Like, travels back in time and attempts romancing his mother literally. Oh Silver Age and its fetish material.

Yet I must note there's no attraction to Lara here at all (which is just kind of worth noting as Silver Age isn't above some shaky comphet attractions)... No, it's all about becoming someone with a position of power over Superman.

Then we also get this beat in the beginning of the 2023 Superman run.

You can also read this into the creation of Conner and Lex as a gene donor, since Conner wasn't meant to be a son but a replacement Superman. What's worse than baby trapping? How about trying to recreate the man you loathe-love in a way that fulfills your nascent daddy kink?

Edit: Speaking of, Bizarro has also really been re-adapted as a creation of Luthor's when that wasn't in his original conception. Post Crisis comics have it, Superman the Animated series has it, and you can kind of count Superman 2025 as this even though he's not really called Bizarro he still kind of borrows that.

Which also brings us to the glorious "Who's Your Daddy?" scene from Superman Doomsday. Who is also in the mold of "Lex makes a Superman clone."

Superman villans

Lex luthor in my universe dies of his kryptonite based cancer but uploads his brain into amazo

Parasite starved form whom I designed to look like a creepy pasta monster

Metallo + cyborg superman = the kryptonite man

Livewire! She's her she's queer she's had one to many beer and she full of electric rage so run in fear!

General dru-zod is 7 feet tall, 120 years old (only about half as old as a regular Kryptonian can get and only less then a quarter of what a sun powered one can live) he also knows Kryptonian martial arts has fought in several interplanetary wars and wields a suit powered bye redsun batteries, this worlds Clark Kent would go on a training arc after barely surviving a fight with him

Brainiac, he chooses a new name in every language he learns

Mongul.

The silver banshee aka misses olsen

Atomic skull

2006 was the big year for Superman, the year he made his return, anchored mainly by a theatrical film even titled Superman Returns!

Except did he? Did he, really?

While Superman Returns ultimately fell short of expectations and is a textbook example of a film suffering from a massive, potential-squandering identity crisis that was not worked out in production before it got fully assembled and put on screen (I've seen critics hurl that accusation at this year's Superman movie? Do they really not remember this film?), it was not the only medium Superman returned in that year, and I'm not just referring to the adaptations. 2006 also got a big Superman movie-making history documentary to coincide with the release of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, itself made and released to coincide with Superman Returns. The first out of only two seasons of the Legion Of Superheroes show, starring a young Superman, aired on Kids WB that year (it was the better season!). Finally, a compressed animated adaptation of The Death And Return Of Superman saga was made for a direct-to-video-and-DVD release, titled Superman Doomsday, though it didn't come out 'til 2007.

But there was one other Superman-based property running at that time, as it had been since the Fall of 2001. Yes, I mean Smallville!