Sure there was a lot wrong with Superman Returns. He leaves his adopted planet for half a decade, Luthor is still trying to get rich from real estate, and then there's the son.

Superman is a protector. He's there to inspire hope. To show humanity what they can aspire to. I don't think he's been portrayed that way in any of the movies they've put out so far.

But I think rebooting the franchise is a completely unnecessary step and would probably do more damage. There's a lot of stories you can write using what was established in Superman Returns. While I don't claim that what I've written below is the best storyline ever, I think it does have some merit.

*******

TRAV'S IDEA FOR A SEQUEL TO SUPERMAN RETURNS

Set two to four years after the last movie. Lex Luthor is still trying to get his life together after almost destroying America. Nobody except Superman, Lois, her fiance and her son know what he did. Lex publically puts the blame for what happened entirely on Superman. Lex runs for office on a "Vote No to Superman ticket". His charismatic speeches begin to sway the public.

An alien spaceship finds the kryptonite island Superman launched into space and discovers it's point of origin: Earth. The spaceship crashes in a Metropolis park and, using TV images, creates a humanoid avatar that looks almost, but not quite like Lex Luthor. It teams up with Lex to turn Earth into a New Krypton. Lex sees it as a way to become absolute ruler. He's past the need for money now.

Brainaic take up refuge in LexCorp tower and twists it into an organic looking spire, that contrasts with the art deco architecture of Metropolis.

With the tide of opinion against him, Superman is now just plain old Clark Kent. He performs a heroic few saves every now and then, but nothing that can be explicitly traced back to him. He finds he much prefers being Clark Kent anyway.

The Brainiac kidnaps Superman's son and uses a vial of his blood to create a way to give the city's population Superman's powers, but at half strength. Lex likes the idea of rising the population up and making Superman less special by doing so.

Those in the population that receive powers (some vastly different to Superman's) are loving it. While most use their power for good, a large portion of the population spend their days flying around and testing the extent of their abilities. Some have even turned to crime.

Luthor discovers that the Brainiac means to destroy the rest of the planet leaving only Metropolis. Then he'll shrink the city down and catalogue it with others he's captured.

Brainiac controls the large army of superpowered people through nanites he included in the formula. This army rallies around Brainiac's tower as Lex broadcasts Brainiac's intentions to the world. The army attacks the tower doing zero damage, but accumulating heavy casualties to due the super-powered bodyguards.

Superman realises he's the only one who can stop this. He files to the tower and takes out a few of the supers but the large group are more than a match for him.

He shrugs them off and flies into the tower itself. There he fights the Brainiac and knocks it out. Superman finds his son unconscious on a bench. He wakes him up and they fly out of the tower. He drops his son on the footpath and is then knocked down the street by a metallic tentacle. A bigger, bulkier Brainiac (2.0!) appears out of the tower and begins to fight Superman. They fight for a long time. As they trade punches and Superman reasons he can cut loose on the Brainiac as it's a robot, not a living being. The streets crack open and windows shatter as they battle across the city. With one last punch Superman breaks the Brainiac's head open. The super-powered population regain control of their own bodies. Superman hurls the body into space.

At the end of the movie it's shown that his son lost all his Kryptonian abilities due to Brainiac's experimentation. The population hasn't though. And even if Superman isn't considered unique powers-wise, he's still going to show those with good in them how a real hero acts.

The city howled with an icy wind. Two figures huddled as they made their way along the cracked bitumen. Being careful to step over the spots where green vibrant grass had pushed through.

The taller figure, a man, walked with purpose. He knew where he was going. Suddenly the smaller figure, a young girl, broke off and ran to a vine covered wall. She ran her hand over it and shot a confused look at the man.

"Why is the rock flat?"
The man laughed. "It's concrete." The confused look remained. "Someone made it."
"Oh."  She tugged at the greenery, then went back to running her hand over it.
"Come on."

