SUPERMAN: RED SON 617
Waid’s approach to the story is also diff erent than most of his predecessors; there is
a lot more time devoted to showing Superman as a young adult and what he was like
before adopting his costume. Th e story also focuses on Metropolis’s reaction to Super-
man, making his acceptance by the public centrally important to the narrative, though
traditionally a non-issue in his origin. Lex Luthor’s and Superman’s relationship is more
personal, too, giving their inevitable clashes a more emotional context. While the core
aspects of Superman’s origin remain—he came from technologically advanced Kryp-
ton, was raised by a kindly couple on a farm, keeps all the amazing powers expected
from Superman, and fi ghts for truth and justice in Metropolis—the story itself spends
much of its time embellishing the inner struggles of its cast, and projecting those inner
struggles onto the confl icts associated with superhero comics.
Th is new emphasis on internal motivations, however, is not new to the Superman my-
thos as a whole. Th e genesis of Waid’s creation can be found in the television adaptation
of Superman’s adolescence, Smallville. Smallville, beginning in 2001, introduced a new
style of pathos into the Superman mythos by focusing heavily on the interpersonal rela-
tionships around Superman. Like many of the other hits on the WB (the network which
originally aired Smallville), such as Buff y the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, or even Th e
Gilmore Girls, the show’s creators designed their new Superman show around the drama
created between its characters. Th e Kents’ younger appearance, Lex Luthor’s residence
in Smallville, and even Clark Kent’s longing to be accepted by the people around him
were all popularized by the show, which has been the longest running Superman televi-
sion series in history. Waid himself even acknowledges the similarity in the afterword to
the graphic novelization of Superman: Birthright: “Th e entirety of Superman: Birthright is
built around the same thing Smallville is built around, the same thing that ALL teenage
lives are built around, the one bonding element we can count on our audience to fi nd in
common with this alien being who can fl y: the search for identity” (301).
While Superman: Birthright heavily infl uenced the design of Kryptonians for works
such as Brian Azzerello’s a nd Jim Lee’s Superman: For Tomorrow (Superman #204–15)
and Michael Turner, Joe Kelly, and Talent Caldwell’s Superman: Godfall (Action Comics
#812–13, Adventures of Superman #625–66, and Superman #202–3), it did not remain
the predominant version of Superman’s origin for long. After DC’s maxi-series Infi nite
Crisis changed the company’s continuity, and with the collaboration of Richard Donner
on Superman: Last Son (Action Comics #844–46, 851 and Action Comics Annual #11),
the design for Krypton changed more to resemble Bryan Singer’s 2006 movie, Super-
man Returns, which itself relied heavily on Richard Donner’s Superman: Th e Movie in
1979, making Superman: Birthright no longer canonical.
Selected Bibliography: Waid, Mark. “Reimagining the Man of Tomorrow.” Superman:
Birthright. New York: DC, 2004, 292–302.
Jackson Jennings
SUPERMAN: RED SON (2003) is a three-issue Elseworlds miniseries written by Mark
Millar and penciled by Dave Johnson and Kilian Plunkett. Th e story, narrated by
