SUPERMAN 613
such as Final Night (1996) or Infi nity Gauntlet (1991), the event would absorb the
respective universe but pass and leave few long-term traces. Th e current series of event
comics lead into each other and continue to have eff ects within the continuities of both
companies’ universes.
Selected Bibliography: Brown, Jeff rey A. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Th eir
Fans. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001; Coogan, Peter. Superhero: Th e Secret
Origin of a Genre. Austin: Monkey Brain Books, 2006; Kaveney, Roz. Superheroes! Capes
and Crusaders in Comics and Films. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008; Klock, Geoff. How
to Read Superhero Comics and Why. New York: Continuum, 2002; Schatz, Th omas.
Hollywood Genres. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981; Stuller, Jennifer K. Ink-
stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology. New York:
I. B. Tauris, 2010; Wright, Bradford. Comic Book Nation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 2001.
Peter Coogan
SUPERMAN. Superman is the name of a fi ctional comic book character created in
1934 by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, fi rst published by the company that
would become DC Comics in Action Comics #1, 1938. Superman was the fi rst pub-
lished superhero; sporting blue tights, a red cape, and an “S” emblematically placed on
his chest, Superman routinely fi ghts for truth, justice, and the American way as the
longest running continuously published character in history.
Canonically, Superman is an alien visitor from the planet Krypton, rocketed to
Earth while an infant by his father Jor-El as a precaution against the destruction of his
native planet. Raised into adulthood by a kindly couple, the Kents, Superman cham-
pions the citizens of the fi ctional city of Metropolis, fi ghting crime in his dual identity
as Superman and mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent by displaying an impressive
array of powers inherited from his alien physiology including fl ight, super strength,
invulnerability, super hearing, and both heat and x-ray vision. Over 70 years of pub-
lication, however, the remaining details of his origin have been signifi cantly altered.
His origin was fi rst told in a one-page piece of exposition in Action Comics #1, which
was expanded to fi ll two pages for the publication of Superman #1 in 1939. It took up
nine pages in the 1948 “Origin of Superman” in Superman #53, 13 pages for Super-
man #146 “Th e Story of Superman’s Life” in 1961, 15 in 1973 for Th e Amazing World
of Superman’s “ Th e Origin of Superman!,” 143 pages in the 1986 miniseries Th e Man of
Steel, and over 280 for the 2005 maxi-series Superman: Birthright. Th e character of
Superman has thus constantly been in fl ux since his debut and has existed in subtly
diff erent forms throughout his publication. He has also been the source of several spin-
off characters and comics, as in the detailing of his boyhood adventures as Superboy or
in the creation of his female counterpart, Supergirl.
Superman’s powers were actually far fewer and far less impressive in the fi rst
few years of his publication; for example, he did not gain the ability to fl y until 1943.
