Superman: The Man of Steel

AUTHOR: Byrne, John

ARTIST: John Byrne (illustrator); Dick Giordano (inker); Tom Ziuko (colorist); John Costanza (letterer)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1986

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1991

Publication History

Originally published in six biweekly issues in the summer of 1986, Superman: Man of Steel came on the heels of the “Crisis on Infinite Earth” story line that eliminated multiple Earths and alternative story lines in the DC Universe. Denny O’Neil, a popular DC Comics writer, observed that by the 1980s there were “at least seven different universes in the DC cosmos.” These alternate universes allowed writers to create a range of stories for Supermen on different Earths, such as a middle-aged, married Superman on Earth 1 and the traditional Superman on Earth 2. Superman: The Man of Steel was intended to unify the story lines and reinvigorate the flagship superhero of DC Comics for a new generation of comic book readers.

Plot

In Book 1 of Superman: The Man of Steel, Krypton is introduced as a distant planet. Its inhabitants are a scientifically advanced people who have created a utopian existence. Kryptonians have conquered the elements, mastered medicine, and fashioned robots to serve their every whim. For thousands of years, the people of Krypton have controlled the very planet on which they live. The price for this control has been a loss of humanity, sensitivity, and compassion. Readers enter the story when the planet is rebelling against its citizens and its core is building a chain reaction that will ultimately destroy the planet. Jor-El, a leading scientist, has foreseen the imminent demise of Krypton. A “Green Death” has been plaguing Krypton, as radiation seeps through the core of the planet, killing millions of its citizens. The end is near, and Jor-El has devised a radical plan to save his unborn son.

Jor-El asks for his wife, Lara, and the delivery of the matrix in which their seed has been mixed. Lara arrives, and Jor-El explains both his findings and the urgency of the moment. He hastily details a plan to save their unborn son by placing the matrix in a rocket ship and sending it to the remote planet of Earth. Lara is shocked and asks what madness has possessed Jor-El. The scientist reveals that he has been studying Earth, which resembles an ancient Krypton. Earth is primitive, but its yellow sun will act as a battery for their child, making him “the Supreme Being on that planet. . . . Almost a God!” Lara asks if this means that he will rule over the people of Earth. Jor-El simply responds, “Perhaps.” Tremors shake the surface, and Jor-El quickly launches the rocket.

The next scene shows a football player crossing the goal line, while the stadium announcer proclaims the tenth touchdown of the game for Clark Kent. Clearly, this is not the mild and meek Kent of generations past. A disappointed Pa Kent asks his jubilant but confused son to join him for a drive. The senior Kent takes the young man to a remote field and reveals a spaceship. At the age of eighteen, Clark Kent learns that he is an “adopted alien.” Suddenly, the world changes for Clark. Over the years, mysterious powers had surfaced, such as invulnerability, superstrength, and flight, and Ma and Pa Kent kept speaking to him about service and responsibility. Clark realizes his mission and sets out to become a force for good.

Years pass; Clark has been secretly saving people around the planet. One day in Metropolis, a plane falls from the sky, and he is forced to act in public. Clark rescues the plane, the passengers of which include the lovely reporter Lois Lane. Suddenly, a swarming public besieges him. Clark retreats to the Kent farm to search for answers. Fortunately, Pa Kent has an idea: two separate identities. Clark will slick back his hair, stoop, and don a pair of glasses to preserve his private life. Meanwhile, Ma Kent has sewn a swashbuckling costume with boots and a cape to create the role of Superman, a superhero for modern times.

Books 2-5 of Superman: The Man of Steel establish several of the significant relationships in the life of Clark/Superman. Clark earns a job at the Daily Planet newspaper when he scoops star reporter Lois Lane on the story of Superman. Lois quickly casts Clark as a rival, but it is clear that Clark is enamored with the dynamic female reporter.

Next, Superman meets the Batman. On a trip to Gotham City, Superman attempts to capture the vigilante crime fighter. Batman defends himself with a ruse, and the two superheroes wind up working together on a case. A grudging admiration grows, and as Superman returns to Metropolis, Batman is pictured thinking, “In a different reality, I might have called him ‘friend.’” Finally, archnemesis Lex Luthor is introduced. In this origin, Kent and Luthor have no prior history. Luthor is a billionaire industrialist whose wealth makes him the most important man in the city. It is suggested that Luthor and Lane may have dated. Luthor feels threatened by Superman and seeks to destroy him. A failed attempt by Luthor to clone his own Superman results in the creation of Bizarro. Superman defeats Bizarro, but the failed experiment to clone human tissue reveals that Superman is not from this planet.

