- But I need being Clark-- I need a private life just like anyone! In the past, I've tried assuming other identities-- but it just didn't work! Clark Kent is as much a part of who I am as Kal-El of Krypton is! Ma and Pa Kent... the way they raised me... my boyhood in Smallville-- they made me what I am-- and I'd sooner die than give it up!
- — Superman src
Superman is Earth's premier superhero and the stalwart protector of Metropolis. Born Kal-El on the distant planet Krypton, he was sent to Earth as a child to survive Krypton's destruction. Raised with high moral ideals, he uses his extraordinary superpowers to fight evil and protect the innocent. In his civilian identity, he is Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter working for the Daily Planet in Metropolis.
History
The Last Son of Krypton
Kal-El was born to the highly decorated scientific genius Jor-El and his wife Lara, a former astronaut on their home planet of Krypton. Like all Kryptonians, Kal-El had no superhuman powers or abilities on Krypton due to the rays of its red sun Rao, but was, like his father, a very astute and intelligent boy who learned to speak and read in his native language by the time he was three years old.
Jor-El and Lara decided to name their darling baby boy after a thespian friend of theirs who spent a few weeks in Kryptonopolis involved in the shoot of a film with the world-famous actress Lyla Lerrol. Unfortunately, the actor was presumed killed, propelled into the stratosphere in a disastrous incident involving a flame-dragon.[1] Unbeknownst to Jor-El and Lara, this very actor was the time-traveling future adult version of their son, creating the strange tautology that Kal-El was named after himself.
At about the same time, Jor-El learned that Krypton was doomed to explode, and he brought this to the attention of Krypton's technocratic ruling body, the Kryptonian Science Council. Fearing the worst for his planet, Jor-El advised the Council to build a fleet of space rockets to carry the population farther away from the dying planet.
Disbelieving Jor-El's prediction, the ruling council refused to warn their fellow Kryptonians and forbade Jor-El from doing so. Lara pledged to remain with her husband when Jor-El tried to force her to leave with her son so that the escape rocket would have a better chance of surviving the trip. Knowing that Krypton would soon explode, Jor-El launched the ship to Earth, knowing that Earth's lower gravity and the yellow sun would give his son incredible powers.
Though Krypton's core avoided exploding, the alien agent Black Zero artificially accelerated the core to make Krypton's destiny come true. Tomar-Re, the Green Lantern of Space Sector 2813 sworn to protect Krypton, failed to undermine the criminal's plot, and Krypton exploded.[2][3]
Adopted by the Kents
The rocket crash-landed on Earth in an open field outside Smallville, Kansas. It was there that the missile and the young Kal-El were discovered by small land farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent. Upon finding the young boy, Martha became attached to Kal-El, while Jonathan elected to have the child's true family found. Martha persuaded Jonathan to keep the boy as their adopted child, naming him Clark.[4]
The Kents fashioned a set of clothes for their "Superbaby" from the now-virtually indestructible red, blue and yellow blankets in the rocket. This same Kryptonian fabric was later used to create the costume Kal-El would wear as Superboy and Superman.
Superboy Begins
Jonathan and Martha instilled in their adopted son a good sense of right and wrong and an appreciation for helping others. The young Clark took the advice to heart and, when he was eight years old, became active as the new hero Superboy. Clark's first outing as Superboy was to rescue a married couple who were also government nuclear scientists working on a top-secret project from the clutches of an international spy.[5]
Meanwhile, as Clark Kent, Kal-El pretended to be an average human and formed connections with Lana Lang and Pete Ross while going through the stages of his primary and secondary education. While Lana tried repeatedly to prove that Clark Kent and Superboy were the same person, Pete first discovered Clark's secret. Nevertheless, Pete took it upon himself never to reveal this secret to anyone.
Superboy discovered his origins from Krypton for the first time by overtaking light rays reflected off the dead planet before its destruction.[6] As he grew older and his powers increased, however, Kal-El developed total recall of his first few years of life on Krypton as an aspect of his superior mental abilities.
Clark received his super-powered Kryptonian puppy Krypto when the dog crash-landed in Smallville just like he had years prior. Jor-El used Krypto's rocket as a test before launching his son into space.[7]
Adventures of Superboy
As Clark grows up on Earth, he is mindful of obeying the laws of humanity. He works directly with Police Chief Parker and other law enforcement agencies, which leads to Superboy's acceptance as a hero by the people of Smallville. In fact, by the time Clark is around 12 or so, the town officially recognizes their most popular citizen with a billboard that publicly announces: "Welcome to Smallville - the home of Superboy." Nonetheless, Superboy's presence attracted all trouble to himself, chiefly in protecting his secret identity and combatting criminals and alien beings. Early in his career, Superboy revealed his alien origins from Krypton to aspiring journalist Perry White, who went on to receive a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the story. Shortly afterward, the United States Congress held a session to vote for Superboy to hold honorary U.S. citizenship.[8]
Clark first learns about his vulnerability to Green Kryptonite when Jonathan Kent accidentally exposes him to it, which has an immediate effect. Even then, Clark managed to keep awareness of this weakness secret as Superboy for a time, until the Smallville municipal government declared the first "Earthday" (the anniversary of baby Kal-El's arrival on Earth) as a local holiday when a scientist unveiled a sample of Kryptonite in Superboy's honor and inadvertently caused him to collapse during a televised news broadcast. From that day onwards, the whole world knew Kryptonite could weaken or kill Superboy.[9] Later, Superboy encounters the threat of Red Kryptonite when a Martian traveler exposes him to it and creates an evil duplicate of his Clark Kent persona.[10]
Superboy first learned of his weakness under the rays of red-type stars while passing through a red sun system, barely making the landing on a nearby inhabited world before he could lose his powers completely. Superboy constructed a rocket on this nameless planet and blasted off into space, navigating through the space warp, leading from the red sun system back to the Solar System, and regaining his powers under the Sun's yellow rays.[11] Superboy first discovered that the rules of time travel would not permit him to physically exist in any period where he was already present while traveling back to the year 1962 to obtain more firsthand information about the Project Mercury launch that year for a school project.[12]
Lana Lang would acquire a Bio-Genetic Ring from an alien that she rescued, allowing her to manifest insectoid abilities and traits at will. With the ring, Lana fabricated an alter ego as the super-heroine Insect Queen, although her heroic exploits were mostly limited to those that would grab Superboy's attention.[13] Twice in his adolescence, Clark was visited by a robot teacher programmed by Jor-El to test his son's worthiness to use his powers on Earth. The first time, the robot tested Clark's ability to utilize his super-strength, flight, super-speed, invulnerability, X-ray vision, and ingenuity, with a final test being given to judge Clark's capacity to set aside his desires for the common welfare.[14] The robot returned some years later to conduct a more advanced test of Clark's abilities, manipulating Clark into falling in love with a brainwashed girl and faking her death to test Clark's ability to maintain self-control under grief.[15]
Enter the Legion of Super-Heroes
Superboy was contacted by Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes and offered an invitation to join their group. Although Superboy technically failed his initiation test, he had been diverted from his goals by simulated crises created by the Legionnaires, as the true test was to see how Superboy would handle rejection as a heuristic of his strength of character. Once satisfied, the Legionnaires inaugurated Superboy.[16] (Unbeknownst to the Legion, a temporal upheaval rewrote these events in the timeline, so they had rejected Superboy in earnest after he flunked his initiation test, causing a 75th Century time-traveler named Anti-Lad to intervene to resolve the discrepancy in the timeline and prevent reality from collapsing in on itself.[17])
Superboy encountered Ultra Boy for the first time when the youth was dispatched from the 30th century by the Legion to uncover Superboy's secret identity for his initiation test. Succeeding in his mission, Ultra Boy helped Superboy rescue Pete Ross from a booby-trapped bank vault before explaining his intent and returning to the future.[18] Soon afterward, Superboy encountered another Legionnaire, Star Boy of Xanthu, and helped him to capture a pair of escaped crooks from his home-world in the 30th century, in addition to outwitting Lana Lang's repeated attempts to make him jealous by fawning over Star Boy.[19]
