Superman: Birthright - Who IS Superman?

Superman...... If I were to say that his origin story is somewhat confusing, I'd be giving the understatement of the millennium. The essentials haven't changed; Superman is still Kal-El from Krypton, sent to Earth from an exploding planet by his parents Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. He crash-lands on Earth in Smallville, Kansas, discovered by Johnathan and Martha Kent, a couple incapable of having children. Raised as Clark Kent, he eventually is told that he is adopted and shortly after graduating high school, shown the spaceship he crash-landed to Earth in. After graduating from college, Clark becomes a reporter at the Daily Planet in Metropolis and dons the guise of a superhero, clothed in materials found inside his spaceship. Named Superman by reporter Lois Lane, he fights against such villains as Lex Luthor, Braniac, and General Zod while fighting for the values of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Now, you may have noticed a few details missing in Superman's origin story. Is Jor-El important? Why can't the Kents have children? When and why did Superman develop his superpowers? Why does Superman pick that symbol on his costume if he didn't name himself Superman? Why did he wait until graduating college to become a superhero? What kind of man is Lex Luthor? Is Kal-El really the last Kryptonian? All this becomes subject to interpretation, unfortunately.

Back in the 80s, an event called Crisis on Infinite Earths changed the entire DC Universe. It was decided that there were too many alternate realities and too many versions of the same character that were all valid. All realities were combined into one Earth, mostly utilizing the back-stories of characters from Earth-1, the Silver Age Earth. A big decision was also made, to tweak Superman's origin story to make him the sole survivor of Krypton and have no Kryptonian supervillains. Superman's personality, extent of his super-strength, and reason for becoming a superhero were all changed. The limited-series that was published to be the new definitive origin of Superman was Superman: Man of Steel by John Byrne. Probably the biggest change that Byrne made was turning Lex Luthor into the CEO of Lexcorp and victim of very early male pattern baldness, rather than being a mad scientist who used to be friends with Superboy until he accidentally caused a lab experiment to permanently bald young Lex Luthor.

Although Man of Steel was Superman's "definitive" origin, there were a few things that people took issue with. Most notably, these things were making Krypton into a dystopian society, sending Kal-El's fetus and amniotic sac in the spaceship so that he would literally be born on Earth, and changing Clark Kent's personality even when "in-disguise" to the point where Lois Lane was far more interested in Clark than in Superman. After Man of Steel was written, 3 notable TV shows were made that took elements from that comic, but also kept aspects of Superman's Silver Age origin story, made famous by the Superman films: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Superman: The Animated Series, and Smallville. None of the shows shared a common origin story, none shared the same origin for Lex Luthor, none kept the same interpretations of Ma and Pa Kent, none shared any of the "nitty gritty" details as-before-mentioned.

3 versions of Superman; very alike, yet very different

When WB announced that another Superman movie would be made, Superman Returns, DC Comics decided to commission Mark Waid with writing another definitive origin story for Superman. This new origin story would be called Superman: Birthright. Birthright, written in 2004, takes multiple ideas from the 3 television shows made since Crisis on Infinite Earths. To answer the various "nitty gritty" questions asked previously, the Birthright answers are:

• Jor-El is a scientist, but he is not a council member as seen in previous versions.
• Martha Kent is infertile, rather than being too old as seen in the Golden and Silver Age versions.
• Superman developed his superpowers almost immediately upon landing on Earth, but did not have the full extent of his powers until he was a teenager.
• The reason he has superpowers is because Kryptonians develop superpowers while under yellow sunlight and Earth's comparatively low gravity, as seen in the Silver Age and Man of Steel versions.
• Superman picks the "S" shield because it is the symbol of Hope in Kryptonian history. Previous versions made it the El family coat of arms.
• Clark Kent decides to become a superhero after seeing how helpful he can be to the world after stopping a very violent situation in Ghana from escalating. Beforehand, Johnathan Kent tells young Clark that before he decides to become a superhero, he needs to first get an education and see the world.
• Lex Luthor is still the CEO of Lexcorp, but he spent some of his youth in Smallville as part of his slightly psychotic plot to become world famous for contacting alien life while being from a podunk town. After failing in his experiment, causing his house to burn down, his father to die, and permanent hair loss, Luthor blames the entire town of Smallville, saying he will be the only thing to ever come out of there. Luthor promptly erases any record of his ever being there.
• Kal-El may not be the last Kryptonian, the Phantom Zone is stated to exist. Shortly after Birthright, the Kara Zor-El interpretation of Supergirl was re-introduced to the comics.

So the big question is, does this "new" origin story work? The short answer is Yes, but it's still not as clean and easy to follow as Lois & Clark or S:TAS. The long answer is No, because unlike Man of Steel, Birthright borrows so heavily from the recent television versions of Superman and introduces only 1 new idea, whereas Man of Steel was an incredibly original idea when it was written. The one new idea that Birthright introduces is that Superman has an "aura vision" and can see the life forces of living beings. Because of this, he decides to become a vegetarian. While I believe that no one should be a vegetarian unless their religion demands it, the reason I don't like Superman as a vegetarian has nothing to do with that. Under Earth's yellow sun, Superman is given so much energy that he does not need to eat or sleep ever. As said ever so eloquently by Clark Kent during the animated series, "A good meal sounded great right about now. Not that I needed to eat, but old habits die hard." Superman eats and sleeps because quite simply, they're old habits and he chooses to continue doing both on occasion. There is no reason whatsoever to make a guy who voluntarily eats into a vegetarian.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Ever since Infinite Crisis, Man of Steel and Birthright are BOTH considered canon! Yeah! How fucking confusing is that!? To possibly address some of these, oh you know, HUGE problems, DC commissioned Geoff Johns in 2009 to write ANOTHER definitive origin story for Superman! Yeah a THIRD version! Superman: Secret Origin recently finished its 6 part series, and it is more or less a straight rip of the Silver Age version of his origin. Fan reaction has been incredibly mixed since Secret Origin creates an origin for Superman that directly contradicts previous Superman stories that are all still considered canon... which Birthright does as well. To put it simply, Superman has 3 official origin stories as of September 1st, 2010. Whether or not DC decides to ever just flat out make a statement about Superman's origin remains to be seen, but you can be guaranteed that Christopher Nolan's upcoming Superman film will cause DC to do something to Superman's origin AGAIN.

Seriously, how many origin stories does Superman need?