Superman Secret Origin


By Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Jon Sibal & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2697-8(HC)                     978-1-4012-3299-3(TPB)

One of the perennial dangers of comicbook longevity is the incessant – and, as you get older, apparently hyper-accelerated – revisionism afflicting origin stories. Characters with any measure of success or staying power are continually reinvented to appeal to new readers and generally appal or gradually disaffect veteran aficionados.

Moreover, nowadays it seems to happen sooner and sooner into a rebooted hero’s run.

Batman and Superman in particular seem accursed by this situation, as much because of their broad mass-media appeal as their perfectly simple bedrock concepts. In recent years DC has been sedulously and assiduously editing, in-filling and cross-fertilising its icons until – whether through movies, animated cartoons, TV shows, video games or the comics themselves – followers of the World’s Finest Heroes can be assured that the ephemera and backstory always remain consistent and reliably reconcilable.

The upside of this is that as long as we fanboys can sufficiently stifle our chagrin and curb our umbrage, every so often we can enjoy a fresh but not condescending, vivacious but not fatuous, re-imagining of our best-beloved childhood touchstones…

Through 2009 and 2010 Geoff Johns & Gary Frank remastered the Man of Tomorrow with 6-issue miniseries Superman: Secret Origin which, whilst reinstating many formerly-erased elements of the classic Silver Age mythology and incorporating much of John Byrne’s groundbreaking 1986 reboot (as collected in the Man of Steel), created a new version in tune with Mark Waid, Lenil Francis Yu & Gerry Alanguilan’s 2003 (Smallville TV-show inspired) Superman: Birthright.

Moreover, the resultant story similarly legitimised and fully absorbed the Christopher Reeve Superman movies into the canon, with Frank’s supremely authentic renditions making the actor’s appearance and demeanour – as both Action Ace and klutzy Clark Kent – the definitive comicbook look for the Action Ace.

This particularly well-known folk-tale-retold (available in hardcover, trade paperback and digital editions) opens with an Introduction by screenwriter, producer and occasional comics scribe David S. Goyer before the drama commences with ‘The Boy of Steel’, honing in on Clark Kent’s formative years with the Kansas farmboy beginning to realise just how truly different he is from his friends and classmates…

Traumatised when he accidentally breaks the arm of best pal Pete Ross while playing football, Clark’s only confidante is Lana Lang – who has long known about his incredible strength and durability – but even she can offer no solace. The strange boy’s abilities are growing every day and his father is increasingly advising him to distance himself from ordinary kids.

When Lana kisses Clark, his eyes blast forth heat rays which nearly set the school on fire, prompting Jonathan and Martha Kent to reveal an incredible truth to their troubled son. Buried under the barn is a small spaceship, and when Clark touches it, a recorded hologram message from his birth-parents Jor-El and Lara shockingly discloses the orphan’s incredible origins as Kal-El; Last Son of the dead planet Krypton…

As the stunned and traumatised youth flees into the night, in another part of Smallville an equally unique youngster discovers a glowing green meteor fragment…

In the confused days that follow, Clark, weighed down by a new sense of responsibility and isolation, begins the life-long masquerade that will forever deflect attention from the being he really is. In the meantime, Martha uses materials from the fallen star-ship to make her son an outfit based on the garments she saw in the alien’s message. They bear the proud family crest of the House of El…

On the day of the County Fair, Clark meets Lex Luthor and feels sick for the first time in his life when the arrogantly abrasive boy-genius shows him a green rock he had found in the fields. At that moment a tornado strikes the little town and Lana is swept to her doom in the skies until, incredibly, Clark chases after her and flies her to safety…

Issue #2 features ‘Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes’: disclosing how Smallville is seemingly protected by an invisible guardian angel who mysteriously saves people and property. Clark is lonelier than ever and, with only Lana and his folks to talk to, tries to strike up a friendship with Lex, but the aggressively disdainful and disparaging prodigy can only dream of escaping the revoltingly provincial backwater and moving to the big city of Metropolis…

Everything changes when the scion of Krypton encounters a trio of super-powered strangers from the future. Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy have travelled back to meet the youth who inspired a thousand years of heroism and show it by taking the Boy of Steel on a breathtaking vacation into the fabulous future.

