If I were more optimistic about the prospects of a stand-alone MOS sequel, here's where I'd go...
Firstly, THIS suit, in THESE colors, with THIS level of lighting. Thank you.
Secondly, I know everyone and their dog is just itching to see them done proper on the big screen after all these years of waiting, and there was a time when I'd have still been on the bandwagon myself, but personally I've kind of gotten to the point where I think Supergirl and Brainiac are fine right where they are for the time being. There's been enough space-villain action going on in the genre of late that sticking closer to home for menaces - ones that aren't bald camp-mongering megalomaniacs named Luthor, anyway - might actually be kind of a fresh turn at this point. That having been said...
The coming-home party is over, and the morning-after hangover has hit. In the five years since his return, Clark Kent's second lease on life has been faring rather better than that of his caped alter-ego - for one, he's become a Pulitzer winner of considerable renown; and secondly, he's now happily married to Lois Lane - but as Superman, things have kinda gone right back to square one for him. Just as America's post-9/11 rallying has given way to a nation more divided than ever, the very reality that this alien demigod has been resurrected from the dead has created a global schism that has led to violence and crime sufficient to tax all the goodwill and admiration that came to the surface with his sacrifice. There are those who see his return as the Second Coming finally realized...and those who see it as an abomination of the natural order so ungodly only the Devil could devise it.
And then there's Lois's estranged dad at the Pentagon, Gen. Sam Lane, who sees nothing but cataclysm on all sides as long as Superman remains among us...and realizes that it may take Superman dying again, and a better (read: permanent) job of it done this time, to head off a worldwide catastrophe. To that end, he's enlisted the genetic science branch of the recently-initiated Department of Extranormal Operations - CADMUS - to put all those resources and data confiscated from Lexcorp to good use. The first iron in that particular fire is to employ studies of Zod's shattered armor as well as the robotic technology aboard the Kryptonian scout ship to put one of the best soldiers he ever had, Iraq veteran Sgt. John Corben - left a triple amputee in the Metropolis attack shortly after his return home from abroad - "back together again". The second level of the project involves investing Kryptonian DNA into an existing human being to make them super-human; as this is comparatively more dangerous than bionicizing Corben, Gen. Lane selects a stoolie of his at the Daily Planet - janitor, recent divorcee, habitual thief and generally more convenient walking expendability Rudy Jones - as a subject, and the end result is a being whose mutated physiology has twisted Superman's ability to draw energy from sunlight into being able to siphon energy from any living thing around him with one touch...all at the low, low cost of rendering his skin purpler and lumpier with every absorption like a leech that's gorged itself on blood. The third level, one that Gen. Lane would rather have avoided based on how
oh so well it worked out the last time somebody tried it, is to create a wholly-new being with Kryptonian DNA - only this time using
Superman's blood, retrieved from Doomsday's skin; the result ends up just as gray and rough-skinned as Doomsday was, but with a little more hair and - once Corben and Jones are up and running enough to help out with a little "conditioning" - rather more tamable than Doomsday was as well, despite a slight case of dyslexia and preschool-level speech skills. In other words, Gen. Lane has no intention of making the same screw-ups Luthor did trying to get the job done.
But while the General is so fixated on keeping the peace by ridding the world of Superman, he really ought to be paying closer attention to what's going on inside those growing religious movements, one in particular. Led by the enigmatic Reverend William, the ever-growing stridently anti-Superman movement known as the Guardians Of Glory are being rallied by the Reverend's increasing visions of a coming apocalypse - visions in which Superman is destined to throw down against a green knight, a purple behemoth and a twisted mirror-image of himself in the heart of a small Kansas town, and from which will result an apparent nuclear explosion. Because if the General
had paid attention, he wouldn't have seen fit to have a military convoy covertly transporting an active warhead that would ultimately end up having to make a detour through Smallville.
Fortunately, one person in the General's employ HAS been paying attention - the chief engineer of Corben's Metallo armor, John Henry Irons - and his general dissatisfaction with his boss's xenophobia, coupled with his distaste for the increasing irresponsibility of the General's new "team", AND his general gratitude for Superman's presence in Metropolis where his family lives, quickly lead him to the conclusion that since there's no promise of the Justice League putting in an appearance on this one, Superman is probably going to need all the help he can get. For that matter, the same conclusion is reached even by CADMUS' prior attempt at creating a Superman clone - one that would have turned out perfect save for that he apparently arrested once he reached teen age - after the lad abruptly awakens, flees the facility, and, after getting his bearings with the help of a suspicious Lois who's been snooping around trying to figure out what her dad's been up to, decides helping Superman out may also be HIS best bet at figuring out what he's supposed to do with himself now.
(Kinda got the urge to reread that now)