The man  picked her up and walked further along the street, they turned a corner and it opened up on a courtyard. He dropped her on the ground and stared out over a thin, rusted railing. He could see the grey ocean churning in the distance and he was lost in his head for a long time.

"Dad?" The little girl asked, nervously.
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"Where are all the people?"
"Long gone I think."
"where'd they go?"
"I'm not sure."
"So we're safe?"
"Yeah."

He felt her small hand grip his tightly. She didn't like being here at all.

"You want to go?"
She nodded yes.

They turned around and began heading back the way they came.

"Where are the animals?"
"They've been gone even longer than the people."
"So no cows?"
He laughed again. "No, honey. No cows." He looked down at his daughter. "You like cows, huh?"
"Yeah. Rory doesn't like cows though. He's says they're dumb and they smell."

They were picking their way through the grassy patches near the edge of the city again. The girl lifted her arms up. The man grabbed them and threw her up onto his shoulders.

"I wouldn't want to live in a place without cows."
"Me neither, kiddo. Me neither."

There was no time to waste.

As promised, Abdul had left the farm before dawn, but not before passing on a warning: They knew where he was and they were coming. "They" of course were the adults. Yakov called in the three oldest kids, plus Pietra. When he'd told them what Abdul had said they just stared at him. Then Pietra began to cry. Yakov hugged her tightly.

Why are they doing this?" She asked between sniffles.
"They're just hungry."
"But so are we."
"I know. Listen to me. I want to you round up everybody around your age. Take them to the barn and lock it from the inside. Bar the door with anything you can find.
"But what about you? You can't even walk!"
"No arguments, Pietra. Go!"

It looked like she was going to cry again, but she ran out of the house before Yakov could be sure. He turned to look at the other three.
"Help me."
"We're not fighters, Yakov," said Evan.
"I know that, but we can't let them take this away from us. We can't go back."
"Then what?" This was Sally.
"We're going to have to learn how to fight. This place is too valuable to lose."

When he thought about it, it had been too easy. The escape from Kilda, the uneventful trip through the badlands, and then finding the farm laid out waiting for them. He wasn't surprised karma had come to collect.

Yakov had clambered onto the roof of the farmhouse for a better look. With his leg the way it was this was the best he could do for their group. Down below he made out pairs of kids hiding and waiting. Sunlight glinted off the pots and pans a few of them had scavenged from the kitchen. Then something else caught his eye. A black mass had begun to form at the top of the ridge. A lump caught in Yakov's throat. There were too many of them.
Get ready!" He shouted. He heard a few sobs in response. The mass was getting closer now and separating into individual figures. At the front of the group he recognised his father.

One of the adults threw a rock through the window and then it was on. The adults swarmed over the farm trampling the newly sown crops. A group of kids ran out and tackled those closest to them. Once the other adults saw the pot dangling from Sean's hand they pounced like wild animals, screaming "We're hungry. You have to feed us."

Other kids ran out from their hiding places swinging in wide arcs in an attempt to ward off the ravenous horde. Yakov saw the carnage below and braced himself on the window sill.
"Stop it! Stop it all of you!" Hans pulled a woman off the still body of Sean and stared at Yakov through sad eyes.
"Oh no," she cried, "What have I done."
The kids quickly formed a wall between the adults and Sean.
"Get out of here. Just go."

They trekked for days through the burnt detritus that encircled their former home. Rain poured down from the dark grey sky soaking each child through to the bone. Morale was low and more than once members of their little band had given up and turned back.

They further they went the less inclined they were to idle chatter. Yakov could sense a full scale mutiny approaching if they didn't find Eden soon, but the constant rain was making it hard for him to get his bearings.

It was only through sheer luck that, early one evening, he found a path through the blackened landscape to the green-hilled utopia beyond. He grabbed Pietra and gave a loud whoop. The children rolled out onto the sodden grass laughing and cheering. Pietra watched them for a moment then turned to Yakov.
"Where's the farm, Yakov?" He scanned the unfamiliar horizon, pointed in an arbitrary direction and replied, "Umm...that way."

