Between long-forgotten costume test photos and video footage, it might've seemed as if we'd glimpsed the last relics of Tim Burton's Superman Lives, the mercifully abandoned franchise reboot that would have starred Nic Cage as the Man of Steel, Chris Rock as Jimmy Olsen and, just possibly, Tim Allen as Brainiac.

But now, some 13 years after Warner Bros. pulled the plug on the project, the Superman: Man of Steel Facebook group has gotten its hands on some more concept art for the film, courtesy of Hasbro designers Brian Eun and Ben Torres.

According to the image descriptions, the team at Hasbro worked closely with the studio to come up with concepts that could be used for both the movie and the related toy line. The result was some undeniably '90s elements, like shoulder pads, knee-high boots and something akin to body armor.

Eun's design for the Kryptonian Explorer, which borrows from Superman: The Movie, would have echoes in Superman Returns (or at least in the deleted scene in which Kal-El returns to Krypton). Two more elements I don't recall seeing before and are definitely worth mentioning: Woody Harrelson was apparently in line to play Jor-El, and Superman was to have a son -- something that will likely raise the hackles of critics of Bryan Singer's later movie.

(via Comics Alliance)