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These are a couple things I had fun with in my notebook yesterday as I was watching the Donner Cut of "Superman II" and thinking of "Superman Returns", and imagining what would happen down the road with lil' Jason.

The scenario that stuck in my mind was Jason would grow up knowing he was different than most of the people he knew, and be frustrated since the one person who would know best how to help him cope would probably get killed protecting Metropolis from Doomsday. Then, at the risk of being a little morbid, Lois would die soon after (they'd call it lung cancer, but more likely it'd be a broken heart ) This would cause Jason to go through his teenage years troubled and a little embittered, and it wouldn't help that since Luthor is still out there somewhere and knows Jason's true parentage, the kid would have be shuffled back and forth under the protection of his godparents, Bruce and Diana. Then I figure about the time he graduates from college and goes out into the real world, something would happen that would force Jason to begrudgingly acknowledge his heritage, and the massive shadow of a legacy he has to live up to, bringing him back to a Metropolis that still appears sunny and optimistic on the surface but now has a dark underbelly that's been steadily building up since Kal-El bit the big one.

In the time between Kal's demise and Jason's emergence as Superman II, the original roster of the Justice League has come and gone, each retreating to their own bases of operation after the government instates its own means of policing the world to avoid relying on potentially-destructive metahumans *cough*Brother Eye*cough*; this attitude proliferates with the existence of a Justice League consisting of a bunch of younger, smarmy, somewhat-reckless second-stringers led by Guy Gardner that barely manage to accomplish anything that saves anyone's lives.

As the result of the noticeable absence of superHEROES in the wake of Superman's death, Metropolis sees a substantial rise in superVILLAIN activity, propagated most frequently by the Lead Masks, the chief criminal organization running loose in Metropolis - although Intergang is long gone, its fractured remnants have spawned a dozen other gangs with awesome firepower at their command, and the Lead Masks get the jump on everyone thanks to their identical dress and X-ray-vision-proof lead helmets, thus making them impossible to identify by other metahumans who have X-ray vision. (As seen on the 1951-57 "Superman" TV series starring George Reeves)

Two of the first superhuman menaces Superman II finds himself reluctantly facing are Vulcan and Nuclear Man. Vulcan is Vera Webster, Co-CEO with her twin brother Ross for Websco, the new industrial power in Metropolis that rose into being after the fall of the Vanderworth-funded Lexcorp. Ross, of course, is planning to take full control of the company out from under her, and plots to have her offed when a demonstration of the company's new Vulcan Global Satellite goes awry. However, the resulting explosion instead infuses Vera - operating the system via a neural uplink interface - with the sum total of the supercomputer's stored information, and in the ensuing evaucation of the ravaged building, the computer's repair systems convert her into a cyborg capable of electromagnetically linking to any nearby device with wires or circuits and causing them to overheat or explode. She also assumes the full functions of the Vulcan Global Satellite, which is used to ferret out the chemical signature of untapped energy resources, and hunts down Ross for his act of sabotage as he goes on the run. (Adapted from "Superman III", with a bit of DC Comics' own Vulcan character thrown in)

Later on comes Nuclear Man, who is the son of Lex Luthor's former bodyguard and personal assistant Mercy Graves; his paternal parentage, however, is in question after his first encounter with Superman II. Although Alex Graves' ambitious persona, red hair, and indeed his first name seem to suggest him to be the actual blood-son of Luthor himself, aspects of his own augmented superhuman abilities seem to indicate that of Jason's own father, Kal-El himself, the first Superman - as well as an influence by the Firestorm Matrix, after Jason does some investigating that links the works of the legendary nuclear physicist Raymond Stein to Alex's creation. This complicates the situation vastly for Jason, but it doesn't complicate anything for Alex, who'd just as much like to crush the new Superman as his father would have the original. (Adopted from "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace", with a bit of Firestorm's background tossed in since Firestorm has perpetually been called 'The Nuclear Man' ).