As a member of the Legion, Superboy played a pivotal part in many of the team's early adventures, such as in their battles with Mxyzptlk V[20], the Time Trapper[21][22], Starfinger[23], Glorith[24], Universo[25], Computo[26], Doctor Regulus[27], and the adult Legion of Super-Villains from a possible future Legion timeline.[28]
Superboy participated in the lightning-rod ritual on Korbal to revive Lightning Lad from his death-approximating stasis[29], defended Star Boy in a Legion court-martial for his usage of lethal force against an armed Naltorian psychopath[30], and briefly served as acting chairman of the LSH to recruit Ferro Lad, Princess Projectra, Karate Kid, and Nemesis Kid (who alone out of the four new recruits turned out to be a Khundian spy).[31]
Superboy and Supergirl were honorably discharged from the Legion when a Green K cloud coalesced around the Earth's atmosphere, but not before they nominated their own successors, "Sir Prize" and "Miss Terious," to take their places. After the two new Legionnaires used their unique skills to defeat Prince Evillo and his Devil's Dozen, they were revealed to be Star Boy and his girlfriend Dream Girl, and permitted to rejoin the Legion in their full capacity. Color Kid of the Legion of Substitute Heroes then changed the Green K cloud into Blue K, allowing Superboy and Supergirl to retake their places in the Legion.[32]
When a Sun-Eater was spotted on a runaway course for the Solar System, the Legion sought out the Fatal Five to help them stop it in return for presidential pardons, with Superboy being tasked with the recruitment of the Emerald Empress. When the time came, the Sun-Eater proved too great for even Superboy's might, overwhelming him with its raw power before putting him out of commission with a burst of red sun energies. The Sun-Eater was eventually demolished through the heroic sacrifice of Ferro Lad, and the Fatal Five subsequently turned on the weakened Legionnaires. Fortunately, Princess Projectra appealed to Validus to revolt against Tharok's self-serving leadership, and the Fatal Five vanished in a flash of light as Validus's incalculable power collided with the Atomic Axe of his erstwhile ally, the Persuader.[33]
Superboy brought Lana Lang on one of his trips to the 30th century as a reward for showing greater respect for his secret identity. Eager as ever, Lana applied for Legion membership in her superhero identity as Insect Queen. Although rejected for full-time membership on the basis that her powers derived from her Bio-Genetic Ring, Lana proved herself when she helped Superboy and the Legion save an Antarctic city from the designs of a madman and was admitted as a Legion reservist.[34]
While grieving for Ferro Lad's sacrifice, Superboy was attacked by an apparition claiming to be the deceased Legionnaire's spirit, demanding the immediate disbanding of the Legion as vengeance for allowing him to die. Superboy was then captured by a renegade Controller, who revealed that he was responsible for setting the Sun-Eater loose upon the galaxy, simulated the recent appearances of Ferro Lad's "spirit," and intended to possess Superboy's body in a bid for universal domination. Just as the rest of the Legion arrived to rescue Superboy though, the Controller was frightened to death by what may have been the true ghost of Ferro Lad.[35] Superboy and the Legion were then outlawed by the U.P. when Universo took over by impersonating Earthgov President Kandro Boltax, but Universo's mass-mind-control program was spoiled by the Legion with the assistance of his son Rond Vidar, who thereafter became a honorary Legionnaire.[36]
With the help of new Legion inductee Shadow Lass, Superboy and the Legion liberated Talok VIII from the grip of the Fatal Five and defended the central command console of the U.P. defensive weapons systems on Earth from the rogues. In the course of the battle, the Legion Clubhouse was damaged beyond repair by Validus.[37] As such, the U.P. subsidized the construction of a larger and more advanced Legion HQ out of gratitude to the club of young heroes. Superboy and the members of the Legion then repelled a Dark Circle invasion from Earth using the Miracle Machine.[38] Superboy, Mon-El, Duo Damsel, and Shadow Lass went into hiding from Mordru, the Dark Lord of Zerox, in 20th century Smallville after the evil mage's latest outing. Mordru followed the Legionnaires there, and it ultimately took the fullest efforts of all the Legionnaires, plus Lana Lang in her Insect Queen identity, to defeat the sorcerer.[39]
Back in the 30th century, Colossal Boy was expelled from the Legion for trying to smuggle sensitive info about the Legion to Tarik the Mute, who was holding Colossal Boy's parents hostage to force him to help build up his criminal counterpart to the LSH: The Legion of Super-Villains. After it was determined that Colossal Boy was being coerced into his actions, Superboy went undercover as a delinquent Legion reject to attract the attention of the LSV's recruiters and receive entry to their training grounds. However, Superboy was unable to keep up the ruse, and a battle erupted. Reinforced by the rest of the Legion and the Science Police, Superboy and his teammates were able to shut down Tarik's operation, save Colossal Boy's family, and put away many of the LSV recruits.[40]
Later, the Legion of Super-Heroes came under review by the United Planets' Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay taxes exacted upon all private organizations exceeding 25 members. As the Legion had since reached 26, it became necessary for the Legion's incumbent chairman Karate Kid to dismiss one Legionnaire to fall under the limit and avoid charges of tax-evasion. Various Legionnaires volunteered themselves to resign for the good of the greater cause, and several Legionnaires attempted to sabotage tests employed to impartially decide which Legionnaire was the least useful to the group. Ultimately, Superboy decided to quit the Legion and return to the 20th century, rationalizing that Mon-El shared his powers but lacked his Kryptonite weakness and therefore was more than sufficient to replace him. The Legion accepted Superboy's resignation, but they honored his period of service with them by casting a statue of Superboy in gold to display in their headquarters.[41]
Superboy's Enemies
One day, Superboy was incapacitated by a large Kryptonite meteorite on the property of the Luthor family. By pure happenstance, the boy tending the fields, Lex, happened upon the scene and removed the Kryptonite from the vicinity with his quick thinking. Superboy and Lex became fast-friends, as Lex proudly showed the Teen of Steel his private collection of Superboy-related memorabilia, while Superboy used his powers to stock Lex's home laboratory with rare materials. In gratitude, Lex resolved to devise an antidote to Kryptonite poisoning and synthesized protoplasmic life. However, Lex accidentally caused a chemical fire in his lab, and Superboy's attempt to extinguish the flames with his super-breath knocked a vial of acid into the protoplasm, destroying it and emitting fumes that caused Lex's hair to fall out. An enraged Lex turned on his former hero, making several attempts to supplant Superboy as Smallville's resident hero with the creations of his advanced science. This backfired when each of Lex's projects backfired, requiring Superboy to save the town, and causing the public to view Luthor as a public menace. Developing an intense, fanatical obsession with taking down Superboy, Luthor resorted to criminal schemes to get his way. As a result, Luthor was incarcerated repeatedly in juvenile detention centers, while his family left the down and changed their surname to "Thorul" to escape Lex's reputation. Lex's younger sister Lena was kept ignorant of her relationship to the budding villain as she grew older, being told by her parents that her brother died in an accident while she was too young to remember.[42][43]
While bearing witness to Professor Dalton's exhibition of a Duplicator Ray, which could theoretically materialize perfect copies of existing objects down to the molecular level but actually created imperfect duplicates, Superboy was accidentally hit by the ray. The product of this mishap was the materialization of a malformed copy of Superboy, possessing all of Superboy's powers and vague hints of his memories, but bearing an ugly, chalk-white, chiseled face and a subnormal intelligence. Overhearing Superboy calling it "bizarre," the creature assumed that its name must be "Bizarro" and wandered aimlessly, causing chaos in its wake. Ultimately, Superboy put an end to Bizarro by colliding into it with an irradiated hunk of material from Professor Dalton's ray.[44]
It is during his youth that Clark first encounters the juvenile 5th-dimensional imp Mxyzptlk, who breached the third-dimension with a space warp against the wishes of his elders. For no reason other than the sake of mischief-making, Mxyzptlk tries to prank Superboy several times, but Mxyzptlk's parents reveal to Superboy that the imp can be forcibly recalled to the 5th dimension for a 90-day period if he says his name backwards - "Kltpzyxm." Tricking Mxyzptlk into doing as such begins a long rivalry between Clark and Mxyzptlk which would extend well into Clark's adult life.[45]
Superboy also fought the Kryptonite Kid of Blor, an alien criminal whose mutation by a Green K space-cloud gave him the ability to emit an aura of Kryptonite radiations and transmute anything else into Green K. The Kryptonite Kid came to Earth in order to become the planet's greatest criminal, knowing of his ability to uniquely affect Kryptonians and Superboy in particular. In their first encounter, Superboy was only saved from the Kryptonite Kid by Mxyzptlk, who reasoned that if the Kryptonite Kid were allowed to kill Superboy that he would be deprived of years' worth of fun playing pranks at the Boy (later Man) of Steel's expense.[46] The Kryptonite Kid returned to challenge Superboy on multiple future occasions.[47][48]
