Kal-L (Earth-Two)




 * " Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"
 * --Radio announcer

Birth Name: Kal-L Legal Name: Clark Kent Nicknames: Man of Steel; Man of Tomorrow; THE Golden Age Superman Former Aliases: No former aliases

Status
Occupation: None Former reporter and editor-in-chief for the Daily Star of Earth-Two (Pre-Crisis); formerly crime fighter; Legal Status: Deceased; (Pre-Crisis) As Clark Kent, Kal-L was a legally adopted citizen of the United States of Earth-Two with no known criminal record (Post Crisis) Undetermined Identity: Secret Marital Status: Widower (Married) Group Affiliation: Former member of the All-Star Squadron; Former associate member of the Justice Society of America Base of Operations: Formerly Metropolis of Earth-Two; formerly a paradise realm in the Antimatter Universe

Origin
Rocketed from the dying planet Krypton by his scientist father, Jor-L, baby Kal-L landed in Smallville, where he was found and raised by John and Mary Kent. Raised with their moral values, and finding himself possessed of powers beyond those of mortal men, Clark Kent took on the identity of Superman, the greatest hero of all.

Place of Birth: Krypton Known Relatives: Jor-L (birth-father, deceased); Lora (birth-mother, deceased); John Kent (adoptive father, deceased); Mary Kent (adoptive mother, deceased); Lois Lane-Kent (wife, deceased); Samuel Lane (father-in-law) (presumed dead from old age prior to the destruction of Earth-Two in the Crisis); Lucille Lane Tompkins (sister-in-law) (presumed killed by the destruction of Earth-Two in the Crisis); George Tompkins (brother-in-law) (presumed killed by the destruction of Earth-Two in the Crisis); Susan Tompkins (niece) (presumed killed by the destruction of Earth-Two in the Crisis); Kara Zor-L (cousin)

First Appearance: Historic Action Comics #1 in canon as Earth-Two Superman Justice League of America #73 (1969) Final Appearance: Infinite Crisis #7

Early years
Superman was born Kal-L of the planet Krypton. His father was the esteemed scientist, Jor-L, and his mother was a librarian named, Lora. When Kal-L was still a toddler, his father discovered that the planet Krypton teetered on the brink of absolute destruction. Realizing that there was not enough time to save everyone on the planet, he deposited his son inside of a specially designed rocket ship and launched him into outer space. As Kal-L's rocket broke the atmosphere, the planet Krypton exploded.

After traveling through space for an indeterminate amount of time, his rocket eventually crash-landed in a small farming community named Smallville, on the planet Earth. Though at first placed in an orphanage, Kal-l was soon adapted by the Kents and given the name Clark. Over time he discovered his many powers. Mary (Ma) Kent later died and when John (Pa) Kent was on his death bed, he made Clark promise to use his powers for the good of mankind. Taking the advice to heart, Clark created the identity of Superman.

Superman Begins
Clark earned himself a job as a reporter at the Daily Star after turning in a story about Superman's first public act. Unlike the later portrayals of the character, Superman was NOT originally considered a hero and was in fact regarded as a vigilante working outside and at times against the established legal authorities. Many of the earliest public actions showed Kal-L engaging in aggressive actions against wife beaters, slum lords and various other social criminals which included corrupt politicans and law officials. As time progressed, Kal-L began to fight against larger more direct and obvious criminal organizations which gathered his public identity as a hero most notably against the Earth-Two Alexei Luthor, who unlike the Earth-One LEX Luthor still had his red hair and a far more bloodthirsty nature.

As Clark Kent, he reported on his own costumed adventures and was eventually partnered with Lois Lane, a courageous female reporter who had a crush on Superman but didn't think much of the timid Clark Kent. Lane and Kent would usually butt heads with each other on getting the most adventureous stories mostly on Superman. But the two eventually became respectful of each other. Lane would eventually start to suspect that Kent and Superman were one and the same based on Kent's continual missing absences whenever Superman would appear and Kent's extensive detailed reports before Lane could phone in the story despite being at the scene of the adventure. Lane would eventually confirm her suspicions resulting her marrying Kent in the 1950s. These stories would be later printed as the "Adventures of Mr and Mrs Superman" in the DC "Superman Family" series.

