3. Richard White - Superman Returns (2006)
Richard White (James Marsden) is engaged to Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) and has a kid with her named Jason. It's a safe bet to say that the guy has it pretty good and is nothing but a supportive fiancé to Lois and a loving father to Jason. Needless to say, Richard goes through a lot of trouble for nothing. When an inquisitive and very stupid Lois takes Jason onto Lex Luthor's (Kevin Spacey) yacht, they get trapped. Richard has to go and save them, but not before an emerging Kryptonian continent underneath them punctures a giant hole right up the middle and causes it to sink. They almost all drown until Superman (Brandon Routh) saves them at the last minute. They go to take off in Richard's plane, but due to being in the middle of a giant storm in the middle of the ocean, Superman helps them flight out. At the behest of Lois, Richard turns the plane around in the less than desirable flying conditions to save Kal-El. In Superman's most desperate hour, he's stabbed in the back by Luthor with piece of Kryptonite and falls towards the icy water below. He's pulled out from the watery depths by Lois who dives into save him and is promptly assisted by Richard of course. Richard then has to take off again the eye of the storm and white knuckles it out of there all by himself. While this is going on, Superman picks up the entire Kryptonian land mass and flings it out into space right before he falls unconscious and plummets down toward the earth. Yes Superman saved all of North America, but had Richard not saved him first, all of those people would have been dead anyway. Being such a stand-up guy, Richard drives Lois and Jason to the hospital. On his deathbed, Lois confesses what we assume is that Superman is Jason's biological father, all the while Richard is stuck in a traffic jam outside for her own selfish benefit. At the end of Superman II Clark gives Lois a convenient case of amnesia so she forgets that that he's Superman and that they banged that one time in his Fortress of Solitude. That's the continuity that director Bryan Singer was using for Superman Returns. In that case, things really suck for Richard. Surprise! He's not actually your kid! If anything, these characters would have made for the best episode of Maury or Jerry Springer ever. At the end of the day Richard still has both Lois and Jason, but honestly for how long is that going to hold up? Eventually Lois will probably tire of him and want to be saved by Superman again and Jason will also probably tire of him as well and want to spend more time with his real dad, because that guy doesn't need a plane to fly.