Book 6 brings the origin story to a close. Superman/Clark returns to the Kent farm for a vacation. At home, Clark declares, “Superman isn’t real. He’s just a fancy pair of long johns that lets me operate in public without losing my private life.” To fulfill this private life, Clark decides to pursue a relationship with Lois. Then, fate intervenes. A holographic image of Jor-El appears to Clark and floods his head with images and stories of Krypton. Clark is now confused; is he a Kryptonian or a human?

Characters

•Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman and Kal-El, the sole survivor of the doomed planet Krypton. He was rocketed to Earth and developed extraordinary powers under its yellow sun. Clark Kent works as a news reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper. This allows him access to breaking news so that he may assume the role of Superman, the world’s mightiest superhero.

•Jor-El, father of Kal-El, is a Kryptonian scientist. He realizes that Krypton’s end is near and therefore sends his son, Kal-El, hurtling toward Earth in a rocket.

•Lara, mother of Kal-El, learns late in the game that Krypton is doomed and is informed by her husband, Jor-El, that to save their unborn son, they must send him to Earth.

•Jonathan “Pa” Kent is the adopted father of Clark Kent and a Kansas farmer. He and his wife persuade Clark to use his superpowers for good.

•Martha “Ma” Kent is the adopted mother of Clark Kent and a Kansas farmwife. Once Clark decides he needs two personalities, she creates his Superman costume.

•Lana Lang is the childhood sweetheart of Clark Kent.

•Lois Lane is the star reporter of the Daily Planet newspaper. A beautiful woman, she is the object of Clark’s affections.

•Lucy Lane is the sister of Lois Lane.

•Margaret Pye, a.k.a. Magpie, is a former museum curator turned criminal.

•Perry White is the editor of the Daily Planet.

•Jimmy Olsen is a young staff member for the Daily Planet.

•The Batman is the “caped crusader” of Gotham City. In some ways, this hero is the antithesis of Superman: He is a nonsuperpowered human who acts as a vigilante by night to exact revenge and justice for the murder of his parents.

•Lex Luthor is a brilliant billionaire industrialist. The most powerful man in Metropolis, he becomes the archnemesis of Superman.

Artistic Style

Comic book artists have an expansive range of storytelling devices at their disposal. Frames, sequences, artistic styles, color, print fonts, and word balloons are among the tools they use to present a story. The first comic books were collections of comic strips reprinted from newspapers. Those simple, three-frame, black-and-white strips were the foundation for the art form comic great Will Eisner called “sequential art.” By 1986, artists and colorists were experimenting with form and presentation to create new visions of what was possible in comics and graphic novels.

The art of Superman: The Man of Steel, however, did not break new ground. John Byrne wrote and drew a very traditional comic book story. For thirty years, Curt Swan had penciled a square, solid portrait of Clark Kent/Superman that depicted the hero as a man in his thirties. Byrne’s vision of Superman is a longer, leaner, and more youthful figure. The style is reminiscent of his earlier work with Chris Claremont on The Uncanny X-Men. Superman: The Man of Steel is a beautifully drawn comic that represents the state of the comics art in the 1980s. One of the strengths of this collection is the single-panel splash page, which includes the introduction of Superman in Book 1, Batman’s towering presence in Book 3, the holographic image of Jor-El confronting Clark in Book 6, and the final image of Superman, cape billowing in the wind, also in Book 6. Byrne (with the aid of colorist Tom Ziuko) paints superheroes as larger-than-life images to inspire the reader.

One criticism of The Man of Steel is the less-than-menacing depiction of Lex Luthor. Every great hero must confront a great villain; Batman has the Joker, and the Fantastic Four have Doctor Doom. Byrne’s portrait of the original comic book nemesis, Lex Luthor, is a product of the anticorporate sentiment of the 1980s. Lex Luthor is drawn as a pudgy businessman who smokes cigars and wears a brightly colored orange toupee. The crime that Luthor commits in the story is “reckless endangerment” of his guests at a party. There is no menace in this portrait of Luthor, and the diminished antagonist fails to elevate the status of the protagonist Superman.