The Legacy of Krypton
Superboy would encounter remnants of the Kryptonian civilization during his time on Earth, starting with a casket of technological artifacts from Krypton that crashed on Earth and was discovered by Lana Lang's archaeologist father, Professor Lewis Lang. Superboy was summoned by the professor to open the casket and deciphered the note left within, written in Kryptonese by his father Jor-El, which explained that the devices contained were powerful weapons, illegally manufactured on Krypton by Jor-El's cousin Kru-El. Contained along with the arsenal of forbidden weapons was the Phantom Zone Projector, which the Kryptonian penal system used in lieu of prisons and capital punishment to banish Krypton's criminal element to an ethereal twilight dimension: The Phantom Zone. Superboy was transported to the Phantom Zone when a lizard pressed a button on the back of the Projector. However, Superboy realized that he had a limited influence on the physical world, even as a phantom, by focusing his thoughts, and used this method to clue Jonathan Kent in on his predicament and arrange his release from the Zone. Afterwards, Superboy placed the Phantom Zone Projector and other Kryptonian weapons back into the casket and deposited it at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where only he could locate and access it.[49]
Superboy briefly believed that he had a brother when a rocket crash-landed in Smallville carrying a strangely-garbed teenager with similar powers as Superboy. Although the youth had amnesia, the boy's rocket contained a letter bearing Kryptonese well-wishes from Jor-El and Lara, leading Superboy to assume their familial relationship. Because the rocket arrived on Earth on a Monday, Superboy constructed a Kryptonian name for his "brother": Mon-El. When Mon-El had no reaction to Green Kryptonite radiations and Krypto failed to recognize him, Superboy began to suspect Mon-El of secret, malicious motives for appearing in his life. To force Mon-El to reveal his presumed treachery, Superboy exposed him to lead coated with phosphorescent green paint to resemble Kryptonite. This caused Mon-El to experience a strong reaction to the metal and had the unintended effect of restoring his memories. Mon-El explained that he came from a planet called Daxam, whose inhabitants have powers approximating those of Kryptonians under the yellow sun, and that he stopped briefly on Krypton prior to the destruction of that planet, having met and befriended Jor-El and Lara in the process. As Daxamites have a similar reaction to lead as Kryptonians do to Green Kryptonite, with the added caveat that the effects are irreversible, Superboy determined that the only way to save his life would be to banish him to the Phantom Zone until such time as a cure for Daxamite lead-poisoning could be found.[6] In the 30th Century, a temporary salve for Daxamite lead-poisoning would be formulated by the Legion of Super-Heroes, allowing Mon-El to join their adventures for limited periods. After helping to best a hostile android sent to the future by Lex Luthor, Mon-El was unanimously inaugurated into the Legionnaires' ranks.[50] When Brainiac 5 created a permanent cure for his lead poisoning, Mon-El was released from the Phantom Zone for good.[51]
Superboy would later encounter a genuine survivor of Krypton of comparable age to himself: the juvenile delinquent Dev-Em, who tried to ruin his reputation by banishing Superboy to the Phantom Zone and impersonating him to frame him for incorrigible actions, before letting Superboy go free and using his powers to travel into the 30th Century.[52] There, Dev-Em would learn the error of his ways and join the Interstellar Counterintelligence Corps of the United Planets, aiding the Legion of Super-Heroes to arrest interplanetary crime kingpin Molock.[53]
Return to the Legion
Although he resigned from the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superboy remained available for contact by the team as a reservist. Although no longer contacted for regular missions, Superboy was called into action to tell Cosmic Boy apart from a magical duplicate conjured by Mordru to kill the Legion[54], free Chameleon Boy's mind from a mystic blood-gem created by Mordru to compel those who look into it to murder Superboy[55], thwart alien mercenary Tyr's scheme to brainwash Timber Wolf into destroying Legion HQ[56], stop the Fatal Five from activating a time-altering device from the 20th century in Smallville[57], prevent Tyr from breaking out of custody with his autonomous cybernetic arm-cannon[58], and keep Starfinger from kidnapping Duo Damsel on the eve of her wedding with Bouncing Boy.[59] After the wedding, both Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy left the Legion to settle into normal married lives as civilians. As a result, Superboy was restored to full active service as a Legionnaire.[59]
Afterwards, Superboy welcomed Wildfire[60] and Tyroc[61][62] to the Legion, witnessed the tragic death of the original Invisible Kid[63], and fought against the Fatal Five[64][65][66] and the Legion of Super-Villains[67] alongside his teammates several times.
After warding off an attack by the Time Trapper[68], Superboy and the Legion encountered the Coluan villain Pulsar Stargrave, who warned them of an impending battle with Mordru for control of the universe. Stargrave urged the Legion to side with him in the coming conflict, but Superboy and his allies rebuked Stargrave for assuming that they would assist one would-be tyrant to stop another. Stargrave defeated the Legionnaires and deceived Brainiac 5 into believing that he was Brainy's father Brainiac 4. Though Stargrave disappeared after his victorious battle with the Legion, Superboy eavesdropped on Brainiac 5 at Legion HQ later that night, overhearing as Brainy swore loyalty to Stargrave over the Legion.[69]
Following the Legion's defeat of the Resource Raiders with the help of new member Dawnstar, Superboy and his teammates learned that Brainiac 5 went on a mission to Zerox to steal a mystical artifact of power for Stargrave. In the process, Brainy learned that Stargrave was not actually his father, but rather the original Brainiac, and went off into space alone to exact vengeance.[70] Superboy and his fellow Legionnaires found Brainiac 5 in the orbit of Colu, having lost against Stargrave in a one-on-one confrontation. Stargrave descended upon the planet beneath him and launched multi-pronged attacks against Colu's infrastructure in order to distract the Legionnaires from his true objective. Brainy determined that Stargrave aimed at resurrecting the long-inoperative Computer Tyrants, and while Brainy's hunch was accurate, Stargrave was only kept from his goal by the last-second arrival of Superboy and Wildfire.[71]
Superboy and the Legion defended the United Planets against subterfuge by the Dark Circle, whose agent Deregon threatened the destruction of much of the Earth with an explosive device. Chemical King sacrificed his life to defuse the bomb, but Superboy and the Legion brought the fight to the Dark Circle homeworld in search of revenge. The Legion cancelled the siege of the homeworld after Deregon was captured on Earth, but this was a mere prelude for things to come.[72] Superboy was pulled into the greatest challenge to face the Legion of Super-Heroes yet, as Mordru used the Dark Circle, the Khunds, and the Resource Raiders -- as the secret puppetmaster behind all three factions -- in a campaign to sabotage U.P.-Dominator peace talks at Weber's World and destroy the Earth out of spite. After Mordru executed his takeover plan, Superboy was one of four remaining Legionnaires, alongside Karate Kid and the technically retired Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, to stand in Earth's defense. Thanks to their efforts, the other Legionnaires were liberated from Mordru's captivity and sealed the sorcerer away.[73]
Stargrave returned with a plan to frame Ultra Boy for the murder of his ex-girlfriend An Ryd on Rimbor, fooling the Legion's internal investigation team for a time.[74] Meanwhile, Stargrave infected Brainiac 5 with a mind-altering disease and preyed upon Brainy's increasing instability to make Brainy his partner-in-crime.[75] After the conclusion of the Earthwar, Chameleon Boy re-reviewed the evidence from the murder case and deduced the true identity of the culprit when Stargrave appeared in Legion HQ and struck Cham into a coma to suppress the information. However, Cham kept backups of his files which were decoded by Wildfire, who convened the majority of active Legionnaires to reveal his conclusion from the evidence: that the actual murderer was Brainiac 5. Under Stargrave's influence, Brainy took sole credit for the conspiracy. At the same time, Stargrave used the Miracle Machine to create a hate entity called Omega, which held the power to destroy the universe. Superboy and the other Legionnaires tried in vain to stop Omega's onslaught. Ultimately, the Legion had to appease the insane Brainiac 5 to find a solution by "declaring" Brainy as the master of the universe. The actual solution required former Legionnaire Tenzil Kem to eat the Miracle Machine, driving Tenzil insane in the process. In the aftermath, the Legion HQ was reduced to a pile of rubble. In addition, Brainy and Tenzil were remanded to a psychiatric care facility for treatment. The U.P. Inner Council received news that due to the actions of the Legionnaire, the universe itself nearly came to an end.[76]
