Why Don't You..?

“Our Minds are just focused on these Goals and Plans... which in themselves are Not Reality.”

“No. Goals and Plans are not... I mean, they're Fantasy. 

They're part of a dream life. 

I mean,you know, it always just does seem so ridiculous, somehow that everybody has to have his little Goal in Life. 

I mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when you consider that 

it doesn't matter WHICH one it IS.”

“Right. 

And because people's concentration is on their Goals... in their Life they just Live each moment by HABIT. 

Really, like the Norwegian telling the same stories over and over again. Life becomes HABITUAL. And it is today. 

I mean, very few things happen now like that moment when MARLON BRANDO sent the Indian woman to accept the Oscar and everything went haywire. 

Things just very rarely go haywire now. 

And if you're just operating By Habit then you're not really Living.

I mean, you know, in Sanskrit, the root of the verb "To Be" is the same as "To Grow" or "To MAKE Grow."”

“Huh.”

Manchester's Origins are all based on, like 

'I wanna pick someone who's kind of The Opposite of Superman, but also [just] as powerful; so, his having telepathic powers and telekinetic powers and as opposed to  physical powers, unlike Superman, kind of represents (for me) 'Okay, I was a guy who was picked-on -- so, in my head, I'm looking at people that were picking on me, and going "I WISH YOU WOULD DIE! I WISH YOU WOULD DIE! I WISH YOU WOULD DIE", and one day they finally DID --

This, I think, is a pretty relatable kind of Dark Fantasy that most people have, so -- Manchester IS That Guy.

Manchester's upbringing was very dark -- he comes from an abusive home where there's just Him and His Sister.

His Sister is a bit of a source Hope and some Light for him; she's put in a position where she has to work in a Sweat Shop and she loses her arms in an Industrial Accident and that snaps Manchester -- that's when His Powers unleash, that's when he starts executing Bloody Revenge on anybody who's near him, who ever hurt him, who ever did anything to him. He starts to explore what those Powers mean and what they allow him to do.

I also wanted him to be charismatic and funny, with just NO regard for Sensitivity Political Correctness --

In the comics, and in the film, too, there were jokes that we had to pull BACK on, because they were even pushing it TOO far...

Yeah, he was just a complete MESS, say absolutely whatever's on his mind and.... Kill Ya as soon as look at ya.. :)

After Superman and Manchester meet in 775, Superman sort of finds the centre of the power in his brain and uses a little, er, X-Ray/Heat Vision Microsurgery to essentially sort of paralyse that bit that gives him His Power.

THEN, he decides to make another go at Superman -- 

He CAN'T get over this idea that Superman is as Wholesome and as Pure as he seems to be -- 

because if Superman's that Pure, that means that he's really that EVIL.

He starts throwing all of these Supervillains at Superman, and it's a ruse to get him far enough away from Lois, so that when he returns to Metropolis, she's DEAD.

But, he DID NOT kill Lois -- because, he had hoped that [Superman] would kill HIM, and, when The Illusion broke, he had killed a man under false pretences, and that REALLY was going to be his "SCREW YOU!!" To Superman -- but, er.... 

It didn't happen.

And so he just goes off into The World,  and essentially commits suicide, as a result of that event -- when he decides it's time, he's going to end his own life, he basically turns his own power against himself, he sort of literally makes his hand like a gun and sort of telekinetically shoots himself in the head... 

IT DOESN’T WORK.

-- Joe Kelly