A big hurdle (maybe the biggest) for anyone making a new “Superman” movie is that unlike other comic-heroes you’ve got a general-public that has JUST as strong an impression of what the character “must be” as the fans do – except said impressions are entirely different. Superman is the most iconic fictional figure on the planet Earth, everyone who knows him also “knows” what he’s supposed to be… and for the mainstream audience, the “supposed to be” framework is largely limited to the everybody-knows origin story and the various movies and TV  shows; with ONE simple question hobbling even the most earnest of attempts: How do you “refresh” Superman for today without simply revisiting “Superman: The Movie?”

According to Latino Review, Zack Snyder (director), David Goyer (writer) and Christopher Nolan (human fanboy-proof-shield) have apparently found the answer: By revisiting “Superman II,” instead.

Earlier today, word “leaked” that the new “Superman” movie was casting a major female part… but that it wasn’t Lois Lane. In fact, the “shortlist” seemed to be favoring blondes. “Who could this be!?,” wondered The Internets. Lana Lang? Cat Grant? Supergirl!?

Sez Latino Review: It’s actually URSA, the female member of the troupe of Kryptonian ex-cons led by General Zod in “Superman II.”

This makes a lot of sense, really. Zod etc. are really the only Superman enemies other than Lex Luthor and MAYBE Brainiac that non-comic readers have heard of, so it’s familiar for “everyone else” while fans can likely look forward to the “Superman fighting someone/something else with super-powers” movie they’ve been demanding since before “Returns.” The obvious question now becomes “so is Zod in there, too?” Probably, yeah… if for no other reason that I can’t imagine them having the ONLY combat in the film being Superman punching the crap out of a woman, super-powered or not. The still-secret storyline supposedly involves a younger (20-ish) Clark Kent traveling the world (in-between leaving Smallville but before settling in Metropolis) trying to decide exactly what form his “use powers to help world” form will take; so make of that what you will. “Clark doubts powers can actually be helpful, same-powered heavy threatens world, Clark realizes purpose and becomes Superman,” maybe?

Actually, Zod could be the “teased for the sequel” bad guy, too… or would that be Luthor?

Quick head’s-up: The Armchair Thinkers podcast has yours truly as a guest for the most recent episode (Feb 3 2011) and we get pretty into depth on stuff like The AntiThinker, Other M, etc. Check it out HERE:

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Sort of.

Intermission sez: Happy Birthday George Romero.

Scans from Empire, via ComingSoon.

The problem with Cap is that, comics/cartoons being abstract mediums, it’s generally been kind of hard to get a handle on what he’s actually supposed to be wearing – the “blue part” of the suit is usually supposed to be some kind of armor, until-recently that was usually “visualized” by drawing little curve-mark “scales” all over it. When Alex Ross paints him, it usually ends up looking like plate-mail. Most of the time artists just say “eff it” and treat it like the standard painted-spandex onesie.

But I REALLY like this. You almost never see one of these made out of practical-fabric, which really makes the “muscle-padding” work a lot better than they do in rubber. Above all else, you can tell it was built to MOVE, so hopefully it won’t have the Batman Problem where the fight scenes all happen “around” a main character who can (very obviously) barely lift his own feet.

ALSO: Samuel L. Jackson confirmed on Jimmy Fallon’s show (so that DOES exist!) that Nick Fury is set to turn up in both “Captain America” and “Thor” – the Thor part is news, previously it’d been said that he wasn’t in there. This would also seem to confirm that we’ll see Cap’s arrival in the present-day in the movie (or at least after the credits) since Fury couldn’t possibly have appeared in WWII.

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Although… this does bring up the still-wonky question of how OLD Nick Fury is actually supposed to be in these. In Iron Man 2, he says he knew Stark Sr., who has been dead a good amount of time already as that series opened. Movie-Fury looks like the “Ultimate” version, who’s just a regular secret agent; but the traditional Fury is actually slightly older than Cap is, and has been kept artificially young(ish) by a serum derived from the stuff that created Cap in the first place – he was original a WWII-era character, “Sgt. Fury,” and some version of his team “The Howling Commandos” have been rumored to turn up somewhere in the Cap movie, so… who knows.

Bleeding Cool has the pilot-script NBC bought for David E. Kelley’s “Wonder Woman” reboot. How does it look? In some respects, better than many were probably expecting. In other respects… much much worse. More after the jump:

Amazingly, if your “hangup” was the admittedly-logical prospect of Kelley junking the source material entirely… you can relax a bit – if anything, it looks as though the main problem is “shitty TV-writing” as opposed to “disrespect for the material”: At least according to BC’s report, pretty-much all the “weird” stuff I would’ve expected them to throw out actually made it in: Lasso, bracelets, Amazons, magic island, super-powers, etc.

