First the Alternate ending to Superman II. I find this to be pretty satisfying on a gut level. Better than the mind-gutting kiss.
Ha!
Now an alternate beginning: The third and fourth audition tapes from the Superman Radio Show.
Superman 39xxxx The Shark (Audition Part 1) 1
Superman 39xxxx The Shark (Audition Part 2) 1
Sometimes we all need a reset button in life, I guess. In these two episodes, remakes of the audition tapes for public consumption, a few changes are made along the way. Fortunately minor tweaks early on can have a big impact in the end.
Superman 400212 e0001 BabyFromKrypton
Superman 400214 e0002 ClarkKentReporter
There is something about a man that we need a challenge to overcome. There is a hill that must be taken, a mountain climbed, a hot rod built. We have to walk the Appalachian Trail. But what if you were without limits to challenge. What if the constraining bonds were society and challenges against it? Obviously Superman and Tyler Durden are on opposite sides of the fence. Superman upholds civilization against all odds while Tyler is an incorporeal mad bomber & cult leader who leads the disaffected and bored against a society that they feel holds them back from being supermen on their own.
We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't.
What do the challenges in our lives mean? When I was at Castle Peak, what the mountain meant was far more than what the mountain was. What is life without something to overcome?
I was born during a snow storm in August. True story. My brother was born during a January heatwave. We have the makings of a country music song. If my sister was born during a electrical storm I would wonder if we had some latent weather related super powers, but she wasn't and as far as I can tell, we don't.
Despite the fact that we were raised together, we come from very different places. Small western towns play significantly into who I am, while Matt, my brother, was raised almost entirely in cities and suburbs. Lizzie, though from the same house doesn't have the same experience with having two parents that Matt and I do, having taken the brunt of the divorce while she was seven years old. I never had to go back and forth between households.
We all come from somewhere, and it helps to make us who we are. If I never had the experience of living in a town of 250 people to contrast with two days later being moved to a city of over 3 million, would I love to get away to the quiet in the same way that I do? What about Matt and Lizzie would be completely different if they had grown up differently? Would Superman be Superman without first being the Last Son of Krypton?
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