Only some years later, when a change in Earthgov administration challenged the integrity of the Legion Charter based on Brainiac 5's actions here, did it emerge that much of the scheme was Stargrave's doing, with Brainiac 5 being used as a scapegoat and patsy as revenge for Stargrave's defeat on Colu.[77] Topping these misfortunes was the sudden and inexplicable bankruptcy of R.J. Brande.[78] Unable to secure funding to continue their operations from either Brande or the U.P., the LSH braved an uncertain future. In this vulnerable state, Superboy and the Legion were challenged by a new villain team calling themselves the League of Super-Assassins, who referred to their unseen leader as The Dark Man. Brainiac 5's intellect proved pivotal in saving Superboy and his comrades' lives from the Super-Assassins. Furthermore, being saved by Brainiac 5 strengthened Superboy's private conviction to restore his former friend to his previous sanity, as now the Boy of Steel was indebted to Brainy for not just his own life but those of 4 other Legionnaires.[79]
Superboy joined with Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl to commandeer the hologram room of a futuristic amusement park and program it to display a simulation that would restore Brainiac 5 to sanity.[80] Afterwards, Superboy helped the Legion conduct an unauthorized investigation of R.J. Brande's financial records and determined that he was bankrupted by illicit siphoning of funds from his bank accounts by Earthgov President Kandro Boltax. The Legion and Brande confronted Boltax in the U.P. Inner Council chambers, where Boltax admitted to his crime but offered a justification for the necessity to finance reconstruction projects in the wake of the Earthwar. Boltax fell into disgrace, and the Inner Council offered to make Brande reparations. Still, Brande declined, feeling that Earth needed the money more than he did and intent on using the rebuilding of his business as an opportunity to reconnect with the common people. Legionnaires offered to donate their time on leave to help Brande in his endeavor.[81][82] No sooner was that matter settled than several Legionnaires came under attack by an escapee from a mental institution named Rejis Thomak. When Thomak came up against Superboy, the so-called "psycho-warrior" attempted to drive Superboy into a nervous breakdown by revealing the ultimate fate of his foster parents, the Kents. Unwilling to make himself forget how he was destined to fail his adoptive parents at some point in his future, Superboy was psychically compelled by Saturn Girl to return to the 20th century for good, as subliminal blocks would prevent Superboy from accessing that information once in his time period.[82][83]
The New Adventures
Superboy concentrated on his Smallville superhero career after telepathically enforced hiatus from the Legion's missions in the 30th century. Superboy was frustrated by the appearance of a new teen superhero in Smallville, calling himself Astralad. Superboy identified Astralad as his ordinarily nebbish classmate, Joey Silver, and put a stop to his career out of concern for Astralad's reckless use of his powers.[84] After Superboy helped a group of alien visitors destroy red-sun-radiation spores that they had accidentally let loose on Earth, he was offered a reward but refused. Instead, the aliens bestowed Superboy's gift upon Jonathan Kent, using their power to give Jonathan 30 hours of quality time with his son in the future, in a time beyond his death.[85][86] Inspector Bill Henderson visited Smallville on behalf of the city of Metropolis to convince Superboy that his powers could be put to better use tackling the problems of a big city. Meanwhile, the Kents counter-argued that Superboy lacked the experience to leap from Smallville to Metropolis. Superboy finally sided with his parents, albeit not without finding the opportunity to help the Inspector put away a few crooks who followed him from the city.[87]
While combatting a twister raging through Smallville, Superboy accidentally hit the vibrational frequency, which shifted him across the dimensional barrier to the parallel reality that would come to be known as Earth-Two years later. There, Superboy encountered his parallel universe counterpart and taught him how to exercise better control of his powers. This encounter paradoxically inspired the Clark Kent of Earth-Two to create the Superman identity as an adult, basing his costume on that of the teenage Superboy.[88] In response to a challenge by local detractor Carl "Moosie" Draper, Superboy created an android named Kator to prove that he could overcome an opponent even more powerful than him. Superboy barely survived his first encounter with Kator and survived by an even thinner margin after the first Kator transformed Draper into a duplicate of himself, but the Teen of Steel ultimately prevailed.[89]
In the 30th century, Ultra Boy was caught in an explosion on the pirate-planetoid New Tortuga. He was presumed deceased by the rest of the Legion of Super-Heroes.[90] In fact, Ultra Boy's powers saved his life from the explosion. Still, the massive release of energy somehow shunted him to the Interdimensional Limbo. After failing to contact the Legionnaires in his time-era, Ultra Boy attempted to broadcast his thoughts to Superboy in the 20th century, undergoing a partial merging of the minds with Superboy. With Ultra Boy's psyche overlain over his own, Superboy caused disruption with an A-bomb test in the process of returning to the 30th century. Subsequently, Superboy adopted the new identity of "Reflecto" to disguise his identity and gave crucial assistance to the Legion in stopping Grimbor the Chainsman's plot to destroy the Earth. Afterwards, the Legionnaires unmasked Reflecto as Superboy, to Superboy's own confusion as he still believed he was Ultra Boy. Superboy and a team of Legionnaires returned to the 20th century to get to the bottom of the mystery, when the Time Trapper struck out to separate the Legionnaires and pick them off. Phantom Girl phased Superboy along with herself to the dimension of Bgztl in order to sidestep the Time Trapper's assault, freeing Superboy's mind from the influence of Ultra Boy. Superboy moved to rescue Ultra Boy from limbo and regrouped with other Legionnaires at the End of Time to confront the Time Trapper. Superboy then rejoined the Legion, on the condition that Saturn Girl erase his knowledge of the Kents' demise while in the 30th century.[91]
Back in his own era, Clark helped double-agent Cory Renwald complete a spy mission[92], briefly exiled himself in time to the Old West to learn how better to control his powers[93], and fought Doctor Chaos[94], Pulsar[95], and the Superboy Revenge Squad.[96] Superboy then encountered a novice magic-user known as the Yellow Peri when her imperfect command of her mystical powers produced a series of disasters[97] and defeated classmate-turned-super-villain Dyna-Mind.[98] On an adventure in Tokyo, Superboy helped Japanese superhero Sunburst outsmart a gang of crooks who were coercing him into committing crimes for them.[99] Perhaps most unexpectedly, Clark Kent finally found a steady girlfriend after he started dating Lisa Davis. Clark's relationship with Lisa encouraged him to open up more in his life as a high-school student and to embrace that part of his life as something more than a disguise for Superboy.[100][101][102]
Meanwhile, Superboy maintained his 30th-century contacts with the Legion. Superboy and his Legionnaire friends teamed up to thwart a conspiracy by Lex Luthor and a 30th-century thief named Nylor Truggs to abuse the H-Dial for personal gain.[103] In the Legion's time-period, Superboy was present for one of the Legion's most harrowing adventures, as Superboy and friends fought to prevent monstrous creatures called the Servants of Darkness from stealing objects of supernatural power, as well as draining the powers of the Legion's old enemies Mordru and Time Trapper. Superboy and the Legion discovered that the Servants of Darkness were distorted clones of heroes long deceased, including one created in Superboy's own image. The Servants' true goal turned out to be the resurrection of Darkseid, who then went on to enslave the 3 billion natives of Daxam and forge them into a universe-conquering army. Fortunately, a baby that inexplicably manifested on Naltor rapidly aged to adulthood and proved to be the reincarnation of Highfather, who empowered Superboy and Supergirl to fight Darkseid even under the rays of Daxam's red sun. Even the might of the two Kryptonian super-cousins proved insufficient, but Darkseid was forced to retreat when the Legion broke his control over the Daxamite army, who proceeded to turn their full collective fury against the god of evil who had controlled them.[104]
The Death of the Kents
During Clark's teenage years on Earth, the Kents had sold their farm, became shopkeepers in Smallville and settled into a more modern lifestyle supporting Clark's day-to-day life as well as his superhero activities. Sadly, it was the destiny of Jonathan and Martha Kent to die, and for Clark to be unable to save them in spite of his enormous power. While on a vacation on a Caribbean island, Jonathan and Martha Kent uncovered a buried chest containing scraps of an incomplete diary left behind by pirate Pegleg Morgan in the year 1717. Deciding to humor his adoptive parents' curiosity about the crumbled diary pages, Clark took them back in time to the exact day in history that the record was taken, where they witnessed Pegleg Morgan being stranded on the island by Blackbeard.