Themes

Superman: The Man of Steel is Byrne’s reinterpretation of the origin of Superman. In 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster fashioned an immigrant story that reflected their experiences as first generation Americans. The tale of “the rocket from the doomed planet Krypton hurtling to Earth,” is a classic stranger in a strange land narrative. Shy, bookish, young men of Jewish descent, Siegel and Shuster were trying to become part of the American Dream. This creative team cast Clark Kent as their alter ego in their new superhero story. The two young authors wanted to become part of the “in crowd” in high school, but they lacked the physical skills to become athletes or the social skills to attract the attention of young women. Clark Kent was in love with his coworker, Lois Lane, but he was portrayed as a bumbling, near-sighted oaf who ran from danger. Only the reader knew that this ruse allowed him to become Superman.

The story of Superman was an instant success and gave birth to the Golden Age of comics. In six months, Action Comics was selling 500,000 copies per issue. During World War II, sales increased to over one million copies a month. Superman became the dominant character in DC Comics and remained so for three decades. In the 1960s, however, Marvel Comics created a new Silver Age. Characters such as Spider-Man brought a new sense of humanity to the stories of superheroes. Superman suddenly seemed stodgy and old-fashioned by comparison.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, bold new stories such as Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Maus were bringing attention to comics and graphic novels. Stories were darker and heroes more conflicted in these complex tales. Superman needed a new direction, but it was clear that the superhero most associated with “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” could not reject his past and assume a darker persona. DC decided to return to its roots and risk a new interpretation of the origin of Superman.

The theme of good versus evil still pervades this interpretation of Superman, but the origin story adds several thematic wrinkles. The dying Krypton can be viewed as a double of an Earth overrun by technology. Also, the theme of identity is significant in this version of Superman, as the protagonist struggles with whether he is human or alien.

Impact

The sales of the first issue of Superman: The Man of Steel totaled more than one million. Subsequent issues proved less popular, but each book in the series more than doubled sales figures prior to the new origin. Byrne decided to leave DC after only two years, and the Superman series floundered.

The economic impact of Superman: The Man of Steel may have been short lived, but its symbolic influence was significant. Four Superman movies in the late 1970s and 1980s renewed interest in the iconic superhero. The wave of attention continued to rise, peaking in 1988 with the fiftieth anniversary of Superman. A Time magazine cover, a Smithsonian Institution exhibit, and myriad media stories celebrated the Golden Age superhero. A new generation of fans discovered Superman, but a single medium could no longer contain the superhero. In the late 1980s, the information age was about to explode, and the familiar narrative of Superman was a tale adaptable to all forms of media. In the 1990s, comic book publishers earned more from licensing the rights of characters than the publication of comic books.

Two lessons were learned from the publication of Superman: The Man of Steel. First, after half a century, the story of Superman had become part of the mythology of the United States. Superman joined Paul Bunyan and John Henry as larger-than-life, fictionalized heroes whose stories were timeless. These modern myths were adaptable to new generations of readers and viewers because their narratives were universal and inspirational. Enemies and situations may change but the story of a lone figure confronting injustice survives on the page, screen, or video console.

Second, as a mythic figure, Superman could be reinterpreted for each generation. Throughout history, sages have instructed youth by telling mythic tales. Elders defined heroism and sounded warnings as tribal myths were passed from generation to generation. In the information age, the tastes of audiences shift much more quickly than in tribal times. The symbolic success of Byrne’s Superman freed subsequent writers to reexamine aspects of the Superman narrative. As a result, since 1986, there have been three major reinterpretations of the Superman origin: Superman: Birthright (2004), Superman: Secret Origin (2010), and Superman: Earth One (2011).

Further Reading

Johns, Geoff, et al. Superman: Secret Origin (2010).

Straczynski, J. Michael, et al. Superman: Earth One (2011).

Waid, Mark, and Lenil Francis Yu. Superman: Birthright (2004).

Bibliography

Duncan, Randy, and Matthew J. Smith. The Power of Comics: History, Form, and Culture. New York: Continuum, 2009.

Friedrich, O. Show Business: Up, Up, and Awaaay!!! Time, March 14, 1988.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper, 1994.

O’Neil, D. “The Man of Steel and Me.” In Superman at Fifty: The Persistence of a Legend, edited by Dennis Dooley and Gary Engle. New York: Collier Books, 1988.

Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.