Kryptonite Bites

The Red Bull Racing team decked out in its Superman race suits at the Monaco Grand Prix.

In the tradition of "X-Fever," we're providing a regular roundup of Superman Returns ephemera: "Kryptonite Bites."

Watch the new trailer online
Kal-El.org provides links to the third Superman Returns trailer, airing with some prints of X3. You can also watch it at YouTube.

The 'S' is for ... savior?
I imagine this is the first of many (many) articles exploring the Superman-as-Jesus metaphor: The Evansville, Ind., Courier & Press talks with Steve Skelton, author of The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero, about the parallels between the Man of Steel and the, um, Son of Man.

"It's not just Steve saying that if you tilt your head just right and squint one eye you can see Superman as a Christ figure," Skelton says, curiously referring to himself in the third person. "It's the authors themselves saying it."

'You feel a weird sense of loneliness'
Meanwhile, director Bryan Singer tells MTV.com about identifying with Superman in his role as an outsider.

"I've always felt like an outcast of some sorts myself," he said. "I was an only child, I was adopted, I was the only Jewish kid in my neighborhood, I was picked on a lot, and I was a terrible student. Even as a film director, you feel like a bit of an outcast — it's lonely at the top. Even now in my career, as a film director, you find yourself surrounded by a great many people because it takes an army of people to make a film, particularly a film of this size. Yet at the same time, you feel a weird sense of loneliness. Your burden is unique."

Singer also speaks with Los Angeles City Beat about his expectations for fan reaction to his new vision for Superman: "I like to think they'll appreciate [the modern touches]. There are always some fans that will have a very strict interpretation of what a movie should be, and perhaps they'll only find parts of it that they will respond to. There are very few true, insurmountable obstacles for Superman, and frankly, on a personal level, the child is a huge obstacle for him to reconcile."

The City Beat article also contains a couple of interesting figures for Superman Returns: The film contains more than 1,400 special-effects shots, and cost "well south of $200 million" -- just a little over its initial $184.5 million budget.

'The Man of Steel would never betray our trust'
And, finally, because you demanded it, Writers/Artists Snacking at Work reviews the limited-edition Superman Crunch cereal. Sadly, the reviewer doesn't recommend it:

Box loudly exclaims, "Superman Shield Shapes Turn Milk BLUE!" Apparently, this is a good thing. At least for kids. Those of us over 20 remember when skim milk used to have this blue tint to it that induced the gag reflex. Fortunately, the blue milk trick, while disturbing, is acceptable because the Man of Steel surely must have signed off on this when selling his soul to Quaker, and the Man of Steel would never betray our trust.

...

For starters, the red Superman Shield tastes like... well, nothing really. Actually, no, that's not quite right. It has a mild bleached oat-meets-overdone-marketing flavor. Wow, I guess it really could have used that "S" in the center.

One might guess that a younger child seeing this cereal box might be lead to believe that eating Superman Crunch will give them super powers far beyond the ability to turn milk blue with artificial food coloring. I'm here to tell you that even with the sugar rush experienced after eating a bowl of Superman Crunch, I was unable to see through walls, catch bad guys, or even get lucky with my wife.

On the upside, the reviewer urges Quaker to release a Shazam! cereal. I second that motion.

(Superman Crunch art courtesy of Kal-El.org)