Superboy and the Kents returned back to their own era and back to Smallville, but Jonathan and Martha fell deathly ill, developed extremely high fevers, and went into comas within a matter of hours. Doctors correlated the symptoms to the dreaded Fever Plague, a tropical disease with no recorded cases for the past 100 years. Realizing that his parents would not have contracted Fever Plague if not for their time-travel sojourn, Clark tried to treat Jonathan and Martha with traditional herbal remedies, to no avail. He also accepted the help of Lex Luthor, who devised a healing ray and believed that Jonathan would put in a good word to the parole board committee if he were successful, but Luthor's genius was equally inadequate to the task.
Clark next attempted to give the Kents blood transfusions to bolster their immune systems, only to discover that it was ineffective due to the plague pathogens' inability to infect his bloodstream and produce a superhuman immune response. Finally, Clark resorted to using the Phantom Zone Projector to preserve the Kents, but sunspot activity had caused unusual defects in its mechanical functions, preventing the Projector from working. Traumatized by guilt, Clark bore witness as Martha Kent breathed her last. Jonathan awakened from his coma briefly to impart some last advice to his super-son -- "Son, you did your best for us! Now listen to my last words! You must always use your super-powers to do good... Uphold law and order! Good luck, my son... And goodbye!"
With that, Jonathan Kent passed away, leaving Clark truly alone in the universe for the very first time. After matching the scrap of Pegleg Morgan's diary that his parents found with the rest of the diary page in a local museum, Clark analyzed the page with his microscopic vision and observed the Fever Plague pathogens on both. Clark decontaminated the complete page with a burst of heat vision and considered that the Kents may have contracted Fever Plague on the beach even before the time-travel trip, but this did little to improve Clark's emotional state.[105][106]
The Secret Years
The deaths of Clark's foster parents happened to roughly coincide with Clark's graduation from high school, and Clark made the decision to leave Smallville to go to college. A series of events seemed to Superboy to suggest the letters "M.U.," which Clark treated as an omen bidding him to enroll with Metropolis University.[107] Clark and Lana both separately moved to Metropolis to pursue a journalism degree, while Clark decided that he should stop appearing publicly as Superboy for some months so that the "coincidence" of Clark Kent and Superboy resurfacing in Metropolis would not undermine his secret identity. In his freshman year, Clark and Lana shared a dormitory with happy-go-lucky Tommy Lee and bitter, acerbic Ducky Ginsberg, both of whom quickly became friends with the transplants from Smallville. Using his super-powers covertly, Clark stopped a group of burglars from robbing students' belongings by faking a bomb scare on campus. Although Superboy was never seen by the criminals or anyone else, Inspector Henderson intuitively recognized that the Boy of Steel had decided to make Metropolis his new home.[106]
Nevertheless, anticipation for Superboy to reappear led to a wave of mass-hysteria and media sensationalism, as reports flooded from nearly every major city in America that Superboy had relocated there. Just as he had gotten the scoop on Superboy's origin, Perry White was the first individual to obtain conclusive evidence that Superboy had set up shop in Metropolis. Perry had eavesdropped on a conference held by the mob council of local crimelord Boss Weed and was found out by the gangsters. Only Superboy's invisible assistance enabled Perry to avoid a hail of bullets from Weed's men and clear the distance between two building rooftops with his life intact. Perry found that one of the fired bullets had been melted in mid-air, though Daily Planet editor-in-chief George Taylor refused to be convinced unless Superboy came to his office personally. After watching Superboy down two rival gangs who were fighting over Boss Weed's territory in an empty football stadium, Perry managed to coax Superboy into giving Taylor a personal visit, and the Planet got the exclusive on Superboy's public relocation to the big city.[108]
One of Clark's early Metropolis exploits would involve thwarting a scheme by Lex Luthor to manipulate a computerized banking system to make illicit transfers and withdrawals. Later, Clark would meet and fall head over heels for the handicapped foreign student Lori Lemaris, whom he would have informal dates with on multiple occasions. In addition, Clark rapidly made friends with fellow student Billy Cramer. Clark entrusted Billy with the secret of his double-life and bequeathed him a supersonic whistle to summon him in case of emergencies, but unfortunately, Billy was killed in the process of rescuing a child from a burning building while Superboy was preoccupied. Once more, Clark would acutely experience the guilt of failing to protect those important to him. To compound Clark's grief, Lori informed Clark that they would no longer see each other and that she would be returning to her homeland shortly. Clark investigated Lori's background out of concern and arrived at the fantastic conclusion that the woman he loved was a mermaid from Atlantis, dispatched to survey the progress of the surface world under human guise. Lori also revealed that she knew from her concealed telepathic abilities that Clark was Superboy all along. Together, Clark and Lori rescued a valley full of people from the flooding caused by a burst dam, and then shared one last intimate moment together before Lori returned to the ocean.[109][110]
Luthor made his comeback in spectacular fashion, launching a network of satellites into orbit around the Earth which would beam enough energy into Lex to make him into Superboy's physical equivalent. Hijacking every broadcasting frequency the world over, Luthor presented Superboy with an ultimatum: to face him one-on-one or watch as his satellites rained orbital devastation down upon the planet. Even with Luthor's new advantage, Superboy won the day and returned Luthor to prison. This victory would serve as a line of demarcation in Kal-El's costumed career: Feeling he had experienced enough that he no longer ranked as a kid, a seasoned Clark Kent changed his superhero alter ego from Superboy to Superman.[109]
The Man of Tomorrow
The Fortress of Solitude, the Daily Planet, and Supergirl
Deciding fairly early on that he needed a secret base of operations, Superman created his first Fortress of Solitude in orbit around the Earth, but met with attack by an alien being called Urko the Terrible. Afterwards, Superman chose to relocate the Fortress to an area near the Earth's molten core, only to wind up disturbing an undiscovered race of magma-creatures that lived there.[111] For a time, Superman maintained an undersea fortress, but he finally elected to establish his Fortress's permanent location in the Arctic, hidden behind an enormous door capable of being unlocked only by a gigantic key, weighing hundreds of tons and disguised as an airplane marker.[112][113][114] Within the Fortress, Superman created halls dedicated to his greatest friends and most pernicious foes, an exhibition hall for memorabilia from his adventures, an interplanetary zoo, an arsenal of high-tech and extraterrestrial-designed weaponry, and the incinerator pit called the Atomic Cauldron.
The next step was for Clark Kent to put his journalism degree to use by finding a newspaper in the big city that would hire him. Ultimately, Clark applied with the Daily Planet and impressed Perry White (now editor-in-chief) by passing a battery of difficult tests that Perry handed down to him. Over the next few years, Clark and Perry would develop a healthy mutual respect, with Perry never once suspecting that "timid" Clark Kent was in fact the Man of Steel.[115] However, Clark rubbed off against fellow reporter and professional rival Lois Lane the wrong way, as Lois remained unable to abide the bumbling and mild-mannered facade that Clark wore to conceal his other identity as Superman. Despite this, Lois began to suspect Clark and Superman of being the same man after a series of events which each resulted in Clark's near-exposure. Though Clark would often use his powers to covertly fabricate some alibi for his absences during Superman's appearances, Lois held her suspicions about Clark for many years.[116] Copy boy and staff photographer Jimmy Olsen became Superman's best pal, even being given a watch that could emit a supersonic frequency by Superman, to summon him in case of an emergency. Like Lois, Jimmy also went on his own series of adventures, although many involved bizarre and unusual transformations into superhuman or non-human beings. Once his reputation as "Superman's pal" became widespread, a fan club sprung up in honor of Jimmy, whose members wore bowties, red wigs and green plaid jackets in ritual imitation of the man. Jimmy himself became the fan club president.
