Exactly. Hello! Do you remember Zod's dialogue, Tom? It's one of my favorite movies so I can tell you: "You WILL bow down before me, Jor El. I swear it! No matter that it takes an eternity, you WILL bow down before me! Both you, and then one day, your HEIRS!" (I know that the way Zod says "your HEIRS!" sounds like he's saying "your ASS!" but trust me: he says "your HEIRS!") If that is not a set up for a future appearance, I don't know what is. Or are you trying to get a rise out of people?
And how many books, movies or TV shows have we seen where the bad guy shouts, just before heading off to jail, that he is going to get "even" with the hero, never to be heard from again? Really that was the worst setup for a 2nd movie possible. And the Zod portions of the 2nd movie are mostly just big fighting special effects scenes that muddy up the more interesting Luthor story.
Guardians of the Galaxy has surpassed Man of Steel's boxoffice. Very interesting statistics. MOS beat Guardians in the first weekend, and GotG has beaten MOS every weekend after that by a considerable margin. It's gotta be word of mouth. http://boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=weekend&id=originshow.htm
I also think GoTG benefits from being something fresh and also Marvel's track record which is better than WB/DC in the past few years. I haven't seen GoTG so I can't say if it is better than MoS, I do think MoS is way better than SR. ETA: I voted for SMALLVILLE.
And yet in Trek we've seen STV and Insurrection flop, and both got sequels. Also the Wizard Of Oz was originally considered a flop, and yet decades later sequels were created. I haven't seen Guardians of The Galaxy yet, but hopefully it has a better story than Man of Steel.
Here's what i thought of each: Adventures Of Superman (1951-1958) Classic show..i remmeber getting up at like 5am to watch them on TV....but as mentioned, *no* Superman villains (like Lex Luthor). To me, i think of it like Trek TOS -- classic, and the reason for future incarnations Superboy I was in high school, and busy when much of it aired.I remember the switch of not only the Superboy actor, but Lex Luthor switch really turned me off -- it made no sense to go from Superboy's contemporary to an older guy. So missed the apparently better episodes (according to Wikipedia), and due to legalities, won't see it in the future. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman I thought Dean Cain was great,and it was generally fun, despite Lois being a ditz (to me) Smallville (2001-2012) To me, there was at least a couple good things each season. The first few -- the Freak of the Week got old...but Michael Rosenbaum is the definitive Lex Luthor...too bad they couldn't use him in Superman v. Batman. John Glover was also good, giving us reasons to see why Lex became a villain. Later on, i really appreciated when they delved deeper in the grater DC universe. From Ultraman to Justice Society to of course Green Arrow. Geoff Johns' contributions were especially good -- the Legion episode really felt like a great adaptation of the Legion of Superheroes. And like most, disappointed in the ending of the series.
Apparently Wikipedia's page is a few years out of date, as all 4 seasons of the show are on DVD (Season 1 is in general release, and then seasons 2-4 are available through Warner's Archive program), and iTunes and the legalities have been settled.