Superman Returns Henry Cavill as Superman. For the previous five years, Superman has mysteriously abandoned his adopted home of Earth while on a journey into outer space to investigate what astronomers believed to be an intact Krypton. In his absence, journalist and past love Lois Lane wrote a scathing article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman", winning her the Pulitzer Prize. Lois is engaged to Richard White, the nephew of "Daily Planet" editor-in-chief Perry White, and with whom she shares a young asthmatic son, Jason. Notorious criminal mastermind Lex Luthor secured an early release from prison due to Superman not appearing as
Superman: Last Stand on Krypton Zod. Zod questions Luthor and finds out Superman is on the planet and Luthor agrees to help him. Zod's robots descend upon the New Kryptonian sanctuary, where the colonists are infected with Kryptonium, a.k.a. the green death. The animals and people in the colony die horribly. Superman pleads with Zod to avoid war, but Zod declines, and hands him over to Luthor. Luthor infects Superman with forms of the green death, which turns him into a brutish being in the process. Superman is thus rendered animalistic and unintelligible, but his motives are still pure. He takes Lois to his father,