When a Kryptonian rocket landed in the town of Midvale, Superman investigated and was met by his cousin Kara, daughter of Jor-El's brother Zor-El. Superman learned that Kara came from a community of Kryptonians stranded in space called Argo City, which survived the destruction of Krypton proper only to meet a Kryptonite doom years afterwards. Zor-El and his wife Allura sent Kara to Earth with prior knowledge that Kal-El had done well for himself as that planet's hero and savior. On Superman's advice, Kara took the human identity of "Linda Lee" and entered the custody of Midvale Orphanage, while Superman endeavored to train Kara in the use of her powers outside of public scrutiny.[117][118][119] During this period, Kara embarked on her own series of adventures as Supergirl, and Superman would call upon her from time to time to be his "secret emergency weapon." After escaping a plot by a malicious Kandorian scientist named Lesla-Lar to replace her, Supergirl proved herself to Superman and was presented to the world as Superman's partner and equal in his crime-fighting crusade.[120]
Beginning of the Rogues' Gallery
Lex Luthor continued to be the source of innumerable problems for Superman, especially in his early career when few other foes matched Luthor's cunning and intellect. Luthor created a suit of armor that drew upon Superman's power[121], used a serum to temporarily turn himself into a Kryptonite Man[122], teamed up with the Joker to discredit Superman as well as Batman and Robin[123], summoned Hercules from the mythical past to help him triumph against Superman[124], created a cannon that could absorb Superman's power and redirect it back at him[125], raided Fort Knox in an attempt to lure Superman out and defeat him with an illusion-casting device[126], faked an alien invasion to lure Superman into a trap and replace him with an android duplicate[127], and blasted Superman with a ray that spawned a negatively-charged doppelganger.[128]
Luthor even created his own answer to Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the form of "Luthor's Lair", a concealed hideout within a museum building whose construction Luthor had funded under a false identity. The main defining feature of Luthor's Lair was a Hall of Heroes containing statues of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Captain Kidd, Al Capone and other infamous marauders and outlaws. Luthor vowed to add his own statue to the gallery once he had contented himself with Superman's humiliation and destruction.[126] When the location of this lair was found out by the police, Luthor used the hidden rocket within the building to escape to an alien planet, where he destroyed one of the planet's robot ruling-caste for its power-core. Superman was forced to play the role of Luthor's advocate so that Luthor could be returned to face justice on Earth, but Luthor pulled a legal technicality that compelled Superman to leave him on the planet.[129] Luthor exploited his situation to set himself up as a space-pirate using android servitors transmuted into lead, diamond, and Green Kryptonite, hoping to draw Superman into another fight and kill him. However, Luthor's creatures revolted against his cruelty and sacrificed themselves in order to help Superman defeat Luthor.[130] On another occasion, Luthor made communication past the time-barrier and recruited the 30th century's Legion of Super-Villains to help him destroy Superman in the present. Superman received unexpected assistance from the Legion of Super-Heroes, throwing the super-villains' advantage.[131]
The alien invader Brainiac descended upon the Earth to shrink its major cities and host them in bottle environments, making an enemy out of Superman. In his quest to restore the cities of Earth, Superman was hit by Brainiac's shrink-ray and discovered that the preserved Kryptonian city of Kandor was within Brainiac's collection, harboring a vibrant community of Kryptonian survivors like himself. Superman restored the Earth cities to their proper places and was ready to use the last of the power in Brainiac's shrink-ray to restore Kandor to normal-size. However, Kandor's Professor Kimda took the decision on his city's behalf to re-size Superman instead, consigning Kandor to remain in its bottle so that Earth could have its protector back. Superman subsequently housed Kandor within the Fortress of Solitude, vowing to one day find a way to restore Kandor and its inhabitants to their original stature.[132] Some time later, Kandor was turned against Superman by rogue scientist Than-Ol, who claimed to have developed a reliable method to re-size Kandor by himself. Superman and Jimmy Olsen had to adopt new identities in the bottle-city as vigilantes Nightwing and Flamebird, inspired by their contacts with Batman and Robin. Nightwing and Flamebird proved that Than-Ol's enlargement-ray would destroy Kandor if used, but this would not be the last time Kandor saw the likes of them.[133]
Superman was confounded by the appearance of another Bizarro, created by Lex Luthor using the same defective Duplicator-Ray as that which spawned the original. Bizarro kidnapped Lois Lane out of a misguided attraction towards her, keeping her on a remote island and trying to impress her with the creation of yet another Bizarro. When "New" Bizarro turned hostile, Superman helped Bizarro #1 defeat him and used the Duplicator-Ray to create a Bizarro version of Lois Lane, so that the two could be happy together.[134] Sometime later, Bizarro and his bride colonized an uninhabited world and populated it with duplicates of themselves, naming the planet as Htrae or Bizarro World. Superman visited the Bizarro World and repeatedly violated the Bizarro Code in his efforts to improve the quality of life, standing to be condemned by Bizarro #1 for his actions. Superman got out of the situation by manipulating Bizarro's warped sense of logic and made restitutions by terraforming the Bizarro World into a cube, giving Bizarro a truly imperfect world at last.[135]
Superman ran afoul of the cyborg killer Metallo when the villain started raiding government uranium deposits to use as a power source for his own body, while Metallo's alter ego John Corben tried to woo Lois using his job at the Planet. Metallo planned to upgrade from uranium to Green Kryptonite and laid a trap to simultaneously secure his objective and eliminate Superman. However, Superman outsmarted Metallo, and Metallo made a crucial mistake that cost him his life.[117] Superman continued to be bedeviled by Mister Mxyzptlk every 90 days. Every time Superman would contrive some way to make the magical being say his name backwards and return to his own dimension, and upon every return Mxy would think of some new way to "cover his blind spots" from previous defeats, such as by using hypnotism on Superman, submerging himself in water, or installing an alarm into his derby hat.[136][137][138] On occasion, Mxy would change his name to frustrate Superman, but Superman always found a way to outwit Mxy nonetheless.[139] Superman faced the threat of Titano, a chimpanzee that was mutated into a gargantuan ape with Kryptonite-vision by an accident during a space-mission. Superman determined that Titano was not evil, but merely confused, and sent him back through time to the Mesozoic Era.[140]
Superman freed Phantom Zone prisoner Quex-Ul once his sentence was up, but Quex-Ul immediately set a plan into motion to permanently strip Superman of his powers with Gold Kryptonite. Meanwhile, Superman and Supergirl learned that Quex-Ul was innocent of the crime he was convicted of. Unable to go through with the plot, Quex-Ul took the brunt of the Gold K radiations that he intended for Superman, losing not only his powers but also his memories as well. Superman helped the amnesiac Quex-Ul create a new life for himself as "Charlie Kweskill" and pulled strings with Perry White to get him a job at the Daily Planet.[141][142] The Superboy Revenge Squad continued to hound Kal-El, under their new name of the Superman Revenge Squad. Their schemes included such as driving Superman insane with Red Kryptonite[143], stranding Superman on a lifeless far-future Earth under a red Sun[144], turning a renegade Superman Robot against the Man of Steel as a super-powered competitor[145], and replacing Superman's friends and allies with android lookalikes.[146]
Superman's Girlfriends
Lois Lane was Superman's main romantic interest after making his debut in Metropolis, though their relationship could often seem one-sided. Though Superman always cared for Lois and came to her rescue when the situation called for it, he felt that his immense powers and responsibility to the world to preserve freedom and fight crime made the maintenance of a love-life unnecessarily burdensome. On top of that, Superman suspected on many an occasion that Lois was more fascinated by his popularity and might than actually attracted to his personal qualities. Lois's reporter's instinct led her on a quest to uncover Superman's secret identity, which she always suspected belonged to Clark Kent. However, Superman's negative response to Lois's prodding complicated the establishment of a long-term relationship. Lana Lang continued to be an important presence during Superman's early years, having become a TV-news reporter with the WMET news station. Often Lana would compete with Lois for Superman's hand in marriage, though at some level both women knew that the Last Son of Krypton would never take either of them so long as he prioritized his mission above such things.