…And when he eventually returns home, there’s one more glorious surprise after Superboy intercepts an extraterrestrial projectile and is reunited with his long-lost Kryptonian pet…

Things are looking up for Luthor too. His despised but fully-insured father having just conveniently died, the brilliant boy and his little sister are now on their way to bigger and better things…

‘Mild-Mannered Reporter’ begins as, after years of travelling, bumbling, mild-mannered and meek Clark Kent begins work at the Metropolis Daily Planet; a once-great newspaper on the verge of bankruptcy in a once-great city. The venerable rag is slowly dying; suffering and expiring by degrees for the crucial mistake of trying to expose the billionaire plutocrat who currently owns most of the vast conurbation: swaggering self-styled philanthropist Lex Luthor.

Even so, Editor Perry White, intern and aspiring photo-journalist Jimmy Olsen and especially lead reporter Lois Lane are determined to go down fighting…

Every day Luthor appears on the balcony of his corporate HQ: deigning to grant the tawdry request of one of the fawning, desperate rabble gathered beneath him, but his gloating is spoiled when Lane and her new stooge Kent break through security and disrupt the demonstration of a new high-tech fighting-suit. In the melee, Lois and a helicopter are knocked off the skyscraper roof and somehow saved by a flying blue and red Adonis…

Fully revealed to the world, the mysterious Superman captures humanity’s imagination. Soon exclusive reports and Olsen’s photos in the Planet turn the paper’s fortunes around. Luthor instinctively knows he has a rival for Metropolis’ attention and approbation and savagely dedicates all his vast resources to destroying his foe…

An early opportunity comes when destitute, grasping janitor Rudy Jones accepts Luthor’s daily benison and is accidentally mutated by exposure to Green Rock waste into a life-absorbing energy-leeching monster.

‘Parasites’ sees the Man of Tomorrow’s spectacular victory thrown in his face by Luthor who publicly brands the hero an alien spy and vanguard of invasion…

Tension escalates in ‘Strange Visitor’ when Lois’s estranged father General Sam Lane collaborates with Luthor to capture Superman; using the military man’s pet psycho Sgt. John Corben. The elder Lane personally selected and groomed him to marry Lois and “set her straight” and his frustration at her furious response drives the creepy stalker into calamitously piloting an armoured war-suit powered by the mysterious Green Rock.

When the naïve Kryptonian hero agrees to be interviewed by the army he is ambushed by crack attack units and Corben. Valiantly fighting his way free, the Caped Crimebuster critically injures the war-suit wearer in the process and, sensing a unique opportunity, Luthor then rebuilds the broken soldier, inserting Green Rock into his heart to create a relentless, anti-Superman cyborg weapon: Metallo…

The voyage of rediscovery concludes in ‘Man of Steel’ wherein the desperate hero, hunted by Lane’s troops through the city, faces the berserk Cyborg in the streets and wins over the fickle public with his overarching nobility, instilling in the venal masses who were once Luthor’s cowering creatures a renewed spirit of hope, optimism and individuality…

The Adventure Begins… Again…

Inspiring and grandly mythic, this epic retelling (containing also a baker’s dozen of covers, variants and an unused extra) combines modern insights and innovations with unchanging Lore: paying lip service to TV’s Smallville and venerating the movies whilst still managing to hew closely to many of the fan-favourite idiosyncrasies that keep old duffers like me coming back for more.

This sterling reinvigoration and visually intoxicating reworking is one that shouldn’t offend the faithful whilst providing an efficient jump-on guide for any newcomers and potential converts.
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