Remember how Captain America: The Winter Soldier was basically a political thriller starring jacked people in colorful costumes? A Superman movie could do the same with the investigative thriller genre. In previous movies, The Daily Planet is pretty much a plot device to get Superman to hear about earthquakes before undressing in the broom closet and flying off. But in the comics, there are plenty of examples of Clark Kent taking down villains through reporting work instead of just punching them. Or, you know, before punching them. That part's important. He's still Superman, come on.

Of course, any movie about journalism made today has to acknowledge the dark side (Darkseid?) of the profession: the fake news, the manipulation, the infuriating auto-play ads, etc. That's where Morgan Edge, one of Superman's most neglected villains, comes in. Edge is the owner of a major TV network (and at one point, The Daily Planet) who moonlights as the leader of Intergang, a criminal organization created by evil space gods to destabilize Earth. While investigating Intergang, Clark Kent could stumble upon the Edge connection, realize the role the media has played in a sinister space plot, and question his professional calling. Spacegoddamn, I can taste that Oscar already.

And speaking of wacky space stuff ...

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See, Ragnarok bears a striking resemblance to Superman's "Exile In Space" saga, in which he ends up in deep space, gets kidnapped by aliens, loses most of his powers, is forced to compete in an intergalactic gladiator arena, and eventually takes down the crazy space despot ruling that place. Oh, and he has a sweet beard. That's essential to the plot.

DC ComicsThat's quite a hulking adversary he's fighting there.

Marvel may have beat DC to this particular story, but the Superman comics are full of crazy concepts like that. It's no coincidence that Ragnarok draws heavily from the work of Jack Kirby, the artist famous (but not famous enough) for creating half the Marvel Universe in the '60s. After ditching Marvel in the early '70s, Kirby went to DC and was offered any series he wanted. He picked the lowest-selling comic, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, and proceeded to go absolutely nuts on it, creating an entire mythology featuring deranged genetic experiments, a group of mega-smart hippies who live in a motorized mountain, and the aforementioned space gods.

All that stuff is fun, and movies like Ragnarok and Guardians Of The Galaxy have proven that *gasp* people like it when superhero movies are fun. But there's also a ton of dramatic potential. One of the greatest Superman stories ever told is Kirby's Forever People #1, in which Superman sees a portal to the space gods' super-city and, for a brief moment, allows himself to fantasize about living among equals for the first time in his life. He wants to be a "regular chump," it turns out. At the last second, he remembers his responsibility to the people of Earth and stops himself, but there's more pathos in Kirby's rendering of Superman's anguished posture than anything Zack Snyder has ever shot.

DC ComicsThat "BOOM" is the sound of Superman's heart breaking.

The technology finally exists to do these stories justice on the big screen. All that's missing is filmmakers brave enough to embrace that cosmic insanity. Or you could go in the exact opposite direction ...

Related: The 6 Craziest Superman Stories Ever Written (Twice)

Back then, Superman was just powerful enough to beat the societal problems Siegel and Shuster were raging against. Maybe that's as powerful as Movie Superman needs to be. Give him super senses to see the dirty secrets of the corrupt establishment, inhuman strength to force them out into the open, and bullet immunity to get away with it.

DC ComicsAnd heat vision, because eye lasers are cool.

Superman had evolved into more of a sci-fi character by the time the first cinematic adaptations came out, so we never got to see a live-action version of Siegel and Shuster's cathartic anti-establishment fantasy. When you think about it, it's nuts that the freaking Joker got a film in which he inspires an uprising before Superman did. A movie or show about Superman as an unstoppable, intimidation-proof activist could fuel the character for another 80 years. Or it could flop horribly. In which case you could try ...

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This is an aspect of the character his latest movies don't show enough, or straight up ignore. They show him preventing big disasters, which is good, but not the dozens of smaller, personality-revealing acts of kindness that would fill his days. Here's a good Twitter thread about it by former Cracked writer / current famous YouTube person Karl Smallwood:

I'm not saying they should do a whole movie of Superman helping old ladies cross the street, but it would be a nice change of pace if this central part of his personality also played more of a role in one of his films. Again, there are all types of examples of this in the comics, from "The Amazing Story Of Superman-Red And Superman-Blue" (Superman splits himself in two to get more shit done), to the acclaimed All-Star Superman (Superman is dying and must accomplish 12 labors before he croaks), to the many stories where he loses his powers and still manages to be all Superman-like, even if it kills him.

Exploring Superman's almost pathological compulsion to help humanity also provides a good excuse to dig a little deeper into his relationship with Lois Lane. In most of the movies, Superman appears to fall for Lois because, well, she's there. It was her or Perry White. But there's more to it than that. When Clark Kent meets Lois in the 1977 movie, she's rude, distrustful, professionally jealous, and judging from her spelling, appears to have serious learning disabilities.

We later learn that she smokes, so she's also self-destructive. In short, she's human. She's everything Superman is not and can never be, and he can't help loving her, just as he can't help loving humanity in general a little too intensely. Except he doesn't eventually marry and impregnate humanity in general, I don't think. I'd have to check the DC Wiki. Point is, Superman's impulse to save humanity at all costs seems particularly worth exploring at a time when humanity seems intent on doing the opposite.

Now, if you work at DC Films, you're probably thinking "How do I decide which of these brilliant takes on the character to plagiarize?" Easy ...

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