Powers and Weaknesses
Kal-L was originally unaware of his powers and his own nature as a Kryptonian, thinking of himself as an advanced human of Earth. Kal-L's superpowers were a result of his Kryptonian heritage, whereby the Kryptonians native to his original universe had known superhuman abilities and powers. As the character progressed, so did his power levels. For example, Kal-L was able to progress to actual flight where originally he could only leap about an eighth of a mile. His strength level increased to extensive power levels where he started out merely lifting cars and was later shown in 1940s adventures as being able to lift and throw army tanks. His first clue to his alien nature was discovered when he battled Dan Rivers aka "Swami Riva". The green stone Riva wore in his turban was actually Kryptonite. Superman defeated Riva and then went on a voyage of discovery to find out the stone's origins. Superman was able to time travel under his own power to watch his father Jor-L and the events that led to him being sent to Earth.

After his return to current time, Kal-L continued to battle an ever increasing amount of advanced villians including the Puzzler, The Archer, Ultra-Humanite, Toyman, Prankster, Funny Face, and many more. During one battle with Funny Face, Superman clashed with an unliving duplicate of his psuedo-criminal identity of the Flying Tiger (possessing powers and weaknesses comparable to his original, not unlike Bizarro).

But while most of these villians were usually operating on scientific based equipment, Superman found his most effective villian in the form of the short mostly purple suited mystical imp, Mister Mxyztplk. Mister Mxyztplk exclusively used magic to completely frustrate Kal-L time and time again which were used to interfere with Kal-L's abilities. But because most of Mister Mxyztplk's capers were done more to frustrate and annoy than cause harm and physical death, many of Mister Mxyztplk's pranks had no lasting detrimental effects on Kal-L or the inhabitants of the third dimension unlike the Earth-One version Mister MxyzPTlk who is shown to be far more dangerous even occasionaly killing Earth-One inhabitants as part of his experimentations.

Kal-L was a formidable presence and helped to establish the Justice Society of America. Due to various in-story personal adventures, Kal-L was only able to join the Justice Society as an honorary member. He would later join the reformed team under the World War 2 incarnation called the All-Star Squadron.

As shown in the All-Star Squadron series, Kal-L's power levels were NOT as high as many later stories would portray whereby he was able to be knocked unconscious by chemical bombs, cut and hurt by large-scale explosions and unable to fly into space unaided. In later stories, Kal-L would routinely comment that "he was at his most powerful during his mid-thirties", and was thuis weaker as he got older. But he was "still able to make a difference" with his weaker power levels in his later life.

1950s
After establishing himself as one of the premiere heroes of Earth-Two, Kent later started to focus on his personal life, advancing his own reporter career to become the Lead Investigative Reporter for the Daily Star. But always mindful of his dual persona, Kent kept his ambitions in check and Kent largely remained a retiring persona. This would change in the early 1950s when two of Kal-L's enemies would fight to see which nature was more powerful -- the advanced science of Colonel Tomorrow or the ancient mystical powers of the Wizard. After several defeats at the hands of the "Man of Tomorrow" Colonel Tomorrow challenged the boasted powers of the Wizard to prove its effectiveness over his own superscience against their greatest threat, Superman.

To prove his superior powers, the Wizard cast a spell to rid the world of Superman. The spell misfired and made Clark merely repress his superhero identity. Freed of his need to repress his more aggressive and assertive persona, Kent acted out his nature but without his costume and his flight abilities. Kent continued to battle evil as an open crusading reporter for some time even directly engaging in hand to hand battles against criminals which of course he would routinely win due to his superhuman strength and bullet proof skin density. Also freed of his self-restrictions, Kent once again expressed his affections for Lois. Without his clumsy acts and disappearing devices, he eventually won the heart of Lois Lane as Kent. The two married, but Lois discovered Clark's secret while on their honeymoon trying to cut Clark's hair which broke the scissors Lane used. Torn between her love of Kent and the world's need for its most noted hero, Lane-Kent tracked down the Wizard and made him reverse the spell. Lois then tried to forsake their marriage but Kent wouldn't let her. Kent decided to confirm their marriage in both Earth and Kryptonian ceremonies.

Later, George Taylor retired as editor-in-chief of the Daily Star and Clark replaced him in that role and promoted Lane as Lead Investigative Reporter though he would usually still follow her in many of her dangerous investigations as Superman.

Later Life
By the 1960s it was clear that Kent was NOT immortal and began showing his age. It was during this time that his cousin Kara had arrived on Earth-Two after her decades long journey (unlike her Earth-One counterpart, Kara's rocket was damaged). Kal-L had mostly retired from heroic activity, focusing on his personal life of editor of the Daily Star, leaving the costumed heroic actions to the younger generation including his cousin Kara who had adopted the heroic name of Powergirl. Though Kal-L still occasionally engaged in his Superman identity, even formally joining the reformed Justice Society as an active member, though only part-time preferring to remain in "semi-retirement". It was during this time that Kal-L eventually met his Earth-One counterpart, Kal-El.



