I've been a Superman fan since I was a child. At one point I owned fifty-something different stylized Superman "S" shirts. From 2004 to 2008, I was called Superman at work (three different jobs) because I was strong, fast, and saved the day every day while wearing the S.
When Superman Returns came around, I was excited. It was the first Superman movie to come out since I was born (because nobody counts Quest For Peace) and when that kid threw a piano, my heart sank and I felt like Hollywood betrayed Superman's mythos. And then Superman blatantly allowed some other guy to keep raising his bastard child and I felt so very betrayed. Other than that, it was still a good Superman movie.
Then Zack Snyder was announced as director to a "darker, grittier Superman" movie and from there, I knew that Hollywood was about to rape the hell out of something I loved dearly. During development, I saw disturbing things. Lawrence Fishbourne as Perry White. Jenny Olsen. No Kryptonite. Henry Cavill as Superman (the American icon played by a Brit). And I was able to glance past these things with a bit of sorrow in my heart. But then I saw the costume and literally shouted "what the ***k?!"
Three days before the movie came out, I was on Yahoo telling people that this wasn't the Superman from the comics. This Superman was a murderer and wouldn't you know it? He killed Zod. I was able to call this three days before anyone else saw it because there was no possible way he'd uphold his moral code that he stuck to in the source material.
And some argued about when he killed Zod in the comics. I effortlessly argued that in the comics, he stripped a fake Zod of his powers because the pocket universe Zod had already killed everyone on earth. It wasn't until fake Zod threatened to regain his powers and kill everyone Superman loved that he reluctantly killed him. And for years in the comic (decades in real life), he would lament the lengths he went to stop that Zod.
Superman lamented killing Zod while he was fighting Doomsday and because he restrained himself, Doomsday seemingly killed him. Not in the movie, though. When the next movie comes out, there won't be a word about how killing someone was going too far. Because, you know, he'll kill the badguy in THAT movie too.
My wife is a huge Superman fan, too, and she was arguing with a friend online about Man of Steel and I wrote out her argument about source material to sound perfectly knowledgeable about Superman. I jokingly stated that I'd rather watch Kevin Smith direct the movie and have Superman fight a giant spider for no reason than watch Man of Steel, both were possibilities for what became Superman Returns. Damn it if he didn't fight a giant robotic spider for no reason in Man of Steel.
Instead of the staple of Pa Kent dying of a heart attack/not dying at all, he goes out in a pathetic attempt at plot advancement. And when he tells Clark not to use his abilities or he'd be viewed as a freak, it slandered the character of Pa Kent. Because no one really treated him as a freak in the movie. So he spent the length of the movie finding how to cope from people when it was his earth father who was bullying him. Thanks for being encouraging toward your adopted son, Kevin Costner.
The weak terraforming plot did nothing for me. Not even a wiggle.
The manner in which he got his suit (a fake, cheap knockoff that was too dark to be iconographic) just bypassed all that made Clark a noble hero. By the end of the movie, he's just a guy who can move mountains with his hands and has no code to live by. He can kill and he can do it easily if HE feels it's necessary. May as well be Red Son Superman. At least an Elseworlds story has no obligation by the fans to respect the source material.