@socketwench - The Reverse the World thing in Superman II is actually how Superman 2 was supposed to end, not 1.

Superman 1 ended with Superman rescuing Lois at the very last minute. He never reverses time, and goes straight from Lois to sending Luthor to jail.

Superman 2 always ended with turning back time, and was supposed to be the one time it was used. When filming on Superman 2 was halted, they decided to use that climax in the first movie, in case Superman 2 never got finished.

When the Richard Donner Cut was assembled, there was a choice for an ending. Either do the time-reverse as was originally intended, or use Richard Lester Footage to have her memory erased by the "Super Kiss." Richard Donner only wanted to use as much Richard Lester footage as was absolutely necessary for story continuity (which is why the Niagra Falls sequence is so thing), so he was against using the Super Kiss. And when the choice was also presented to writerTom Mankewicz (agian, apologizied if I spell it wrong), he went with the reversing time ending as well. His reasoning "Clark Kent should never kiss Lois."

Unfortunately, this comes across as "Superman just turns back time everyting something bad happens" but originally, he only did it in Superman 2.