So back in 1997, Kevin Smith wrote a script for a Superman reboot called Superman Lives. Then Tim Burton got involved and thought Smith’s script was stupid. Warner Brothers decided that the guy who made Mr. Mom the Dark Knight and said “I was never a giant comic book fan, but I’ve always loved the image of Batman and The Joker. The reason I’ve never been a comic book fan—and I think it started when I was a child—is because I could never tell which box I was supposed to read” well, you know, that guy obviously was the one to reboot Superman and not the silly fat guy who had been reading comics obsessively since youth, because Burton did the only thing that mattered. He made money with Batman.

So what happened with Superman Lives? Well basically they went into pre-production and then dicked around for year, signing Nic Cage, rewriting the script, and designing toys at the behest of producer Jon Peters. Peters was reportedly very insistent about having Superman not be able to fly, and having him fight a giant spider. After burning through $30 million in pre-production, Tim Burton left the project and it finally got flushed.

But flash forward twelve years and we get the real payoff, images posted on Facebook of the costume that Jon Peters and Tim Burton wanted for Superman.

There are 22 pictures up on Steve Johnson FX’s facebook page, but here are a couple just to get you going:

Crap on a stick, is he from Krypton or Tron? Does that thing come with a light cycle? And best of all, check out the mannequin that they’re using with Nic Cage’s face (a cagequin?). It’s acting at least fifty percent better than Cage.

(source: SlashFilm, Steve Johnson FX Facebook)

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Steven Lloyd Wilson is the sci-fi and history editor. You can email him here or follow him on Twitter.

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