While Man of Steel may not have gotten the glowing critical praise many expected, it did at least make bank at the box office. And thanks to that, a sequel is all but guaranteed. The only question is, where to go? Man of Steel was flawed, yes, but it left the door wide open for an entire DC Cinematic Universe to spring forth. I've done fanfiction on realizing the Justice League on film before, but now that Man of Steel has provided a direction, I feel like taking another crack at mapping the DCU on film, using MOS as the launching pad in a way similar to what Marvel did with the first Iron Man.
Unlike Iron Man, I feel it best that the Superman franchise remain somewhat standalone. While it wouldn't hurt to include easter eggs to tease the wider universe, I feel right now that Superman and his mythos aren't fully developed enough to have him join up with other heroes. He still needs to fully embody the ideal of hope that his father(s) wanted for him. As such, Superman will be handled first in my imaginary cinematic DCU.
Superman's adventures will continue in "Man of Tomorrow." The film will begin with an accident on a space station, causing the station and its occupants to re-enter Earth's orbit. Superman arrives to save the day, and here we see that he's a lot smarter and more confident in the use of his powers. Not only does he save the astronauts, but he also disposes of the debris so it won't hurt any civilians. Essentially, his Metropolis fight with Zod has given him an extreme aversion to killing and a desire to preserve all human life, along with the realization of just how much damage his powers could cause. He's slowly but surely growing into the savior status Jor-El wanted for him.
However, certain civilians and military brass are still untrustworthy of him. We learn that Superman worked in conjunction with LexCorp to rebuild Metropolis, during which time Superman was able to recover the Scout Ship, rebuild it, and move it back to the Arctic, where it's been refashioned into his Fortress of Solitude. Now the true Last Son of Krypton, Superman goes there from time to time to seek council from Jor-El. He laments the isolation he feels at being humanity's savior, and often wonders what the best way to save his adopted race is.
Lois Lane, Perry White, and new photographer and Supes admirer Jimmy Olson support him, with Lois always telling Clark that he's not alone and helping him adjust to his new job at the Planet. When Clark learns about a conflict stirring between two countries at a DMZ, he speeds off to prevent all out war from breaking out. However, his presence only escalates the tension, and causes the two parties to fire at each other. Superman gets in the middle and tries to save lives on both sides, but eventually the U.S. military arrives to call Superman off and scale back the fighting.
Lex Luthor is introduced as the billionaire head of LexCorp, a scientific and engineering genius who believes he embodies the best aspects of mankind-intelligence, ambition, and ingenuity. He's extremely jealous of Superman due to "the alien" having robbed him of his savior status. With the rebuilding of Metropolis, he's working on rebuilding his reputation while trying to publicly defame Superman.
In a televised interview, Lex explains how Superman claims to protect humanity but really thinks himself above it, as evidenced in how he stormed into an international military conflict and made things messy by representing the U.S. He ends the interview by questioning whether the battle with Zod was a ruse to gain our trust, and that he secretly plans to assert his dominance over the Earth by making us all dependent on him, thereby preventing human civilization from ever truly progressing.
Seeing this, Clark is enraged at Luthor's attempt to defame him but secretly wonders if his constant saving is more like interfering. Should he really get involved in humanity's affairs? Do his powers give him the right to intervene? And even if they do, even with all his gifts, is it even possible to save humanity? While Clark contemplates these questions with Lois, his mom, and Jor-El, Luthor is approached by the military to come up with a deterrent to Superman.
After rebuilding Metropolis, Luthor managed to salvage pieces of General Zod's armor. In addition, he took samples of the surrounding rocks from the area of the Indian Ocean where the World Engine began its terraforming, finding the surrounding environment has become an exact geologic replica of Krypton. Finding these fragments highly radioactive, Luthor uses them as a power source for his reverse engineered battle suit, dubbing the new power source "Kryptonite."
Lieutenant John Corben, a survivor of the Metropolis battle with an intense hatred for Kryptonians, is chosen to pilot the armor should Superman ever turn against America. Wishing to see if his hunch about kryptonite's effect on Superman is correct, Lex hires a gang of thugs to act out a terrorist plot, and end up framing Superman for a large bombing. The media blows the incident out of proportion, making Superman look like a villain despite Lois and the DP's best efforts to tell the actual story.
The military gives Corben the go ahead to use the armor, and in the resulting fight Superman is heavily weakened by the suit's kryptonite core. In a desperate bid to defend himself, Supes punches Corben through a wall, severely injuring him. Feeling ashamed and exposed, Superman flies off, admitting to Lois that he might have jumped the gun on the world trusting him and that he should go into hiding. Luthor has Corben rebuilt as a cyborg, using parts from the armor and the kryptonite to power an artificial heart. Corben is hailed as a true hero, while Superman is nowhere to be seen.
Clark thinks about how the kryptonite made him actually feel vulnerable for the first time in his life, so after all this time he doesn't feel so alone. He and Lois deepen their relationship, during which time Clark realizes that his upbringing and relationships with Lois and others make him truly human. Luthor's criticisms of his saving efforts were legitimate because Clark was drifting away from humanity. As a result of killing Zod and nearly destroying Metropolis, Clark was focusing too much on his alien nature and savior status that he forgot that, amid all his powers, he's still human.
Knowing this, he accepts that he can't force his will on humanity, and the best way to guide the people is to embody humanity's ideals. All his life he was a Man of Steel, but to truly be Superman, he must become a Man of Tomorrow. This means he has to practice these ideals regardless of what humanity thinks of him, bringing new meaning to Jor-El's speech about the humans eventually joining him in the sun. Meanwhile, Corben grows insane when he realizes his new machine parts have made it impossible for him to feel anything. Fearing the loss of his own humanity, Corben decides that he's above it and goes on a rampage through Metropolis.