Lori Lemaris also returned to Superman's life now and again, with Clark first renewing contact with her after pursuing rumors of a mermaid that interrupted illegal fishing. After a fisherman's harpoon grievously injured Lori, Superman scoured the stars for a merman surgeon from an aquatic planet. Superman returned with Ronal, who operated on Lori and saved her life. Lori married Ronal after her recovery, but she would encourage Superman and Lois to hit it off in their love-life.[137][147][148] On an accidental trip through time to Krypton, several years before its destruction, Superman fell in love with the actress Lyla Lerrol. Tragically, any permanent romance between the two was not to be, as the circumstance of Krypton's looming death and the necessity of Superman's departure prior to the cataclysm cut their relationship short. Like everyone else on Krypton at the time of its destruction, Lyla Lerrol perished, to be mourned by her erstwhile lover decades into the future and light years away.[149]
The Never-Ending Battle
Lexor and the Luthor-Brainiac Team
Superman's struggle with Lex Luthor grew more complicated when a battle between the two on a desert planet in a red-sun system, originally chosen by Luthor to put Superman on equal terms with himself, led to Luthor's discovery of a benighted population of planetary natives. Although Superman defeated Luthor and returned him to Earth, Luthor succeeded in helping the natives restore much of their advanced technology, which had fallen into decay and disuse after some event generations ago. The natives hailed Luthor as their hero and renamed the planet as Lexor in his honor.[150]
Far from giving up, Luthor teamed up for the first time with Brainiac, hatching a plan to reduce Superman in size with Brainiac's shrink-ray and strip his powers with a special serum. Luthor and Brainiac were actually successful in overcoming their mutual foe and had Superman at their mercy, but a last-minute rescue by Kandor's Superman Emergency Squad reversed their good fortunes. Luthor and Brainiac agreed to release their hold on Superman in return for being allowed to escape.[151]
Not beholden to the Kandorians' obligations, Superman pursued Luthor back to Lexor, whose people elevated Luthor as the ruler of the planet, and ran afoul of Luthor's super-powered alter ego, The Defender, in the process of confiscating harmful radioactive jewel samples that the locals were using as currency. Superman and Luthor made a truce to dispose of the jewels, but Luthor broke the truce to strike back at Superman on Earth and was defeated.[152] This did not stop Luthor from returning to Lexor, marrying his beloved Ardora, and faking his own death to frame Superman for his murder. Superman cleared his name and got his death sentence overturned, but he was banished from Lexor regardless.[153]
Superman lost his powers to the trail of an irradiated comet and used the rare isotope Illium 349 to enlarge one Kandorian Emergency Squad member named Ar-Val to take his place. However, Ar-Val was more interested in grandstanding than fighting injustice, so Kal-El was forced to fight Luthor and Brainiac by himself with no powers. Fortunately, Kal-El's example showed Ar-Val the error of his ways, and Ar-Val sacrificed his life to restore Superman's powers.[154]
Later, Superman returned to Lexor in pursuit of Luthor, disregarding that he was denied entry under Lexorian law. In the process, Superman accidentally revealed to Ardora that Luthor was known as a dangerous criminal on Earth, causing her to become estranged from her husband. In revenge, Luthor teamed up with Brainiac again to cripple Superman with insecurity through a psychological warfare campaign, but Superman got the upper hand and even showed mercy to the villains by letting them flee to Lexor, in addition to erasing Ardora's memory with Amnesium.[155][156][157]
The Rogues' Gallery Expands
In addition to the Luthor-Brainiac alliance and Luthor's political power on Lexor, Superman increasingly faced more powerful and deranged villains. When resentful custodian Joe Meach became a Composite Superman in a freak accident, he upstaged Superman, Batman, and Robin multiple times and threatened to force them into retirement by exposing their secret identities. When Superman and the Dynamic Duo rose to stop the Composite Superman despite the threat, the Composite Superman still managed to defeat them, only being done in by the temporary nature of his powers.[158] A vengeful alien named Xan restored the Composite Superman's powers a few years later, and the villain once again nearly destroyed Superman and Batman. However, a sudden change of heart motivated Joe Meach to take a lethal laser blast intended for his erstwhile enemies.[159]
Another embittered blue-collar worker, Max Jensen, was turned from nobody to nightmare after opening a radioactive waste container that he thought held a payroll shipment. Transformed into the Parasite, Jensen absorbed Superman's powers and memories, including his secret identity as Clark Kent, and went on a rampage through Metropolis. Like the Composite Superman, the Parasite was too strong for Superman to beat in their first encounter. Instead, the Parasite overloaded on life-force from Superman's body and disintegrated.[160] The Parasite was brought back to life by a well-meaning alien traveler, who paid with his life for his mistake. The Parasite then adopted a false identity as Larcon P. Leech and tried to drain Superman more incrementally by shadowing Clark Kent in his alter ego for several days, but Superman recognized Parasite earlier than Parasite suspected and laid a trap for the villain.[161]
The anti-Kryptonian xenophobe Amalak challenged Superman on Earth with the creation of 4 elemental beings and a ray that cut Superman's power in half.[162] Amalak later manipulated an alien space explorer into attacking all the Kryptonian survivors on Earth, but Superman stopped him again.[163] Space pirate Grax stole the force-field of his rival Brainiac and used it to contain Superman within the Earth's atmosphere as a K-meson bomb attached to Superman's costume counted down to destruction for the human race. Luckily, Brainiac helped Superman defeat Grax (and save the Earth) out of spite.[164] The Superman Revenge Squad awakened an invincible robot goliath named Eterno from its slumber at the Earth's core to draw it into an inevitable confrontation with the Man of Steel.[165] Superman had to contend with Zha-Vam, a being sent by the Gods of Olympus to punish Superman for dwarfing their legend with his own.[166] Superman then fought a new villain named the Annihilator and his juvenile delinquent sidekick when the two went on a rampage culminating in the occupation of Washington, D.C.[167]
Even a Superman Must Die
Beyond merely fighting super-villains, Superman remained troubled by persistent fears that his judgement might one day be insufficient to command the use of his powers and that someone might die as a consequence. Superman's inability to stop the entirely preventable death of a cave explorer shattered Superman's self-esteem and caused him to resettle for some time on a planet in a red-sun system named Moxia, but Superman ultimately came to terms with his destiny as protector of the innocent and returned to Earth, albeit not without leaving Moxia with its own super-powered robot guardian.[168] Superman faced charges of homicide in an American court for the first time when a cunning criminal syndicate framed the Man of Steel for the murder of one of their own, but Superman proved his innocence and rooted out the true culprit with the help of Batman.[169] However, the closest Superman was to retiring for good was when the Superman Revenge Squad framed him for a series of crimes before the United Nations Security Council and nearly convinced Superman that he was somehow responsible.[170]
Superman's closest brush with death began when Clark was captured by a criminal ventriloquist named Ventor, who collaborated with Lex Luthor to reverse-engineer the deadly "Kryptonian leprosy" pathogen Virus X and brainwashed Clark Kent into infecting Superman with it, not realizing that Clark himself was the Man of Steel. Breaking free of the mental programming after infecting himself, Superman gradually manifested the hideous symptoms of Virus X and decided to launch his disease-ridden body into Flammbron, the hottest sun in the universe, to be immolated, recalling the moments that defined his life up until that point. By a twist of fate, the denizens of Bizarro World were Superman's unwitting saviors, as they shot a collection of Red and White Kryptonite shards into space in the flight-path of Superman's rocket, having the effect of destroying the viral particles.[171]
Superman faced a nightmare from the past when Black Zero, the alien destroyer of worlds who targeted Krypton, made known his arrival on Earth to the Man of Steel. Having never encountered an enemy of such sheer malice and raw destructive capabilities, Superman was forced to temporarily release his enemy, the Phantom Zone prisoner Jax-Ur, to help him save his adopted planet. Jax-Ur possessed his own reason for hating Black Zero, as the destroyer of his planet and nearly his very race. Superman's abilities were put to the test when Superman had to anticipate the trajectory of an antimatter dart-bomb fired from Black Zero's spacecraft at the Earth and bore a hole straight through the Earth just sufficient to permit the doomsday projectile's passage. Succeeding at his task, Superman was nevertheless nearly killed by the detonation of the antimatter bomb outside of Earth's orbit. Superman returned to find that Jax-Ur had killed Black Zero to exact vengeance for Krypton, but Jax-Ur agreed to be sent back to the Phantom Zone without a fight.[2]
Superman delved into an introspective exploration of his own mortality when the Time Trapper kept him from returning to the present-day world after a time-travel jaunt to millions of years in the future. The Trapper's goal being to drive Superman insane with grief, Superman witnessed the development of the Earth and galactic civilization over an unimaginable time-span, seeing the very legend of Superman rise and fall with the ages and the Earth's surface become uninhabitable as a result of a conflict between super-powered alien visitors, before finally witnessing the end of all life on Earth itself. Though Superman split the planet in half and attempted to geoengineer the hemispheres to create the conditions for life to evolve anew, the Man of Steel's will was broken, and Superman was driven into despair and even made suicidal. Only a cosmic fluke that swept Superman beyond the End of Time managed to restore Superman to his proper time and place in history, owing to the theory of the Timestream as a recursive loop. While Superman went on as before, no more could Superman have total confidence in his indestructibility, either in body or in mind.[172]
