"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, 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,
says 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...”
-- Joe Kelly
