Imagine, just for a moment, that you’re walking down a busy street on a hot summer day, when you notice people around you pointing up in the air with curiosity. “Look, up in the sky,” someone observes, “it’s a bird.” “It’s a plane,” someone else proclaims. You look up just in time to see a streak of scarlet, blue and yellow suddenly vector across the sky towards the horizon, followed seconds later by a sonic boom. “It’s Superman!” you stammer, in a fit of self-righteousness.

Let’s face it: it’s hard to believe that such a fantastical character—one who wears his underwear outside a pair of leotards—could ever be imagined as a hero. And yet, speak the name “Superman” almost anywhere in the world and an indelible image of the red, blue and yellow clad superhero comes immediately to mind. In fact, look up the word “hero” in most thesauruses, and the word “superman” is listed.

It’s not an exaggeration to say the character is a pop culture phenomenon that stretches back almost seven decades and counts comics, radio plays, feature films, television series…and, yes, even a Broadway musical as part of its legacy. And as Hollywood continues the practice of beachcombing the flotsam in its archives—for better or worse—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original story has remained almost as bulletproof over the years as its titular character. The boys from Ohio got it right.

But how did it all begin…?

ORIGINS

Jerry Siegel was an aspiring writer living in Cleveland, and best friend to Joe Shuster, himself an aspiring artist. Both were science fiction fanatics. With dreams of breaking into newspaper comics or perhaps even pulp magazines, they worked together creating characters and stories on private projects as well as on their high school paper.

In 1933, they conjured up the first incarnation of Superman for a self-created magazine. In this early version, entitled “Reign of the Superman,” Superman was a bald villain. Although the story was not an overly exciting one, there was something they liked about the character. So, they created a second version of Superman. Although no publisher was interested, Siegel and Shuster knew they were onto something and set about revamping the character for a third time with the goal of turning it into a newspaper comic strip.

It’s comic book legend that during one fitfully hot summer night in 1934, Joe Siegel had a “vision,” conceiving of the Superman character as a heroic figure fighting for truth, justice and the American way – essentially the character we all know today. By morning, when Joe Shuster came over, Siegel had a week’s worth of comic strip stories and characters awaiting Shuster’s pen and ink.

It was by accident that Superman ended up in the comics. Siegel and Shuster carried their creation to myriad publishers but could not find a newspaper interested enough to run with it. After four years without success, publisher M.C. Gaines (later to run D.C. Comics) saw enough promise in the strip to recommend it to D.C. Comics Publisher Harry Donenfeld when Donenfeld called looking for fresh ideas. Donenfeld was not particularly enthusiastic about the strips but found them “colorful…different…and full of action” and so decided to use them as part of a new title he was launching.

Siegel and Shuster excitedly re-purposed their newspaper strips into comic book form, and in June of 1938 Action Comics #1 was issued, introducing the world to Superman. (Superman was not, as is often believed, the first costumed superhero. That distinction belongs to “The Phantom” who appeared a few months earlier in 1938. Nevertheless, Superman was the first hero with incredible ‘super’ powers.) Superman quickly swept the country and by 1939, while still appearing in Action Comics, the character—in an unprecedented fashion—starred in a second comic, titled “Superman”. He also began appearing in his own newspaper strip, just as Siegel and Shuster had envisioned.

In these early stories, Superman’s “super” acts included saving a man from a lynch mob, rescuing people from a fire, and stopping robbers. It wasn’t until April 1940 (Action Comics #23) that he met his first formidable foe: “super-genius” Lex Luthor.

BRIEF EVOLUTION OF THE CHARACTER

Also in 1940, Superman became the star of an enormously popular radio show. It was here that Jimmy Olsen and Kryptonite first appeared in the evolving story’s vernacular. They were such popular additions to the Superman mythos that they soon crossed over into the comic books.

In 1941, Superman became a movie star, appearing in the first of 17 cartoons for the Fleischer Studios who garnered critical and commercial successes for their interpretation of the character. He made the move to live action films in 1948 when he appeared in the serial: Superman. This was followed in 1950 by the largely forgettable Atom Man vs. Superman.

The 1950s were an interesting period for the character in comic form, as his legendary status grew and also started to become somewhat mired by the inclusion of too many “super” elements:

November 1958 – Bizarro appears.

June 1958 – The Fortress of Solitude is revealed.

May 1959 – Superman’s cousin, Supergirl enters the action.

“Streaky the Super Cat” and “Comet the Super Horse” also made brief introductions during this period. In 1958, a pilot called The Adventures of Superpup starring midgets in costumes was shot. Thankfully, the networks passed.

Perhaps the single most important advancement for the character in the 1950s were the 104 episodes of The Adventures of Superman television series starring George Reeves, which aired between 1952 and 1957. It was this show that re-introduced Superman to a whole new group of fans while allowing the generation that grew up with him to follow his exploits.

For a number of reasons, the 1960s saw Superman in flux. Many things were attempted to keep the character fresh, including a Broadway musical “It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, It’s Superman” which opened (and closed) in 1966. Superman remained largely stagnant until the mid-‘70s, with the arrival of a one-shot comic, “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali” (no, we’re not kidding) and, more importantly, a motion picture that would reinvigorate Superman for a whole new generation of fans, and that convinced audiences around the world that a man could fly.   SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE In 1978, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind brought the Man of Steel to the big screen with Superman: The Movie—an unprecedented effort that deftly blended an A-list cast, enormous passion, state-of-the-art technologies and some of the film industry’s greatest artisans.