The group marched all night through the wet grass. Without cover Yakov didn't want to risk them staying out in the open exposed to anything. And anyone. As morning broke they crested a small rise and looked out on to acres of graded land and beyond that: a large farmstead.
"Wow," gasped Evan, the brother of Yakov's previous travelling companion.
"Race you!" shouted another as he took off down the slope. The other kids launched themselves down the hill towards the farmhouse. Yakov stood watching them all until his sister tugged at his arm and said "Come on, Yakov. You don't want to be the rotten egg!"  He laughed and raced her down. Careful to let her pull ahead and win at just the right moment.

*****

Yakov and a few of the others spent the whole morning doing an inventory of the farm. The previous owners had left the place in relatively good condition, but they'd taken almost all the food. In a crawlspace - so small that only the youngest boy could fit - they found a stash of aluminium cans, the labels long since faded; a Tupperware container filled with seeds and a dusty leather journal. In the front of the journal Yakov found a folded piece of paper, a checklist for getting the farm up and running again. The seeds, the journal told him, were wheat, or would be once they'd weeded the field and sown them. He looked up to see Pietra and two of the younger girls walk past munching on handfuls of blackberries.
"We found a bush," she said, matter-of-factly.

Surely it couldn't be this easy? He thought to himself.

He organised a few of the older kids into groups to help him work through the checklist. There was a well somewhere nearby that they would need and with the rain stopped and the sun out they could begin to clean up the field. Pietra, ever helpful, put together her own group to help pick the rest of the blackberries.

"Yakov? Is that really you?"
"Yeah, Mum. It's me."
The grey-haired woman hugged her disheveled son tightly.
"Is that you, boy?" Hans stomped into the entry and glared at his son. "What? You didn't bring anything?"
"Hans, be nice. Your son is back. Quickly, gather the town."

*****

Yakov was leaning against the railing looking down at the assembled crowd. It seemed to him that the entire population of Kilda had turned out to hear him speak.
"Where's the others?"
"They..umm...didn't make it."
"What do you mean?"
The fat man was standing to close to Yakov. He could see every bead of sweat rolling down his pink, bloated face. He was wringing his hands and fidgeting at the same time. Almost like he was trying to dance.
"I..err...that is too say...they never made it back here."
"What?" Yakov began to hyperventilate. "I can't do this. I just need to rest for a while. Maybe I'll do this tomorrow."
The crowd began to stir. "Tell us what you saw!" Shouted a woman cradling a baby.
"Yeah! What are you hiding?"

Yakov turned back to the crowd, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them the first thing he saw was Pietra standing in the middle of the crowd gnawing at something black and gnarled. An apple maybe? His shoulders stiffened. He knew what he had to do.
"You want to know what I saw?" The crowd yelled it's approval. "O.K. I saw lush, green plains. Open space as far as the eye can see. People farmed this land. Growing what they needed instead of scavenging."

The crowd seemed to wane. He wasn't grabbing their imagination. He noticed his sister again.

"And I saw apples. Huge, red apples. So big they bent the branches that they hung from." His sister looked up at him, dropped the apple from her mouth and shouted up to him "Show me!" Then quickly added, "Please."

A murmur went through the crowd. Then was suddenly silenced by, of all people, his father.
"Stop this. Stop this lying, Yakov."

The old Yakov, the one whose life experience was distilled from his father's would've backed down. But not after everything he's seen. He was his own man now.
"You stop, Dad. You think you're the voice of reason? You're not. You're the voice of fear. You're afraid."
"I have every right to be. You forget that you were the only one to come back." Yakov felt a lump rise in his throat.
"I did, and now I'm going back there."
"To what? A land of milk and honey? Where apples fall from the sky?" His father snorted.

"I'm going back. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

Every kid in the crowd cheered. They'd never heard of any kid standing up to any adult before, and now, right in front of their eyes Yakov had stood up to his own father. They began chanting his name as loudly as they could.