Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The world was a different place in the 1930s. People in North America were in financial ruin. A racist, fascist leader took over a country and deemed that anyone who wasn’t white shouldn’t deserve the same human rights. The world was on the brink of war. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so different after all. One thing was for sure, though. For most of that decade, there was no Superman.

That would all change in 1938 with the release of Action Comics #1. Though there were many characters introduced in that premiere issue, Superman was the one that would rise above the rest. He became a sensation, eventually earning his own comic book series, and a place among the DC Comics royalty alongside Batman, Wonder Woman, and all the other Justice League characters. He was practically the face of DC Comics from that point forward. The good American boy who was actually from the far away planet of Krypton.

It was only a matter of time before Superman would make the transition to both the small and big screen. He jumped to radio in 1940 before quickly getting the theatrical animated short treatment in 1941. Kirk Alyn portrayed Superman in a couple serials that came out in 1948 and 1950. Then George Reeves got the role for a 1951 B-movie and the television series that followed. That was all within the first fifteen years of Superman being created.

The biggest thing that would happen with Superman outside of the comics would come in 1978 when Superman: The Movie was released. It was a rousing success, spawning a franchise that spanned six movies, including the spinoff Supergirl movie. It was the first big budget American superhero movie based on an American (technically part Canadian) comic book superhero creation. And it set the scene for everything to come.

It would take a while for the big, successful superhero movies to become a normal thing, though. Sure, Batman came out in 1989 and set off an old-timey hero to the big screen trend that included The Phantom and The Rocketeer. But most of the superheroes were relegated to lower budgets if they wanted to make it to the big screen at all. Captain America and The Punisher got that treatment. So did Superman, by the time the film series reached its fourth, non-spinoff movie.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was released in 1987, only nine years after the first film in the series hit the big screens. Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) was back to save the day in Metropolis. His alter ego, Superman, was once again pitted against Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), who recently escaped prison with the help of his nephew Lenny Luthor (Jon Cryer). They created a supervillain named Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow), who was an evil clone of Superman that could only come to life under direct sunlight. All the while, the Daily Planet had been taken over by a tabloid and it was up to Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Perry White (Jackie Cooper) to fight against the sensationalized news.

The Superman series of films had fallen a long way since it debuted on the big screen in 1978. The first two films were big-budget spectacles that had a talented, popular-at-the-time creative team behind the camera. Mario Puzo, the author behind The Godfather, was brought on to write the scripts. Guy Hamilton was brought on to direct, though he would later be replaced by Richard Donner. Richard Donner would then be replaced, partway through the production of Superman II with Richard Lester. And the Salkinds, a storied family in the Hollywood world, helped to produce it. They had a decent amount of trouble with the third film, as actors Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder disliked how the Salkinds relaced Donner, so Hackman was left out of the film and Kidder’s role was reduced to a cameo. By the time the fourth film came around, a huge change was ready to happen.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace no longer had the Salkinds as producers. They were completely out of the franchise, and thus, a new creative team stepped in. The intellectual property was given to Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the men behind The Cannon Group in the 1980s. They were big on churning out lower budget action flicks based on cheap scripts that they could make in no time. That’s the kind of quality treatment that the fourth film in the Superman series got.

The Cannon quality could be seen throughout Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Much of that came down to the writing. There were two main stories, one about a newspaper takeover and how sensationalism can dilute the importance of the news. The other was about Superman fighting a Superman clone. The two stories didn’t tie into one another at all. They were separate stories that were kept separate but for the tabloids trying to make Superman look like a bad guy. Clark had no active interest in the news part of the film and the news part of the film had no active interest in Nuclear Man. They could have been two completely separate movies.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, though not great in the writing department, still had some interesting action littered throughout. It may not have had the budget of Superman: The Movie ($17 million compared to the $55 million of the series starter), but director Sidney J. Furie and The Cannon Group knew how to make the most of their minimized budget. There were a few flying scenes, including multiple times in space. There was a small fight at the Great Wall of China. Nuclear Man even flew up through the many floors of a high-rise. It still had a decent level of spectacle. Yet, something about that spectacle felt cheaper than the movies before. It felt like sets made to look like the real thing, rather than sets that felt like the real thing. It was the uncanny valley of action locations.

That might be the defining characteristic of the lower budget superhero movies of the late 1980s and 1990s. Movies like 1990’s Captain America and 1989’s The Punisher had a similar problem. They wanted to recreate the spectacle of the big budget action flicks of the time, but they didn’t have nearly the same budget. Their spectacle action felt off. They were trying to reach the same heights without having the same resources, which created a dissonance when characters were supposed to be fighting at a place like the Great Wall of China. It looked almost right but wasn’t quite perfect.

The other defining characteristic was the supervillain. When looking for a cheap script, it can almost be guaranteed that a villain like Nuclear Man will be present. He was an easy villain to create that would be slightly difficult for Superman to overpower. He was a clone of Superman. He had all of Superman’s powers, but stronger. All of Superman’s strengths were his strengths as well. But the hero must come out victorious in the end, so there had to be a weakness. Nuclear Man never came in contact with Kryptonite to tell if he was weakened by it. He did require sunlight to have any sort of power, however, which was the easy way for Superman to defeat him. Take away the sunlight and Nuclear Man would be defeated. It was an easy villain to create in a cheap script to avoid having to pay rights for any other comic book villains. Create a Superman clone with one major weakness so that he could overpower Superman, yet still be defeated in the end.

The Superman film franchise would rebound when Bryan Singer took over for a reboot/sequel called Superman Returns in 2006. It got the big budget necessary to make the spectacle feel spectacular, rather than an attempt at spectacular. Then Superman would get a reboot with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013. He also got the 1990s Lois and Clark series, as well as Smallville, which began in the mid-00s. Superman was back on track as a film and television star in his post-Cannon days.

The world has gone through a lot of change since Superman debuted on the comic book pages in 1938. Wars, politics, fast food, television, sports, and movies helped to shape the world that people live in today. Superman went through it all. And he changed with the world. Faster than a locomotive became faster than a speeding bullet. He got movies and television shows. He got overtaken by other superheroes. But he’s been there since 1938, and the world has never been the same since.

There are a few notes for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace:

• This week’s movie was directed by Sidney J. Furie, who also directed Iron Eagle (week 90), Iron Eagle II (week 90), and Iron Eagle IV (week 90).
• Four actors from Flash Gordon (week 81) were in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. They were John Hollis, William Hootkins, Stanley Lebor, and Derek Lyons.
• Christine Hewett and Tina Simmons were featured in both Die Another Day (week 153) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
• Mariel Hemingway had a major role in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. She could also be seen in Rise of the Zombies (week 16).
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace wasn’t the first Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance of Margot Kidder. She could previously be heard in GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords (week 244).
• Finally, Jim Broadbent was in both Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and The Avengers (week 304).
• Have you seen Superman IV: The Quest for Peace? What did you think of it? What are your feelings on The Cannon Group? What are your feelings on the Superman movies? Let me know in the comments. Or you can get a hold of me on Twitter.
• You can find me on Twitter or in the comments if you want to let me know about the movies I should be checking out in future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments. I’m always open to suggestions.
• Head on over to Instagram when you have time and check out Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always trying to find some fun stuff to share over there.
• Now let’s take a look at what’s in store for next week. It has been a while since I went with a movie where the demographic was kids. It’s been even longer since it was a kids’ movie that incorporated horror elements. I think the last one of those was Ghosthunters on Icy Trails (week 324). Phantom Town will be the next movie, and it would be nice if you’d come back next week to enjoy it with me. See you then.