Unresearched but plausibly true statistic time! Nine out of ten of the world’s citizens can tell you the basics of how Superman became Superman. Sent away from a dying planet by his parents, he lands in rural Middle-America to be raised by a kind farmer and his wife. He moves to Metropolis, lands a job as a reporter and leads a double life using his secret powers to save anyone in need as Superman!
After 81 years of Superman stories, plenty of writers have taken that bare-bones version, broken it down, and expanded on all aspects of it. Some fans and critics bemoan the fact that Superman’s origin has been updated approximately 835 times, but the creative team telling the story determines whether the revised version is special.
The meat and potatoes of the story will never change, but the Kryptonian sauce spread on each story is what makes them all sizzle. Look, up in the sky...here are 10 versions of Superman’s origin, Ranked.
10 Action Comics #1
Where it all began - Action Comics # 1. The classic image of the Man of Steel saving someone from getting crushed by a car by hoisting it straight in the air.
The pageantry of the debut of Superman was good enough to elicit more and more interest in the Last Son of Krypton, but his original origin story was limited to just one page! That one page, as we know, would get greatly expounded over the subsequent decades.
9 Red Son
Every so often, writers like to really mess with Superman’s origin. An Elseworlds tale, Superman: Red Son creates an entirely different DCU, one that saw Kal-El land in a Kolkhoz in Ukraine rather than Smallville, Kansas. The Kryptonian is raised to be a champion of the common worker who fights for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.
It’s a great alternate origin story, showcasing a nature vs. nurture debate while presenting plenty of DC stars in strange new lights. Lex Luthor is the President of the US and is still trying to take Superman down; in Russia, Batman and his Batmen are staging their own revolution.
8 The World Of Krypton
People’s family backstories are part of their origin stories, right? In the 1979 mini-series, World of Krypton, Superman finds an old recording of Jor-El. Shoes’ daddy’s tape recalls the last days of the dying world.
Jor-El talks about finding the Phantom Zone and the Bottled City Of Kandor, which he explained had something that could have saved the planet had Brainiac not taken it.
7 Superman #53: The Origin Of Superman
The title of this book kind of says it all. For the first time since his creation, writer Bill Finger (Batman) and artist Wayne Boring crafted the quintessential Superman origin story for the Golden Age.
Many of these elements have been reused and retold constantly. Superman #53 has basically become the omnibus of which all other Superman origin stories are spun from.
6 Superman #146: The Complete Story Of Superman’s Life
A little over a decade after Superman #53, one of the quintessential Superman writers, Otto Binder took a little from all of the previous origins, borrowed heavily from Superman #53, and crafted a quasi-sequel called "The Complete Story Of Superman’s Life."
The big difference here is that Supes is a toddler when Jor-El sends him away. Plus, the very vintage sci-fi cover of a boy in a rocket is always cool looking.
5 Birthright
It’s not every day that a story retroactively takes over as canon from John Byrne’s classic Man of Steel. Until Infinite Crisis, the DC brass decided that Mark Waid’s Birthright was the new canonical Superman origin story.
The story brings a modern age take on the Man Of Steel, even culling elements from the popular Smallville, such as Clark and Lex growing up together. Overall, Birthright offers a great new take on an old story.
4 Speeding Bullets
In another Elseworlds story, instead of landing in Smallville, Kal-El lands in Gotham and is adopted by Thomas and Martha Wayne. In this version, they name him Bruce and are still gunned down. Bruce incinerates the murderer with heat vision and then represses his powers.
Bruce remembers his parents again after muggers kidnap Alfred. He buys the Daily Planet and meets Lois Lane. He becomes Batman and operates as such until Lois convinces him to adopt a more heroic approach - Superman!
3 Superman For All Seasons
The writer/artist team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have revised so many origin stories over the years, they should just be the go-to guys for revisiting every superhero origin story. Capturing the spirit of Norman Rockwell and Americana, they present their take on the Man of Steel in Superman for All Seasons.
The mini-series took place of the course of the year, each issue highlighted a season and was narrated by a different character important to Superman - Jon Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and finally Lana Lang. The book was also the inspiration for Smallville.
2 Man Of Steel
For nearly twenty years, the accepted Post-Crisis canon origin story for Superman was John Byrne’s Man of Steel. Byrne culled all of the iconic Superman imagery, like the Fleischer cartoons, and did away with certain aspects of Superman’s origin. Goodbye Superboy, Krypto, and the Fortress Of Solitude.
Clark was even more sure of himself and wasn’t an outcast growing up. As accepted canon for over a decade, plenty of Superman stories since this one drew a slew of inspiration. Along with The Dark Knight Returns for Batman, it is the quintessential Superman story
1 Superman (The Movie)
There’s a reason every Superman movie released after 1978’s Superman has struggled to recapture the magic, even though Superman II comes quite close. No disrespect to Henry Cavill or Brandon Routh, but Christopher Reeve is perfect and remains the best Man of Steel ever.
The story on Krypton was set up enough for at least three movies, and Margot Kidder’s iconic line of “You’ve got me? Who's got you?!” is one for the ages. Gene Hackman chews up all of the scenery as Lex Luthor (MISS TESSMACHER!). All of the principal performers involved showcase how their characters should be portrayed on film. While the movie obviously takes a lot from the comics, Superman introduced the eponymous hero's origin story to a wider audience.