superhero sensibilities knows the basic idea of the first movie. Even I knew, without having seen it. Luthor tries to dump the entire west coast into the ocean in a bizarre real estate scheme and Superman reaches “time travel speed”, as Britney Spears might say, in order to stop him and save Louis Lane. A little self indulgent at times but entertaining.

Only slightly less well known is Superman II, featuring one of the least subtle performances of all time with Terrance Stamp as the outrageously badass General Zod. The presence of Kryptonite in II was replaced with Superman inexplicably deciding to ditch his powers, only to regain them later. This horrific idea is rescued by the hilariously over-the-top antics of Zod and his roustabouts as they aimlessly destroy and seek Superman for the ultimate showdown. (Side note: following this movie, I immediately began hailing myself as Zod in my various fantasy sports leagues).

This is where things get a little fuzzy. In the third movie, Luthor is replaced with a new diabolical villain. Unfortunately, he is even more useless than Luthor and still fits the “evil, rich, and without superpowers” archetype. Richard Pryor co-stars and dominates screen time in Superman III as a computer programmer. He dominates screen time. It is in this movie that Superman is poisoned by a low-level synthetic version of Kryptonite, and instead of dying, turns into a douche bag. It features a scene depicting a drunk Superman trashing a bar (a priceless idea that The Panel is attempting to develop into a monthly feature). Things spiral out of control and Superman fights his inner demons (himself) in an amazing junkyard fight.

In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, things descend into standard “bad sequel” fare but remain entertaining. Luthor is back and uses a strand of Superman’s hair to clone a vicious minion known as Nuclear Man (Hackman joins GW in refusing to pronounce “nuclear” correctly throughout). The last twenty minutes of the 90 minute movie feature a knock down, drag out battle between Superman and Nuclear Man that spans from downtown New York…I mean, Metropolis, to the Great Wall of China, to the moon, and back again.

After basking in the radness of these movies, I was anxious to share my Superman viewing experience with others. I found myself constantly bringing up scenes from all four movies. But without fail, each time, very few people had any idea what I was talking about when it came to matters from the 3^rd and 4^th installments. People with the same comic and superhero sensibilities I mentioned earlier were oblivious to many of the things that took place in the latter half of the series.

"Richard Pryor was in Superman III?”

He was on the cover of the movie! I felt like Claire on Heroes any time I brought it up. I started looking around for a Haitian every time I mentioned Jon Cryer’s role in Superman IV. Why isn’t this stuff more widely known?

Firstly, I believe that previously to the release of Returns on DVD, a deliberate lack of availability hindered the legacy of Superman III and IV. With electronics stores, even areas of grocery stores, overflowing with cheap copies of DVDs, including the first two Superman films, numbers III and IV were scarce and selling used on amazon.com for upwards of $30 a copy. This has since been remedied, however, with the release of the Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD set as well as the Christopher Reeve Superman Collection.

Secondly, III and IV are generally recognized as being “bad” movies. This may be technically true, but the fact that critics would pan them for their over the top antics while coddling the first two installments as “serious films” is ludicrous. By nature, any Superman story is, in fact, campy and completely beyond any reason. I defy anyone to tell me that Superman spinning the world backwards into time travel is believable and then say that Superman IV is campy because of Hackman’s voice work on Nuclear Man. In the history of film, the industry has cranked out hundreds upon hundreds of bad sequels, far more lacking than Superman III and IV, that weren’t murdered in cold blood by the studios years later.

The most telling attempt on the latter half of the Reeve series is the very existence of Superman Returns. Bryan Singer and the producers attempted to slyly fit the storyline of Returns after Superman II, including a host of plot turns that, in essence, discredit the validity of III and IV. They made a choice to eliminate them from the canon of Superman. Superman Returns has been called a “reboot” and it’s said that old sequels are often casualties of reboots. But Superman Returns is no reboot. A reboot is when you start over. You don’t go back halfway through a series and try a do-over. It’s confusing and ridiculous. It happened in Back to the Future. Marty and Doc spent an entire film trying to erase the damage. Now there are two alternate, tangential realities in the Superman world stemming from the same source (Superman II). The current filmmakers will of course defer to their own choices now, thus ending the lives of Superman III and IV. Unfortunately, McFly and the Doc have never visited New York…I mean, Metropolis.

These movies are fun. They were perhaps made for the wrong reasons, and were disappointing to many fans of the day, but that’s no worse than hundreds of other films over the years, including other Superman movies themselves. They deserve a time to shine for the current generation. They deserve some fanfare, or at least to be recognized instead of overwritten by an even worse incarnation. No longer should I be met with blank stares and when I say that Superman fights a giant computer at the end of III, or guffaws of disbelief when I tell people that in Superman IV, Nuclear Man attacks Superman with his elongated, poison fingernails in a flurry of cat-like scratches just off the surface of the moon.

But there’s naught that can be done, now. They are dead and buried, never to return. Warner Bros. would have to murder its new darling Singer cash cow to reaffirm III & IV. They won’t do that. And so the dead shall remain thus. Ignored, forgotten, forsaken. Like little lost children that were abducted and quickly replaced by faux-facsimiles, their lives swept under the rug to please the replacement kids.

Superman III & IV are my friends and Bryan Singer murdered them. I hope he can sleep at night. And I hope that when Warner Bros., sitting fat and complacent with the bloody entrails of these films draped across their savage jaws, finally keels over, it’s met by the powers that be with hard questions about the long-passed assassination of two wonderful movies.