Before he became Lord of the Franchises, with a stake in such hit film series as "Star Trek," "Mission: Impossible" and now "Star Wars," J.J. Abrams was just a successful TV guy who was asked by Warner Bros. to come up with a new take on the ultimate superhero, Superman.

The studio ultimately passed on his treatment and began work on what would eventually become Bryan Singer's 2006 "Superman Returns." 

Abrams' scrapped Supes script, called "Superman: Flyby," was a revised origin story which deviated heavily from previous tales, and featured a Kryptonian civil war, a super-powered Lex Luthor and a new villain named Ty-Zor. It surfaced online earlier this year, with many fans decrying its radical re-thinking of the beloved hero.

Recently, Abrams spoke with Empire about "Flyby" and how it may yet relate to the upcoming "Man of Steel," directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan.

"The thing that I tried to emphasise in the story was that if the Kents found this boy, Kal-El, who had the power that he did, he would have most likely killed them both in short order," he explained. "And the idea that these parents would see – if they were lucky to survive long enough – that they had to immediately begin teaching this kid to limit himself and to not be so fast, not be so strong, not be so powerful."

"The result of that, psychologically, would be fear of oneself, self-doubt and being ashamed of what you were capable of," Abrams continued. "Extrapolating that to adulthood became a fascinating psychological profile of someone who was not pretending to be Clark Kent, but who was Clark Kent. Who had become that kind of a character who is not able or willing to accept who he was and what his destiny was."

"The idea in the movie was that he became Superman because he realized he had to finally own his strength and what he’d always been. I don’t know if that’s what Zack and Chris are doing, but it looks like that’s part of the idea and I could not be more thrilled to see that movie. That to me was always the way to go."

"Man of Steel" opens June 14.