In every orphan’s life there comes a time to search for roots. It’s a matter of natural curiosity, like how every hot girl eventually needs to kiss another hot girl. No one can fight human nature. Superman in particular gets his little ass whipped by it on a fairly regular basis.
I hate emotions. Emotions can kiss my ass and cry a lot while doing it. Nobody ever got anywhere by being a baby except babies, and I got my eye on them too. By making Superman Returns, my hope was to show the world how even the smallest amount of sensitive wimpiness can knock the biggest ass off its feet. And who’s a bigger icon of strength than Superman? The Hulk? Maybe if you catch him the two hours a year he’s not a wimp. Batman? Batman’s strength comes from grief and that makes him a pussy. Spiderman? Give me a break. Someone with real strength should be able to defeat villains AND life. If I wanna bring down a titan with tears, it’s gotta be Superman.
So Superman is this badass hero who saves the world to the point where it becomes dependent on him. Then he leaves. All the sudden. Why? Because he flew by a radio and accidentally heard some Simon & Garfunkel. He decides to take a six year vacation to visit his home planet, even though he knows it blew the fuck up twenty-something years ago. Sounds like some emotional bullshit to me.
He spends three very boring years getting there, can’t find it because it’s not there anymore, then spends three very disappointed years getting back. Because he’s Superman and people should be grateful that he even fucks with them at all, he expects the Earth to rejoice upon his return. But it doesn’t. Instead they roll their eyes and say, “Here we fucking go again. Let’s get some insurance. Now that he’s back, there’s bound to be an earthquake or bullshit volcano any second now.” Superman can hear these reactions and they really hurt his feelings. A plane crashes but he doesn’t see it cause he’s in outer space, wiping his eyes with his cape.
As Clark Kent, he tries to get his job back at the Daily Planet. His boss looks at him for a while trying to remember who he is. “Oh, I remember now,” he says. “You’re that Kansas nerd I fired five years ago for quitting six years ago.” He calls for security to have Kent’s unprofessional ass thrown out. As they drag him away, Clark tries to saves his job by promising an exclusive story on how big Superman’s penis is. The boss blows him off. “Lois Lane wrote that story four years ago. Got herself a big, fat Pulitzer too. Heard she makes her husband polish it. Heh.” As the guards are beating him up outside, all Clark can do is look at his feet and whimper, “Lois? Married?” over and over again.
So, sitting in trees and using X-ray vision, he stalks her. In movies this sort of thing comes off as romantic. Through this “research” he finds that Lois, the love of his life, not only has a husband, but she’s got a grubby little son as well. Of course, he starts crying. After watching Lois achieve FIVE orgasms with her new man, Superman flies away to save people in an effort to raise some self esteem. But no one needs to be saved. He starts lifting things to show off how strong he is, but no one pays attention. He tries to score a cameo on Saturday Night Live, but Lorne Michaels tells him that Judge Judy is already booked. Does the world need a Superman? The answer is no. Super depressed, he starts burning his arms with heat vision as a cry for help. Batman watches from the Batcave and laughs his ass off.
Meanwhile, Superman’s main nemesis hears that he’s returned. Lex Luthor, a bald, non-superpowered real estate tycoon, instantly recognizes Superman’s depression and sees it as an opportunity to crush him once and for all. Lex has a piece of kryptonite, which will grow a spiky wasteland when put in water. His plan is to grow a faux-home for Superman only to fill it with Walmarts and Olive Gardens, thus ruining it and hopefully convincing Superman to kill himself.
Unfortunately for Lex, this sudden new land mass causes all kinds of earthquakes and bullshit volcanoes, and people are finally in danger again. Superman couldn’t be happier. He saves people by lifting them, lifting their cars, lifting their houses, lifting their planes, lifting their baseball diamonds, lifting their cracked streets back together, lifting their lava, and of course, lifting their spirits.
As people cheer, Superman smiles and waives for pictures, but flies off before they can ask any questions about where he’s been for half a decade. It’s okay though, because they know he’s got to go lift Lex Luthor. Superman arrives on the spiky hunk of hell only to find Lex has tethered himself to it with chains made of Kryptonite, which Superman is allergic to. “Ha!” Lex taunts. “I’d like to see you lift me now!”
But Lex underestimates Superman’s lifting abilities now that people like him again. Instead of trying to just lift Lex, he goes ahead and lifts the entire land mass. Seeing that Superman is happy, Lex desperately pulls out his last depress card. “Superman! Lois had a kid while you were gone!”
“I already know that,” says Superman.
“Yeah, but did you know the kid was yours?!”
This bit of news hits Superman like a Kryptonite shiv right in the back. He becomes slack-jawed and let’s the island fall out of his hands, which causes an even more violent round of earthquakes and bullshit volcanoes. Probably the only person who doesn’t get hurt by any of this is Lex Luthor.
Superman now realizes how fully he fucked up when he left Earth for six years. He understands that Lois has moved on. And he knows how good the other guy is at sex, so there’s no chance of ever getting her back. Even if he tried to start a relationship with his son, it would only be on weekends, and Superman knows weekends are when most kids want to stay the night with other kids.
He is beyond the point of just crying now. Burning his arms won’t help anymore either. Quietly (because he breaks the sound barrier) and covertly (because he goes faster than the speed of light) he flies himself into the sun. The resulting explosion extinguishes the life-giving star and kills the entire solar system. This is what it sounds like when Gods cry.