MAN OF STEEL, THE 389
which had appeared under Mort Weisinger’s run as editor; however, Byrne’s miniseries
was the fi rst large-scale reboot for the character. Th e previous year had seen the publica-
tion of Crisis on Infi nite Earths , a 12-issue maxi-series that was produced to simplify
the continuity of DC’s universe of characters, eliminating several canonical stories and
synthesizing others in an eff ort to make the fi ctional histories of DC’s universe coherent.
Byrne, coming from successful runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four , was DC President
Jeanette Khan’s pick to revitalize the Superman franchise, and his revisions refl ect many
of the current trends in comics at the time.
Byrne’s most important revision was to diminish the long-standing opposition
between Clark Kent and Superman. Under Byrne’s authorship, Superman no longer
felt so distant from humanity since his powers had only gradually developed and
his Clark Kent persona, no longer used simply to cover-up his abilities, was more
integrated into his identity. Clark Kent becomes an assertive, likeable fellow in Th e
Man of Steel , which means that fi nally, after nearly 50 years of publication, Lois Lane
can believably fi nd him attractive. Th is innovation allows for a depth of interper-
sonal relationships not possible with the earlier Superman who merely used Clark
Kent as a disguise, and for a Lois whose only male peer at the Daily Planet had been
a cowardly weakling. Lois no longer assumes that Superman has a secret identity,
either, giving more honesty to the interactions between Clark, Lois, and Superman.
Th e Kents likewise become a viable source for interpersonal relationships since
Superboy was eliminated from continuity, and Byrne keeps them alive to help Clark
transition into his new role of Superman. Even Lana Lang receives new depth as,
instead of a bitter rival to Lois for Superman’s aff ections, she becomes a heartbroken
childhood friend who is the only outsider to know Superman’s secret identity. Super-
man’s power- levels were also toned down to increase the drama of his encounters
with supervillains, who no longer had to rely solely on Kryptonite to have a fi ghting
chance against the Man of Steel.
Other elements of the mythos that Byrne eliminated were Supergirl, the bottle city
of Kandor, and the numerous Kryptonian artifacts and escaped zoo creatures that were
prone to run amok on Earth. Byrne returned Superman to his unique status as the sole
survivor of Krypton. Acting on an idea from collaborator Marv Wolfman , Byrne also
transforms Lex Luthor from a mad-scientist into possibly the only thing that seemed
more sinister to an audience in the 1980s: a wall-street fat-cat with a billion-dollar
payroll and a heart of stone.
Th e Man of Steel title was also used in a regularly published series from 1991 to
2003, and Byrne’s conception of Superman remained canon for almost two decades
until Superman: Birthright was published (2003 – 4), once again reworking Super-
man’s origins. His work, though, especially the Lex Luthor renovation, has remained
infl uential in the mythos, with a major impact not only on subsequent comics (paving
the way for Superman and Lois’s eventual marriage in 1996) but on treatment of the
Superman character on television in Bruce Timm’s Superman: Th e Animated Series
as well as the series from the mid-1990s, Lois and Clark , and the new millennium’s
