Superman’s Story - Part II

In my last column I started discussing some of the constants in the Superman Legend which have remained in place for nearly seventy years.  Those constants were:

• Superman came from another planet.
• He becomes weak and can die from prolonged exposure to Kryptonite.
• On our planet, he gained powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men.
• He adopted the secret identity of Clark Kent.
• He fell in love with Lois Lane (sorry all you Lana fans!).

I explored the first two items in my last column.  This week, I’m going to discuss the remaining three.

Superman’s Powers on Earth

From the beginning, Superman had abilities greater than normal men.  Now, granted, although those powers have become more refined over the years, the fact remains that he became more powerful once on Earth.  At first, in Action Comics #1, 1938, his powers were limited to super-strength and limited invulnerability.  It was explained that Superman came from a race of highly advanced beings who possessed the ability to do super-feats including feats of strength, speed, and even intellect (as shown in Superman #14, 1942).  He couldn’t fly, but he could leap up to an eighth of a mile.  His skin was “super-tough” where bullets and knives and “nothing less than a bursting shell” could harm him.  His powers were primarily attributed to Earth’s lesser gravity than Krypton.

As time went by, though, the list of Superman’s powers began to grow and become more magnified.  In the retelling of Superman’s origin, all Kryptonians were said to have x-ray vision and other super-abilities.  Leaping was replaced with flight.  And his vulnerability to bursting shells slowly went away until he was nearly indestructible.  It seemed that whenever it was needed, the writers simply created a new power.  Super-breath, concentrated x-ray vision or heat vision, super-speed, super-muscular control, super-hearing, and super-ventriloquism came into play at one point or another over the next couple of decades.

Earth’s lesser gravity became less the origin for those powers and the yellow sun of Earth became the main contributor.  This explained better why natives of Krypton, who were supposed to be just as super as Superman, didn’t survive when the planet exploded.  Since Krypton orbited a red sun, its inhabitants were not endowed with super-powers and could not escape.  Only a handful of Kryptonian scientists even knew that yellow sun radiation would make them super.

By the 1970’s, Superman was tossing planets around the galaxy.  He had become too powerful and the writers decided to knock him down a few notches.  Through a strange series of events, in the pages of Superman #233, 1971, Superman lost approximately one-half of his powers.  But, even one-half of infinite power was infinite.  Soon, he was back to full strength.  In the 1980’s, Superman was retooled again and this time, he not nearly as powerful as he had become.  He was still a considerable force to be reckoned with, but his ability to toss around planets was gone.  To date, that is one change that has remained.

Superman and Clark Kent

Much like the old chicken and egg controversy, the question of who came first: Superman or Clark Kent remains.  Historically, Superman’s birth name was Kal-El.  He was the son of Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van.  As the male child on Krypton, he was given his father’s surname, El.  Had he been a female, his name would have been something like Kal Jor-El.  Kryptonian civilization, obviously not that advanced, insisted that females take on their father’s entire name.  Surprisingly, this is also the tradition in many cultures here on Earth.

Once he is sent to Earth, he is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent.  The Kents, it was established later, were the couple who found him after his rocket landed on Earth.  Martha, being proud of her newly adoptive son, named him after her maiden name Clark.  Clark was raised outside of Smallville on the Kents’ farm.  At some point in Clark’s childhood, the Kents sold the family farm and moved into town where Jonathan opened a general store. 

It was shortly prior to this that Clark adopted the identity of Superboy.  Martha fashioned the blankets in which Clark was wrapped when they found him into a super-suit of red and blue.  The safety belt from the rocket became his uniform’s belt.  At this time, the Kent family decided it would be best to disguise Clark behind an old pair of glasses and a meek persona.  As dynamic as Superboy was, he was that much less as Clark.

As an adult, Clark moved from Smallville to Metropolis and took a job as journalist for the Daily Planet.  In earlier stories, the paper’s name was the Daily Star.  His identity of Clark continued to serve him as the perfect disguise.  As Clark, he made slight alterations to his physique.  The 6’-2” frame of Superman became 6’-0” as Clark by hunching his shoulders.  He combed his hair differently as Clark.  Many people have a hard time understanding how no one could see through the disguise; but I just tell them to consider that they are already “in” on the secret.  Knowing they are one in the same person makes it easy to see.  Look at the way Christopher Reeve went through his transformation from Clark to Superman in the movies.  If you had no idea of what was going on, I believe we’d all be duped as well.

In the new history, Clark is a much more dynamic person than before.  While he still hides behind the spectacles, he’s no longer the meek and mild character we’ve known before.  Growing up, Clark was well-known as a star athlete.  His celebrity as an award winning journalist is also testimony to this new Clark.  For years, Clark Kent was the disguise for Superman.  Now, Superman is the disguise for Clark Kent.  I know that may seem like splitting hairs; but, trust me, it’s significant.

Superman and Lois Lane

Much to the chagrin of all those Lana Lang fans out there, Superman’s one, true love is Lois Lane.  Lois was there from the beginning.  She may have been portrayed as a cold, heartless witch to Clark at times, but she’s always been the one for Superman.  Lois is the daughter of General Samuel Lane.  She was raised an Army brat which has been attributed to her matter-of-a-fact way of treating Clark.  It is also one of the reasons for her uncanny ability to find danger in the most incredible places. 

In recent years, Clark has revealed his identity to Lois and the two have married.  While the marriage has had a number of rocky periods, I defy anyone to show me a marriage which hasn’t. 

One of the on-going sub-stories of Superman is his relationship with Lois.  When the director of “Superman the Movie”, Richard Donner was asked about his approach to Lois and her relationship with Superman, he said it has always been a love story.  Perhaps one of the greatest love stories in popular fiction.

Conclusion

The many facets of Superman’s story over the last sixty-six years are so numerous that I could not give each of them a fair amount of exposition if I had a hundred columns like this one.  His history, like our own, has changed and been reshaped in so many countless ways that I could not do each of them justice.  Suffice it to say that just as he was considered the Man of Tomorrow in 1938, he remains the same in 2003.  Like so many popular heroes of fiction, Superman’s story is timeless.  No matter how many times writers dream up ways to do the Man of Steel in, he always finds a way to return.  Superman is the embodiment of what we wish all our heroes to be.  Even in the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the spirit of Superman was there.  In the form of those brave souls who lost their lives on that day.  The only difference was instead of saying “This is a job for Superman!”, they summed it up in two words:

“Let’s Roll.”

Next time:  Superman’s Enemies…