Matt Bomer

I like Superman Returns more than I think most others do but even I will admit that, as a movie, it is deathly afraid of stepping out of Christopher Reeve's heavy shadow. Whether that be doing everything in its power to imply belonging in the same continuity as those films save saying it directly to our faces. Or casting a man with zero acting experience based solely on his resemblance to Chris.

I think we've gotten used to movies using nostalgia to justify their own existence. But in the world of memberberries as the new currency of cheap emotional connection, I think we forget there are worse ways of letting films coast off nostalgia. Superman Returns does nothing to branch away from the movies that came before them not because it feels the need to recycle old plot lines to remind us of what came before. But out of a fear of alienating an aging fanbase with very narrow definitions of characters that were going on 30 years old at the time.

So, I've always wondered what a world where Superman Returns tried to establish its own identity would be like. And one fancasting in particular has always come to mind.

LOOK AT THIS MAN!

Has a more Clark Kent looking MFer ever existed?!

The sad thing is that this is beyond fancasting. Only recently did I find out that DC had him in the running for a multi-picture deal as Superman. They unfortunately cancelled it when he came out as gay. And, in fact, the project that eventually evolved into Superman Returns was this project.

I am screaming in agony over this decision. This man looks more like Superman than Superman does. Can act his ass off, and is genuinely passionate about the comics and they just abandoned him. This might be the biggest What If in comics media. Forget Nick Cage Superman, forget Tom Cruise Spiderman. This could have been the new definitive take on the man of tomorrow and they threw it away.