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More than likely, the large majority of the masses will venture into their local Megaplex in the coming weeks to see the blue and red suited Man of Steel back in action. However, it’s probably safe to say that most of these people probably haven’t even seen the 1978 classic, much less its three sequels. So, to catch everyone up to the speeding bullet, we here at Saturday Night Magazine have compiled a chronological list for each of the four films. Now, when you venture into the hallowed halls of the summer cinema, you’ll know exactly what’s gone down. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a Superman Timeline Spectacular. Superman 1: - Jor-El sentences three major criminals to life imprisonment in ‘the phantom zone’
- Jor-El (the scientist) tries to convince the counsel that Krypton is going to be destroyed, they do not heed his advice
- Jor-El creates a capsule for his son to escape the damage (if Krypton is so far advanced beyond human level, why didn’t he go ahead and create a capsule big enough for him and his wife too? Martyr syndrome, or was he just sulking? Perhaps he knew that it would make a great movie one day.)
- Martha and Jonathon Kent adopt the child that emerges from the capsule, the ‘stork of the twentieth century’. He is 3 years old.
- Clark leaves the farm after Jonathon’s death, discovers his ‘fortress of solitude’ and begins years of teaching from the hologram of Jor-El. He is 18 years old.
- Clark leaves and gets a job with the Daily Planet in the city of Metropolis. He is about 28.
- Some shit happens with the power-hungry Lex, Superman saves the day, but in doing so, he diverts some nuclear missiles into space and releases the three criminals from the phantom zone.
Superman 2: - Zod, Ursa and Non arrive on earth and take over.
- Clark and Lois are on an undercover assignment when Lois clocks on to the idea that he might be superman, so tries to ‘test it out’ and fails. Back in the hotel room, she discovers his secret when he trips over and falls into the fire and is unharmed. He removes his glasses and straightens his posture (although his parting remains on the Clark Kent side).
- Superman decides to get rid of his powers and they have sex on a giant silver bean bag.
- Clark gets beaten up at a café in a vicious feud over a chair.
- Some shit happens with the criminals from Krypton, Superman (always with a capitol ‘S’, kind of like ‘God’) has to get his powers back and beat them, which he does.
- To avoid the heartache of losing the superest boyfriend in the universe, Superman erases Lois’ memory (didn’t know that he could do that, did you?).
Superman 3: - Clark returns to Smallville his high school reunion
- The powerful Mr. Webster utilizes the comical computer genius Gus, for the building of an evil super-computer. When Superman gets in the way, Gus presents him with synthetic Kryptonite which doesn’t succeed in killing Superman but instead splits him into two: his goofy and feeble alter ego Clark Kent, and the unrestricted sinister version of Superman, complete with stubble (a sure fire way to recognize a superhero in distress, see also Scott Summers aka Cyclops’ impressive stubbleature in X3 after Jean’s death.)
- Evil Superman causes chaos, and has sex with Mr. Webster’s attractive, blonde and busty minion.
- Superman beats the shit out of Clark in a scene that threatened many a childhood with nightmarish distortions of the once clean-shaven all-American hero.
- Just when you think that Clark is beaten (trapped in a metal-crusher to be exact), he emerges with heart-warming passion and succeeds in destroying evil Superman. Good Superman is back, and after an off-screen reunion with his razor, he goes to get the bad guys.
Superman 4 (aka the one they try to pretend doesn’t exist): - Lex Luthor steals a hair from Superman’s head (he’s bullet-proof but apparently you can pluck his hairs straight from his scalp as you wish) and creates Nuclear Man.
- Superman and Nuclear Man fight. In an unexpected twist, Supy wins.
- That’s about it for that one.
Superman Returns There are conflicting rumors that the new movie takes place between Superman 3 and Superman 4 or that it takes place between Superman 2 and Superman 3 and pretends that the last two movies don’t exist. For consistency, the latter makes more sense. Especially as, if we were to allow this injection into the quintology, we would have to assume that Lois somehow ‘misplaced’ her son and spent the pennies in her jar labeled ‘house-keeping’ on cosmetic surgery, allowing her to fit nicely into ‘the world’s teeniest, tiniest bikini’ (that’s an actual description from the shooting script) that she parades in Clark’s face at the beginning of Superman 3. So, here’s the premise we’re working with: after the second movie, Superman left Earth for five years in hope of finding some fellow Kryptonians. When he returns, Lois has a five-year-old kid…hold up. Remember the beanbag incident? Either Lois had a rebound lay, was having a lucky week, or that little tyke might just be able to heat up his own milk using his heat ray. That’s the moneymaker question of the movie right there, which will no doubt remain tragically unresolved.
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