Though Kal-L and the Earth-One Superman were initially shown to be basically an even match to each other in their first meet up, it was clearly shown in all subsequent meetings that the Earth-One Superman was clearly far more powerful than the aging Kal-L. Despite his age and weakened powers, Kal-L was still one of the most powerful beings ever and continued to fight against evil whenever possible.

Erasure during The Crisis on Infinite Earths
Despite mostly being retired from heroic actions, Kal-L was one of the first heroes recruited by Harbringer and the Monitor to fight back the assault on all populated universes of the DC multiverse, dubbed as "The Crisis on Infinite Earths". Kal-L was pivotal among many of the battles to defeat the Anti-Monitor who was eliminating positive matter realities in order to increase the Anti-Monitor's power levels to allow him to recreate the resulting universe in his own dark image. Kal-L and many heroes from different universes of the DC multiverse engaged in several battles against the Anti-Monitor but was not able to directly stop him directly despite massive losses of heroes as well as many of the populated universes. Kal-L and the others directly assaulted the Anti-Monitor at the "Dawn of Time" which caused the various universes to collaspe into one singular universe that was able to withstand the Anti-Monitor's assault. Unfortunately, the singular universe erased the history of the universe that Kal-L came from and most of the people he knew outside of the heroic community, including his wife Lois Lane-Kent. Near insane with grief at the loss of his wife and entire history and all the people he knew, Kal-L was restrained by the far more powerful Earth-One Superman until he was able to recollect himself.



Kal-L was able to gather himself together despite his intense sense of loss and along with the equally alone Superboy-Prime directly attacked and killed the Anti-Monitor. The resulting energy release resulting from the Anti-Monitor's physical death threatened to overcome and kill Kal-L and Superboy-Prime. Alexander Luthor Jr. of Earth 3 appeared offering to transport them out of the resulting shockwave but still grieving Kal-L decided to end his life rather than transport into the pocket dimension Alex showed Kal-L until Lois Kent emerged from that locale.



Alexander Luthor Jr of Earth 3 had saved Lois Kent from the universe reset by taking her from the dying multiverse before the battle at the "Dawn at Time" thus saving her from the reset. Luthor then took himself, Kal-L, Lois Kent and Superboy-Prime into the pocket dimension saving them from the destruction of the Anti-Monitor's exploding energies and an universe that mostly no longer remembered them.

Infinite Crisis
Kal-L continued to watch the new Earth from the pocket "Paradise" dimension. He began to be disturbed by what he saw as the growing darkness that was apparently affecting the Earth, especially in the indecisiveness of his resulting counterpart. That darkness began to affect the Paradise dimension and as a result, Lois began to get deathly ill despite the pocket dimension being insulated from the outside reality.



Deciding that the resulting Earth had been corrupted, Kal-L had decided along with Alexander Luthor Jr. and Superboy Prime to reformat the existing universe based on them as the primary template rather than the current incarnations of the heroes. Kal-L hoped that would reverse the effect on his dying wife Lois Lane Kent even though that would kill the current wife of the current Superman though he thought of it as merely "folding the current incarnations into his template" though he did know that those who would be "folded" would cease to live.

Deciding that his greed was permissable to do against the corruption he saw in the current universe, Kal-L punched his way out of the pocket dimension and the quartet established their base of operation in a cave in Antartica. Kal-L revealed himself to Power Girl as well as to the current incarnation of his best friend Batman in hopes to get them to agree to his plan to recreate the universe to his expectations. Both refused him after being shown the Earth-Two versions of their histories though Kara was more acceptant to Kal-L than the current Wayne who argued against Kal-L for losing his own version of the Batman Family and himself over the already dead of cancer Police Commissioner Bruce Wayne of Earth-Two.

Kal-L continued on his quest to bring back his version of history alongside Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor Jr. which culminated in the recreation of an exact duplicate of Pre-Crisis Earth-Two, though it was completely unpopulated. Seeing his goal achieved, Kal-L was overjoyed to see his old world back as the potential cure to his wife's pending death. Kal-L's joy turned to heartbreak when Lois died despite their return to Earth-Two. The current Kal-El heard Kal-L cry out in agony and came to Earth-Two to investigate. Kal-L lashed out at him, blaming Kal-El for "corrupting" Earth-Two thus killing Lois. Wonder Woman arrived on Earth-Two and restrained Kal-L. She and Kal-EL made him realize that restructing the universe would not bring about the changes that Kal-L had hoped as the recreated Earth-Two clearly showed.