The “general” backstory seems to have arrived intact: Steve Trevor crashes on the Amazon’s Island, brings Diana back to Man’s World, etc – she goes by “Diana Themyscira,” and Wonder Woman appears to be her “title.” The big change is to the interim: At the point at which the “present day” story kicks-in, Trevor is now “the one that got away,” and in addition to acting as a superhero she’s founded a super-wealthy corporation (“Themyscira Industries.”) That the CEO of said corporation is a superheroine on the side is general public knowledge – so, pretty-much a copy-paste of “Iron Man,” but with a female lead. If nothing else, this pretty-much screams “older actress” (say late-30s and up), yes? If so, that’s a refreshing development.

It IS kind of funny how much it lays bare the shamefully narrow definition of “strong female character” in TV terms, though – the character is a (literal) superhuman, described in the script as being able to throw a truck around… but, dammit, you’ve GOT to find a way for her to also have a glamorous-yet-taxing White Collar job – otherwise, how will anyone know she’s supposed to be tough and independent!!?? Yeesh.

On the less-good side, while she’s not doing the secret-identity thing between her two “careers;” she DOES still have the Diana Prince (hair up, glasses, “girl Clark Kent” basically) second-self for a “walkin’ around” identity; which seems to exist mainly as a place for trite “women-as-imagined-by-David-E-Kelley” idiosyncracies: Singing along with the radio, “girlfriends” who behave like grade-school BFFs into their 30s, “cute” pining for Steve Trevor (a’la “Big”) and, of course: Ice Cream Buddy-Binging. Ho ho! Women bonding over junk-food! That bit NEVER get’s old…

Incidentally, Veronica Cale is named as the main baddie. A fairly recent creation in the comics, she was a scientist whose “thing” was trying to destroy WW for not being a good-enough feminist role model (“it’s easy to be accepted when your already a goddess,” that sort of thing.) In terms of appearances in comics people might’ve actually read, she was the blonde doctor who seduced Will Magnus and then had a “what have I done!?” breakdown in “52.”

Huh. Whaddaya know.

It’s utterly-impossible to “predict” who or what he’ll be playing, because that’s not how Nolan and company roll: He could be playing anyone, re-imagined into anything, and it’ll probably work out (and if not we’ll spend years pretending that it did anyway) because Nolan Can Do No Wrong.

In any case, might as well make a game of it: Who can come up with the most preposterous rumor as to who he’s playing?? I’ll start:

He’s Dick Grayson… but NOT Robin!

He’s Clark Kent… but NOT Superman!

He’s Bane… BEFORE the experiments!

He’s Jack Ryder, alias “The Creeper” (short version: What if Keith Olbermann was secretly The Joker, and a good guy.)

He’s Harley Quinn – Nolanverse Joker is even more “reimagined” than we thought!

The Joker: 2.0!

Azrael! (good god, I hope not…)

The new Ras Al Guhl!

Vic Sage, alias “The Question!”

The Riddler – Turns out the Nolan’s really, really liked your photoshopped fan-poster!

The Ventriloquist! (I love that guy)

Superboy Prime – he suckered-punches reality, thus explaining why the various DC movie heroes don’t live in the same universe now!

Surprise! The vaugely Robin Hood-esque bandit Alfred supposedly killed back in the day had a son! And he likes to hire Luchadores and kitty-cosplayers to fuck with his enemies!

Clayface. Why the hell not?

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For those keeping track, the planned feature is a seperate entity from the Richard Donner/Bryan Singer/etc continuity; with a top-secret story by David Goyer, “overseen” by Christopher Nolan (“hey Chris, can the Superman guys borrow some of your fan-rage-proof armor?”) and directed by Zack Snyder. Of all of them, it’s Snyder’s involvement I’m most excited for – the guy jumps in with both feet, doesn’t know the meaning of “unfilmmable” and lacks the phobia of compositional-beauty that afflicts so many of his contemporaries. Plus, if it’s even 1/10th as good as “Watchmen” was… damn.

Trivia: This makes “Avengers” the only 2012 American superhero movie (out of 4) without a British actor feigning an American accent in the lead – Cavill, Christian Bale and Andrew Garfield are all Brits.

So… how does Tom Hooper, formerly the director of the superlative “John Adams” miniseries, currently director of “The Kings Speech” – possibly the blandest, safest, most staid (increasingly-prospective) Oscar Juggernaut since… I dunno, “Out of Africa?” – pull a “surprise” upset at the DGAs  for said overblown A&E special over the heavily-favored David Fincher?

Search me, but it’s a pretty unpleasant turn of events – yes, even for Hooper to some extent, who’s actually pretty talented (see: “John Adams”) and now gets to have a 21st Century “WTF” equivalent to “Driving Miss Daisy” hung on him. If I had to take a stab at it, the probable answer is that MOST of the Directors Guild is comprised of paycheck-to-paycheck “journeyman” TV guys, which is precisely what Hooper has been up to this point, so there’s a hometown-boy-makes-good angle.

The takeaway, of course, is that given this, the similar Producers Guild win and the fact that it’s a big-cast “actor’s film” you can pretty-much pencil-in “Speech” as this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner which is… simultaneously meaningless and blood-boiling, so… whatever.