Names like Mario Puzo, Tom Mankiewicz, Geoffery Unsworth, Stuart Baird, John Barry and John Williams helped director Richard Donner create a motion picture that was—and in many respects still is—the definitive vision of Superman.

Yet for all of its brilliant technology, visual effects, music and atmosphere, at the heart of the film was Christopher Reeve’s remarkably affectionate and layered portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman. None of us will ever forget his tongue-in-cheek depiction of the bumbling Clark Kent, balanced by his faithful—yet very human—Superman. For an entire generation he personified the Man of Steel.

Three sequels followed, by far the best of which was Superman II.

aTHE LATER YEARS

In 1986, comic artist John Byrne attempted to streamline and re-excite Superman. His limited run title “The Man of Steel” took the 50+ years of the Superman story, reprocessed and reinvented it with enough tweaking to make Superman exciting again. This “new” excitement reached a peak in January 1993 with “The Death of Superman.” In October 1993, Superman was resurrected, better than ever. The reinvigoration of the character in comic form also led to a renaissance of Superman’s popularity, manifested in new television cartoons, series (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher), video games, books, toys and more. While Siegel's and Shuster's fortunes rose and fell—itself warranting an entire essay—Superman, their immigrant creation from the planet Krypton, had by this time achieved the American dream of overwhelming success.

SMALLVILLE

When Smallville creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough received a call from Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. TV—indicating he wanted to do a show about a young Clark Kent—the challenge was clear: do something cool and character driven while at the same time avoid several of the iconic elements long associated with the character. “We wanted our Clark Kent to have angst and edge, without losing the essence of who he grows up to be,” Gough remarked in an interview with Kryptonsite’s Craig Byrne. “That’s why in the series Clark doesn’t wear the suit, doesn’t wear glasses and can’t fly. Because he doesn’t wear the suit in Smallville [it allows] us to explore the human side of Superman. That’s what really attracted us.”

In the pilot, 12 years have passed since a meteor shower burst from the heavens, raining destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of Smallville, Kansas in 1989, a clear departure from the story’s previous canon. On that fateful day, the parents of little Lana Lang were killed; Lex Luthor—son of billionaire business mogul Lionel Luthor (John Glover)—was left completely bald; and on the farm of Jonathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider, Annette O'Toole), a spaceship landed, bearing a child from the planet Krypton.

Now it’s 2001. Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) is the high school homecoming queen; swinging bachelor Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is in charge of his father's local fertilizer plant; and the alien child who crash-landed on the Kent farm has been raised as Jonathan and Martha’s own son, Clark Kent (Tom Welling). At the same time, the intervening years and the meteor shower have left many of the town's inhabitants with scars and secrets; some even with unusual traits inherited as a direct result of exposure to the meteor rocks (kryptonite).

When discussing the employment of kryptonite as a story-telling device, Gough remarked that the radiant green rocks really helped to put forward the vision that they had for the show, beyond merely Clark Kent’s Achilles Heel: “The thing with Smallville is that it appears normal and picturesque on the surface, but because of the kryptonite it’s really ‘Twin Peaks’-like underneath.

Aware that their adopted son is possessed of awesome powers far beyond those of mortal men, Martha and Jonathan have raised Clark in virtual isolation, prohibiting him from participating in contact sports. As a result, Clark has the reputation of a gawky nerd, and is extremely self-conscious and full of trepidation about his place in the world. As the pilot story unfolds, the teenage Clark Kent becomes a close friend of Lex Luthor after saving the young playboy's life, and also endeavors to protect Lana and the rest of his high school friends from an electrified lunatic who was victimized by a Halloween “hazing” on the same night that the meteors fell.

After expounding upon the themes introduced in the pilot—including several “freak of the week” stories, season two began going in new directions, including the introduction of Dr. Virgil Swann, a scientist, reclusive philanthropist and mentor to Clark Kent. The Dr. Swann character was written specifically for Christopher Reeve, who played the character for two episodes of the series (season two’s “Rosetta” and season three’s “Legacy”) before the actor’s tragic and unexpected death in October 2004.

By season four, the series broke it’s long-standing, “No Flights, No Tights” rule, when Clark/Kal-El soared into the sky for the very first time. Moreover, continuing the tradition of introducing well-known characters from the Superman mythology, Clark also encountered The Flash, and had his world turned upside-down with the long-anticipated arrival of Lois Lane (played by Vancouver’s own Erica Durance) in Smallville, Kansas. Lois' combination of precocious wit, pigheadedness and natural beauty catch Clark totally off-guard, for in these early days the two are like oil and water, running against the mythology in much the same way that the series has successfully made Lex and Clark—future arch-enemies—good friends.

With a wonderful ensemble cast, clever writing, unusual character development, and truly atmospheric cinematography, Smallville has been an unqualified success. Fantastic elements aside, it all comes down to issues many of us can relate to: growing up and searching for one’s place in the world, even if perhaps you feel like you’re a little “different” from everyone else. Executive producer Alfred Gough sums it up: “If there was ever a way to exemplify what it's like to be a young person trying to find his way in the world, Clark Kent is your guy. The fact that nobody's really explored that aspect of the character is what really attracted us. We … liked the fact that Smallville hadn’t been mined.”