Superman comes out of hiding and fights Corben, with their battle being intense but a lot smaller and more personal than the Zod fight. Supes goes out of his way to minimize collateral damage and protect civilians, all the while getting weaker from the kryptonite exposure. When the people see this, they realize they were wrong about Supes and rally behind him. Eventually, Clark rips the kryptonite out of Corben, deactivating him (basically putting him in a coma). Supes collapses, near death, but the people of Metropolis hold him up and expose him to sunlight, restoring him. Superman is now wholly embraced by the public as a savior.
The military collects Corben's body and cuts Luthor's defense contracts. Thanks to Lois, Clark learns of Luthor's role in Corben's creation and confronts him. Luthor talks about how he is the true Man of Tomorrow, and that the people rallying behind him is only proof that they are simple minded and can't appreciate his genius. Thanks to his lawyers and PR department, he's removed any connection between him and the bombing that framed Supes, so even Lois's story won't matter. The two enemies reaffirm that this rivalry is only beginning. As Superman enjoys the trust of the public, Luthor makes it his personal goal to kill Superman. He continues tinkering with fallen Kryptonian tech recovered from the Metropolis fight, and as the film ends we see that he accidentally sets off a homing beacon that summons Brainiac to Earth.
The third and final film in the trilogy, "Last Son of Krypton," will begin with a flashback showing Brainiac, a humanoid supercomputer from the planet Colu obsessed with obtaining knowledge, kidnapping the Krypton city of Kandor. He envelopes the entire city in a force field and traps it in a pocket of Phantom Zone space. Usually, he would blow up the planet afterwards to ensure he was the only one possessing this knowledge, but his detection of the planet's unstable core makes him leave. This is what causes Jor-El to realize Krypton was dying, imparting this knowledge to Zod and leading to the rift between them that causes the events of the first film's prologue.
In present day, Brainiac detects the presence of Kryptonian tech on Earth, arriving to collect Krypton's last son. He meets with Luthor, and the two form an alliance. In order to incapacitate Superman, Brainiac manufactures a creature with the DNA of several Kryptonian animals to fight the Man of Steel. He names it Doomsday, and sets the creature loose on the world. Clark and Lois realize their love for each other and get engaged, just as Doomsday's rampage reaches Metropolis. Superman and Doomsday begin an all-out brawl that ends with both combatants dead. The world mourns the loss of their savior, Lois in particular. Luthor commissions a statue and a memorial for Supes, but in secret steals his body for Brainiac.
Finding it interesting that Superman's cells contain Krypton's codex, Brainiac uses a makeshift Genesis Chamber to clone another Kryptonian. Luthor hopes to use this process to create an army of Supermen, consolidating his power, but Brainiac says the process was an experiment and can't risk any Kryptonian knowledge ending up in the hands of a human. He has Superman's corpse placed in Kandor, and when Luthor tries to betray him, Brainiac absorbs Luthor into his being. Unwilling to be taken over, Luthor's consciousness fuses with Brainiac to form Lexiac, who decides to use the Superman clone to convince the public of Kal's ressurection. This is secretly a distraction so Lexiac can bottle Metropolis and destroy the Earth, the same as he's done with countless worlds.
While the Superman clone sucessfully convinces everyone Supes is back (all but Lois, who sees right through the clone's more violent behavior), Clark is ressurected in Kandor via a regeneration chamber. He's greeted by his Uncle Zor-El and cousin Kara, named after an ancestor who crashed in the Earth Scout Ship. Kara is a natural birth like Kal, the result of the Kandorians resorting to natural reproduction in the absence of the codex. With Clark having come through to Kandor, the portal to our world is temporarily open, but only wide enough for one or two people to go through. Zor-El pleads with Kal to take Kara with him, to give her a better life than here.
Kal and Kara breach the pocket Phantom Zone and escape Kandor, finding themselves aboard Brainiac's empty ship. They return to Earth and confront the clone Superman, who on orders from Lexiac is now destroying parts of Metropolis to distract from him readying the force field tech and Phantom drive. Kal and Kara battle and defeat the clone, alerting the public the real Superman is back. Lexiac sends a missile into the sun to destroy Earth, while trapping Metropolis in the pocket Phantom Zone. Kal and Kara escape, with Kara leaving to destroy the missile while Supes battles Lexiac, first on Earth and then on his ship.
Supes separates Lex from Brainiac and defeats the evil machine, while learning that the pocket Phantom Zones are only stable on board the ship. He restores Metropolis and finds a suitable planet to restore Kandor. Kara decides to stay with her parents to rebuild Krypton on this new world, where they are free to continue their civilization away from Earth while learning from the mistakes that doomed the original Krypton. Clark will communicate with Kara via the Fortress to check up on them, thereby becoming the bridge between two peoples Jor-El wanted.
Luthor's alliance with Brainiac and Doomsday and his role in creating the Super-clone become public thanks to Lois, and as such Luthor is awaiting a full criminal trial. Clark remarks how, thanks to his death and his reunion with Kara and the Kandorians, he fully experienced first hand what it feels like to be mortal, while also being happy that he's no longer Krypton's last son and that his people can live on. But he does not belong with them, and chooses instead of marry Lois. As the personal saga of Superman comes to a close, his adventures in the wider DC film universe are just beginning. Throughout the trilogy, the DP will get news of other heroes popping up throughout the country, foreshadowing how Superman has inspired not only regular humans, but other heroes as well. Their stories will be told in Part II of this epic fanfic, which I shall unveil later.
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