Description
These are a couple things I had fun with in my notebook yesterday as I was watching the Donner Cut of "Superman II" and thinking of "Superman Returns", and imagining what would happen down the road with lil' Jason.

The scenario that stuck in my mind was Jason would grow up knowing he was different than most of the people he knew, and be frustrated since the one person who would know best how to help him cope would probably get killed protecting Metropolis from Doomsday. Then, at the risk of being a little morbid, Lois would die soon after (they'd call it lung cancer, but more likely it'd be a broken heart ) This would cause Jason to go through his teenage years troubled and a little embittered, and it wouldn't help that since Luthor is still out there somewhere and knows Jason's true parentage, the kid would have be shuffled back and forth under the protection of his godparents, Bruce and Diana. Then I figure about the time he graduates from college and goes out into the real world, something would happen that would force Jason to begrudgingly acknowledge his heritage, and the massive shadow of a legacy he has to live up to, bringing him back to a Metropolis that still appears sunny and optimistic on the surface but now has a dark underbelly that's been steadily building up since Kal-El bit the big one.

In the time between Kal's demise and Jason's emergence as Superman II, the original roster of the Justice League has come and gone, each retreating to their own bases of operation after the government instates its own means of policing the world to avoid relying on potentially-destructive metahumans *cough*Brother Eye*cough*; this attitude proliferates with the existence of a Justice League consisting of a bunch of younger, smarmy, somewhat-reckless second-stringers led by Guy Gardner that barely manage to accomplish anything that saves anyone's lives.

As the result of the noticeable absence of superHEROES in the wake of Superman's death, Metropolis sees a substantial rise in superVILLAIN activity, propagated most frequently by the Lead Masks, the chief criminal organization running loose in Metropolis - although Intergang is long gone, its fractured remnants have spawned a dozen other gangs with awesome firepower at their command, and the Lead Masks get the jump on everyone thanks to their identical dress and X-ray-vision-proof lead helmets, thus making them impossible to identify by other metahumans who have X-ray vision. (As seen on the 1951-57 "Superman" TV series starring George Reeves)

Two of the first superhuman menaces Superman II finds himself reluctantly facing are Vulcan and Nuclear Man. Vulcan is Vera Webster, Co-CEO with her twin brother Ross for Websco, the new industrial power in Metropolis that rose into being after the fall of the Vanderworth-funded Lexcorp. Ross, of course, is planning to take full control of the company out from under her, and plots to have her offed when a demonstration of the company's new Vulcan Global Satellite goes awry. However, the resulting explosion instead infuses Vera - operating the system via a neural uplink interface - with the sum total of the supercomputer's stored information, and in the ensuing evaucation of the ravaged building, the computer's repair systems convert her into a cyborg capable of electromagnetically linking to any nearby device with wires or circuits and causing them to overheat or explode. She also assumes the full functions of the Vulcan Global Satellite, which is used to ferret out the chemical signature of untapped energy resources, and hunts down Ross for his act of sabotage as he goes on the run. (Adapted from "Superman III", with a bit of DC Comics' own Vulcan character thrown in)

Later on comes Nuclear Man, who is the son of Lex Luthor's former bodyguard and personal assistant Mercy Graves; his paternal parentage, however, is in question after his first encounter with Superman II. Although Alex Graves' ambitious persona, red hair, and indeed his first name seem to suggest him to be the actual blood-son of Luthor himself, aspects of his own augmented superhuman abilities seem to indicate that of Jason's own father, Kal-El himself, the first Superman - as well as an influence by the Firestorm Matrix, after Jason does some investigating that links the works of the legendary nuclear physicist Raymond Stein to Alex's creation. This complicates the situation vastly for Jason, but it doesn't complicate anything for Alex, who'd just as much like to crush the new Superman as his father would have the original. (Adopted from "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace", with a bit of Firestorm's background tossed in since Firestorm has perpetually been called 'The Nuclear Man' ).