20 Years Ago, DC Gave a Legendary Director a Chance to Re-Do His Biggest Disappointment As a Comic

Superman was DC Comics‘ first superstar, starting a legacy that created the superhero as we know it. Superman would quickly become one of the most popular character in pop culture, appearing in every form of media imaginable. However, it took a while for the Man of Steel to get a big Hollywood movie, with Superman: The Movie premiering 40 years after the character debuted. This film was directed by Richard Donner and it was a massive hit, leading to a sequel that was even bigger, pitting the Last Son of Krypton against one of Superman’s biggest threats in General Zod, Usra, and Non. However, Donner clashed with the studio over the movie and would be removed from the production, with parts of the films rewritten. The resulting movie is nowhere near as good as the first, although it does have its charm.

Donner would start his own production company and eventually got a young assistant named Geoff Johns. Johns would start to write for DC Comics in the late ’90s, soon becoming one of the biggest writers in the entire industry in the 2000s. He spearheaded DC’s ’00s pre-Crisis revival, with 2005’s Infinite Crisis changing the DC Universe. In the aftermath of the event, he was given the keys to Action Comics, but he wasn’t alone. He brought someone with him – his old mentor Richard Donner. The two of them would work on several story arcs together, kicking off with a story that was basically Donner getting to re-do the movie that broke his heart in 2006.

Richard Donner Wanted a Very Different Superman II

So, when it was finally decided to do Superman on the big screen, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind wanted to make two movies at once, with Donner directing both. However, throughout the production tensions started to rise between the Salkinds and Donner. The budget was skyrocketing and Donner wanted an altogether different movie from them. He was building modern myth, trying to capture truly epic scenes, but that costs money. The producers were not happy about this and eventually fired Donner after 75% of Superman II was finished, with Richard Lester brought in.

Lester’s film instincts were completely different from Donner’s, and this led to Superman II having its strange mixture of big, serious, epic scenes and quirkier, funny scenes that played with just how strange superhero universes are. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s also not a great one, and it definitely can’t match Donner’s first Supes film. Eventually, a Donner Cut would be released on DVD, removing some of Lester’s scenes and using concept art to show what would have been, but we never actually got to see the movie that Donner wanted to make.

In 2006, Johns was one of the biggest creators on the planet and he was able to do what he wanted. He was taking DC in a more classic direction and so he brought in Donner. Superstar artist Adam Kubert, son of DC legend Joe Kubert, was brought on to draw their first story, titled “Last Son”. The yarn ran through Action Comics #844-846, but delays meant that the story wouldn’t continue until issue #851, with it finishing up months later with Action Comics Annual #11.

The story had a retro feel from the first page, with Kubert channeling Christopher Reeves and Margot Kidder, giving Metropolis the same kind of look and vibe it had in the movie. Unlike the movie, the son of Zod and Ursa is sent to Earth, able to be used an umbilical to pull the others there. Superman finds the boy and tries to take him, battling against Lex Luthor, Bizarro, and the federal government before the Phantom Zone Kryptonians showed up, leading to a massive battle that saw the Kryptonians triumphant and opening up the Phantom Zone to take over the Earth. Sueprman is able to escape the Zone (in a 3-D issue where I bought a regular version of because I don’t like 3-D) and in the finale is able to defeat Zod with the help of Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, and the Superman Revenge Squad.

We know that a lot of this wasn’t in the Donner Cut and even if it would have been, it would have been impossible to make it look good. Nowadays, “Last Son” is the version of the story we’d see on the big screen; back in 1980, you weren’t going to get anything like that (I don’t know about you, but I would have liked to see 1980 big screen Bizarro). There was no way something as nerdy as the Superman Revenge Squad on the big screen back then. I can’t even imagine Gene Hackman being okay with being in a movie like that. However, Donner wanted something closer to that than what we got. The Salkinds didn’t want to pay for his big vision, but luckily DC Comics did.

However, “Last Son” showed the kind of scope that he working with. While it didn’t copy the ending of the Donner Cut – Superman spinning around the Earth and undoing everything, allowing him to stop the Phantom Zone Kryptonians right after they escape – it shows that Donner understood how to tell a Superman story. If you look at it, it has a little bit of everything – there’s big action and intrigue, but there’s also smaller-scale, more personal stuff. He understands the “super” and the “man” in Superman, knowing when to use one or the other. In a lot of ways, this comic was Superman II from an alternate universe, a different view of a story that expands on everything.

DC Comics Was Able to Right a Longtime Wrong

Comics and movies are similar and different. Both are visual storytelling mediums, both have scripts, and both can be used for just about any kind of story you can imagine. However, the only budget for comics is how much you’re paying the creators and how much it costs to make and ship. Comics were the home of superheroes for so long because you couldn’t replicated the insanity of superhero universes in live action until fairly recently in entertainment history.

The Salkinds wanted to make as much money as possible on their investment, but Donner just wanted to tell a good story, an epic about one of the most popular characters in pop culture. I remember watching Superman II as a kid and liking it, while also thinking it was a bit corny. “Last Son” took the basic ideas of the movie and shot them into the stratosphere, allowing Donner take his movie in directions that he couldn’t have even if he got to make it. It’s an important part of DC history, one of the greatest Superman stories ever.

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