Seeing that he was wrong and that the ambitions of recreating the universe would not bring about an improvement, Kal-L decided to correct his mistake. Alexander Luthor, Jr. and Superboy-Prime decided to continue to recreate the universe in order to achieve their goals despite the pleas from the current heroes and Kal-L to stop.

Seeing that Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor, Jr. were commited to reshaping the universe, Kal-L directly attacked them in hopes of preventing more deaths. Superboy-Prime had decided to directly assault the individual people he considered unworthy in the current universe most notably the current Superboy, Conner. The battle between the two Superboys ended with Prime killing the vastly underpowered Conner as Prime's power levels were shown to be literally infinite with his physical strength levels able to push planets out of orbit unaided, which was beyond Conner, Kal-El and Kal-L levels.

Nevertheless the two Supermen realized that Superboy-Prime was completely out of control and was openly killing people and not merely intent on just recreating the universe. Alongside many powerful heroes, Kal-L and Kal-El decided to attack Superboy-Prime headon to stop his murderous rampage. Deciding to push Superboy Prime through a red sun to depower his strength levels to a far more manageable level in hopes of snapping him out of his depression.

Seeing that Kal-L had turned away from their original plan to reshape the universe to fit their demands, Superboy Prime attacked Kal-L directly venting his full rage and frustration at his one time ally. Despite the effects of the red sun, Superboy-Prime was still vastly overpowered to Kal-L's own power levels. The attack was so vicious that Superboy-Prime smashed Kal-L internal organs and skelatal structure, killing Kal-L.

But the time that Superboy-Prime dedicated to attacking Kal-L allowed Kal-El to recover and to drain down Superboy-Prime even further lower levels, thus knocking him out, whereby their combined attacks were able to stop Superboy-Prime.

Kal-L died in Powergirl's arms after realizing his mistake and stating that he would never leave her even though she would not be able to see him.

Kal-L was buried on the new Earth that he died protecting from Superboy-Prime alongside Conner and his wife.

Possible resurrection
Justice Society of America vol. 3, #1 (February 2007), shows an arm wearing Kal-L trademark "sweatshirt" collar cuffs, bursting up from Kal-L's grave as a startled Power-Girl looks at the emerging arm calling out Kal-L's name.

Characteristics
Height: 6'2" naturally as Kent 5'8" through compression of his spine to differiante Kent from Superman Weight: 222 lbs (100.69 kg) Eyes: Blue Hair: Black (white all around with only black top later in life) Unusual Features: No unusual features

Powers
Known Powers: Obvious Superhuman levels of physical strength, durability, stamina, and speed. Unlike the Earth-One Superman and current mainstream Superman, Kal-L powers were attributed to his Kryptonian physiology and not the radiation of a yellow sun as all Kryptonians native to this reality did have superpowers in their original red sun system, hence Kal-L's powers did not fluctuate under the presence or lack of yellow sun light. This was the primary rationale used for his lower superpower levels to his other dimensional counterparts and his aging.



Kal-L's sensory powers include telescopic vision, heat vision, microscopic vision, X-Ray vision as well as being able to hear sounds far too slight to pick up by most life forms Known Abilities: independent Flight (was not shown being able to launch himself and fly in outer space unaided). Muscular control would allow Kal-L to engage in super breath and hold his breath for extreme periods of time. Strength Level: multi-megaton as evident by being able to push ocean liners into drydock on his own power. Not incalculable as Kal-L did have limits to his strength level as he could NOT move planetary bodies out of their orbit unaided as the Pre-Crisis Earth-One Superman and Superboy-Prime are able to do

Weaknesses
 * Magic: Kal-L had a HIGHER than normal vulnerability to magical beings and devices.  He was routinely stopped by the Adolf Hitler native to his dimension who possessed the Spear of Longistis commonly referred to as the Spear of Destiny which would overwhelm Kal-L's mind whenever during World War II Kal-L would attempt to invade Germany directly as did other intense magick based heroes such as Wonder Woman and Green Lantern (Alan Scott).  This open weakness to magic would manifest in later events such when Kal-L was poisoned by the Stream of Ruthlessness and almost beat his cousin Power Girl to death.  This hyper sensitivity to magic condition does not seem to be in the current Superman.


