Brandon Routh Explains How Kingdom Come Affected His Portrayal of Superman in Crisis on Infinite Earths

The CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover gave fans a lot of exciting moments, but one of the biggest was DC's Legends of Tomorrow star Brandon Routh suiting up once again as Superman, reprising his role from 2006's Superman Returns. The return of Routh's Superman came with a bit of a twist, however, as the character is also the Kingdom Come version of the hero. According to Routh, however, it's not something that affected his portrayal of the character all that much.

Speaking with Geek House Show, Routh explained that he didn't take too much from the Kingdom Come comic for his "Crisis on Infinite Earths" Superman return other than the major changes, such as costume and sad backstory.

"I didn't pull too much from the source material other than what was in the tonally understanding the importance of the suit change and obviously the backstory that we put into 'Crisis' of Joker gassing the Daily Planet and the loss of family and friends most crucial to it but I think since we're not pulling strictly and 100 percent from Kingdom Come it was kind of an amalgam of both Superman Returns and Kingdom Come," Routh said. "I used the script and what the producers had told me we were kind of using to kind of fuse them together."

In Kingdom Come, the Joker launched a gas attack on the Daily Planet, the result being the mass murder of numerous members of the newspaper's staff, including Lois Lane whom Joker attacked with one of the awards that sat on her desk. Lois's death then sent Superman into retirement. In "Crisis" that same gas attack happened, leading Clark Kent to become editor in chief of the Daily Planet, but also making him a man who had lost more than any mortal -- the Paragon of Truth needed to fight the Anti-Monitor.

For Routh, revisiting the character is something that he approached with great care after "Crisis" executive producer Marc Guggenheim introduced the idea.

"Well, he said that they were doing the Crisis storyline and that they were going to have the Legends and Ray Palmer be a big part of it," Routh said last year. "But also since they were involving multiple earths and universes, that there was a potential if I was interested for me to show up in a different suit as well. That's the way he kind of pitched it. And so I said, "Look, I'm really honored that you would ask and it sounds like a really great thing, but I just want to take a moment to sit with it to make sure that it's the right decision for me to revisit the character." I obviously said yes later."

The CW will re-air "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in its entirety beginning Tuesday, April 7.