 * Kryptonite: Since the destruction of Krypton, its remains (rendered radioactive by the explosion) have been spreading throughout the universe as kryptonite, a crystalline substance whose specific radiation is lethal to Kryptonians native to this reality. In Kal-L's original Earth Two dimention there was only one type of Kryptonite, Green, and its effect is directly poisonous to Earth-Two Kryptonians.  The long term effects of other races being in close or direct contact with Earth-Two dimension Kryptonite was unknown.
 * Originally Kryptonite from other realities DID directly effect Kryptonians from different realities as when Kal-L battled the Earth-Three dimension Ultraman who was powered by Kryptonite. But after the Crisis on Infinite Earths Kryptonite only seems to effect those who come from the same dimension as the current reality Kryptonite did NOT effect Kal-L who originated from the destroyed Classic Earth-Two reality (Infinite Crisis #5) and the current Superman was not effected by the various Kryptonite samples that originated from the Time Trapper's so called pocket universe against that particular Superboy.


 * Kryptonians: Unlike his dimensional counterparts Kal-L was not effected in battling the few Kryptonians native to his reality such as his cousin Power Girl when he was possessed by the Stream of Ruthlessness.  Kal-L was shown to be far weaker in scope to so called "infinite powered" other dimensional Kryptonians such as Superman (Earth-One), Ultraman (Earth-Three) and Superboy-Prime, but Kal-L would never retreat from battle with them when he had to despite the large differences in their strength levels to Kal-L.


 * Lead: Kal-L could not see through lead with his vision powers.


 * Bio Energy: Kal-L's will eventually weaken without rest as his body generated energies are not inexhaustable. Unlike his other dimensional counterparts, Kal-L was NOT powered by normal (yellow) sun radiation.  Kal-L was not effected by red sunlight and maintained his superpowers in red sun systems unlike the Earth-One and current reality Superman who lose their powers in a red sun system.

Miscellaneous
Equipment: No known equipment. Transportation: No known transportation. Weapons: No known weapons.

Publishing History
Kal-L is generally accredited as "THE Golden Age Superman" in order to distinguish him from the primary Superman (formerly Earth-One Superman) and the current Kal-El.

He was also given the distinction of being "THE Golden Age Superman" to clarify him from OTHER Supermen incarnations who also operated in the 1930s and 1940s such as shown in the recent DC "Superman: Man of Steel" series number 80-82.

But despite the title, Kal-L is largely understood NOT to be the ACTUAL Golden Age Superman as the Golden Age Superman is the literal Superman of the actual printed page stories of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to which Kal-L stories do NOT exactly match.

This problem has largely been cleared in recent times now addressing Kal-L as "the Earth-Two Superman" for distinction purposes rather than the linear logically confusing Golden Age Superman though some still refer to him as THE Golden Age Superman as a term of respect than specific identity.

Many consider all of the original classic Superman 1930s and 1940s stories to be attributed to Kal-L when many of them were of directly competing history and powers such as Superman discovering his Kryptonian heritage though time travel power though he never showed this power in any later stories specific to Kal-L and the most famous conflict of Golden Age Superboy who grows up to be a Superman despite the original origin story of Superman clearly states that the original Superman was never costumed Superboy.

These problems resulted from the original idea that Superman was never meant to be divided into two primary histories as later done in the 1960s for the Earth-One and Earth-Two characters. This lack of detail in clearly establishing a seperation for Kal-L was mostly done as dump in order to seperate his character from the primary Superman. It would not be until the Mr and Mrs. Superman stories that stories were SPECIFICALLY and deliberately attributed to Kal-L and not to just "A" Golden Age Superman which many people IMPLY for the 1930s and 1940s stories as they did not apply to the current incarnation of the character but had to apply to some version of the character and were again "dumped" onto Kal-L, regardless of whether those 1930s and 1940s stories where applicable or conflicting to Kal-L's specific character or not.

Trivia

 * Kal-L S shield is intentionally six sided and has tails rather than ball endings as drawn from the early 1940s version, though many artists most notably starting with George Perez in Justice League of America Vol 1 #195-197 usually just extend the upper top curve of the S downwards to touch the side of the shield along with the white hair at temple to distinguish Kal-L from the "main" Superman
 * the famous slogan of "truth, justice and the American Way" was CHANGED from the original radio show slogan which stated Superman fought for "truth, HONESTY and justice" to combat the anti-communism sentiment of the 1950s United States popular culture.

Recommended Readings

 * Action Comics
 * All-Star Squadron
 * Crisis on Infinite Earths
 * Infinite Crisis
 * Superman (Volume 1)
 * World's Finest (Volume 1)

Related Articles

 * Superman (Earth-Two) appearances list
 * Crisis on Infinite Earths
 * Daily Star
 * Earth-Two