Gods and Monsters
The New Gods
Clark Kent's life experienced a reshuffle when Morgan Edge, the President of the Galaxy Broadcasting System and secret leader of Intergang, purchased the Daily Planet from its previous owners. Clark objected when Edge paired Jimmy Olsen up with the Newsboy Legion and sent them on an assignment to the Wild Area, an area on the outskirts of Metropolis inhabited by various outcasts of society. When Intergang tried to assassinate Clark later that day, Clark suspected Edge of ulterior motives and pursued Jimmy as Superman. Superman stopped Jimmy and the Newsboys from unwittingly smuggling a bomb into the Mountain of Judgement, but he was forced to reveal the existence of the DNA Project to the group. Afterwards, Superman defended the Project facilities from an army of DNAliens created by the Evil Factory, in the process preventing a nuclear explosion that would have destroyed Metropolis.[173]
Driven by a creeping sense of alienation from Earth people, Superman sought out the Forever People to investigate their claims of hailing from a "Supertown" where everyone had super-powers. Superman joined the Forever People in their quest to rescue Beautiful Dreamer from Darkseid. Out of gratitude, the Forever People opened a Boom Tube for Superman, leading to New Genesis, but Superman turned down the Forever People's offer, knowing that he needed to remain on Earth to stay vigilant against Darkseid's minions.[174] Morgan Edge and "Ugly" Mannheim of Intergang[175][176], Simyan and Mokkari of the Evil Factory[177], and Desaad[178] all tried to eliminate Superman, Jimmy Olsen, the Newsboy Legion, and Lois Lane to keep them from interfering in Darkseid's plans. On one such occasion, Clark deliberately stepped into a trap meant to kidnap Jimmy to Apokolips, catching a glimpse of both Apokolips and New Genesis from space prior to being sent back to Earth by Lightray.[175]
While Jimmy was on an overseas assignment, Superman, the Guardian, and Dubbilex discovered an underground tunnel network beneath the foundations of Metropolis and determined that Darkseid's servants had built the tunnels to be able to coordinate another strategic strike at the Project labs.[179] Superman was attacked while exploring the tunnels by a New God named Magnar, causing a brief fight as each combatant thought the other to be working for Darkseid. When the misunderstanding was cleared up, Superman followed Magnar through a Boom Tube to New Genesis and explored Supertown, marveling at the life and culture of the New Gods. However, Highfather reassured Superman that his proper place was on Earth and sent Superman back home.[180]
Meanwhile, Morgan Edge flew into a desperate rage when an uncanny lookalike escaped from a prison cell hidden behind his penthouse mirror.[181] Eventually, the lookalike found refuge in a farming community run by the Outsiders Biker Gang[182] and confided in Jimmy Olsen that he was the true Morgan Edge, whereas the other Edge was a clone imposter produced by the Evil Factory. The Edge clone attempted to maneuver Intergang hitmen into place to assassinate the real Edge, but Darkseid abandoned the clone for disobeying his orders by failing to kill the original Edge years earlier. While Superman rounded up the Intergang thugs in the Galaxy (former Daily Planet) building, Darkseid created a circumstance for the Edge clone to be accidentally eliminated by his own hitman.[183]
The Sandman Saga
Superman's life was transformed yet again when the explosion of an experimental Green Kryptonite reactor caused a chain reaction, resulting in the accelerated decay of all Kryptonite in the world into inert iron. Meanwhile, Morgan Edge assigned Clark Kent full-time duties as the WGBS 6 o'clock news anchorman, removing him from the print journalism that had been his occupation for so long. Later that night, a mysterious double of Superman materialized from the sand of the desert surrounding the site of the K-reactor explosion[184] The Sand Superman encountered his flesh-and-blood counterpart while Superman was on a mission, causing the Man of Steel excruciating pain while leeching away Superman's powers.[185] When Superman's powers later started disappearing one by one, Superman wondered if the Sand Superman was to blame. Still, it turned out to be the doing of an amateur sorcerer named Ferlin Nyxly, using a mystical item called the Devil's Harp. Superman fought Nyxly in a public stadium until the Sand Superman abruptly appeared to destroy the Devil's Harp and render Nyxly powerless.[186]
Superman was hit with a dilemma when he inadvertently contracted a deadly space-borne plague, yet had to intervene in South America to save Lois Lane from being overrun by a colony of mutated army-ants. Learning that the energy blast caused by making contact with the Sand Superman decontaminated parts of his body, Superman found his sandy doppelganger and thrust himself directly at it, creating a burst large enough to eradicate all infectious agents. Superman rescued Lois, but his powers were significantly weakened, while those of the Sand Superman were increased enormously. Gaining the ability to speak, Sand Superman warned his body template that while Superman would recover from his momentary weakness, it would not be a complete recovery and that the two of them would be equal in power when they meet next.[187]
Operating at subnormal power levels, Superman barely stopped a desperate terrorist from detonating an H-bomb within a magma chamber deep within the Earth's crust.[188] Diana Prince's new mentor I-Ching somehow knew of Superman's troubles and offered to conduct a ritual whereby Superman's astral form would be extracted from his body and sent to reclaim his power from the Sand Superman. Superman and I-Ching were attacked by the Anti-Superman Gang grunts before the ritual. While a powerless Superman proved sufficient to knock the hoods unconscious, he was inflicted with a mild traumatic brain injury during the fight.[189] I-Ching continued with the ritual until Superman had reclaimed 2/3 of his power from his duplicate via astral projection. Unfortunately, Superman's brain injury also could not be healed in his invulnerable state, causing him to become irrational and make terrible blunders at crucial moments. The Sand Superman used the rest of its power to tear open a portal to its home dimension and let a spirit entity through to Earth to possess a papier-mache war demon in a Chinatown parade. Superman flew out to meet the creature, but his power was leeched from his body by the war demon.[190]
Two thugs took advantage of Superman's powerlessness by beating him unconscious, leaving him to be found by Jimmy Olsen, I-Ching, and Diana Prince. Superman was hospitalized, and brain surgery was performed to resolve the confusion caused by his head trauma. At the same time, I-Ching explained to Jimmy and Diana that the war demon and the Sand Superman were spirit beings from another dimension named Quarrm. Superman's post-surgical recovery was interrupted when the war demon came back to finish him off, but this gave Superman the chance to re-absorb the stolen 2/3 of his power and unite with the Sand Superman to force it back through the interdimensional portal. The Sand Superman then prepared to battle with the real Superman for the privilege of being the protector of Earth. Still, I-Ching showed them an imaginary scenario where their clash destroyed the Earth to dissuade them. The Sand Superman returned to Quarrm peaceably, and Superman allowed it to take 1/3 of his power with him, acutely comprehending that his human fallibility, combined with his almost limitless power, risked the possible destruction of the Earth if his judgment ever lapsed.[191]
The 100
Clark learned of the vigilante Thorn when she announced her mission to combat the crime syndicate known as The 100. Shortly after, he encountered Thorn in person as Superman, first teaming up to save Lois Lane from being killed by a gang of escaped convicts.[192] Superman and the Thorn teamed up again to expose the 100 when they used a hate group as a front to drive protesters from Metropolis's Little Africa district off a high-rise project which was intended to be another front for the 100's operations.[193]
Superman and Lois broke up a conspiracy run by the 100 in South America to steal Pentagon-commissioned blueprints for a devastating new kind of nuclear weapon. Tragically, Lois's sister Lucy fell in with the 100 and was seemingly murdered while attempting to escape their fold. Lois stayed behind in Argentina for six weeks after the incident to cope with her sister's death.[194]
At the end of those six weeks, Lois returned to America more determined, confident, and fiercely independent than ever. Lois's first decision was to search only the stories she felt had personal relevance and served a higher purpose. She also resolved to be less dependent in her relationship with Superman. While searching for a new apartment to rent, Lois broke her first freelance story, exposing a retirement village scam run by the 100 through a crooked landlord, with Superman naturally tagging behind to ensure no one got hurt.[195]
The interference of Lois Lane in the 100's recent activities brought her to the attention of the Thorn, who, aside from recognizing her bravery and journalistic talent, realized the utility of having "Superman's girlfriend" on her side. At Thorn's behest, Lois fed a story to the Daily Planet about Thorn having a master plan to put the remaining 77 of the 100's chief membership roster in coffins as a tactic of misdirection. At the same time, Thorn and she searched the bay in scuba gear for one of the 100's discarded contraptions, a prototype of a Mother Box designated K.A.R.L. 1, which the 100 had snatched from Intergang. The consigliere of the 100, funeral home director Vince Adams, retaliated by setting up a trap to catch Superman, Lois, and Thorn all in one go, but he and his men failed miserably and were taken into police custody.[196]
Superman and Lois then reactivated K.A.R.L. to print out information regarding the organizational secrets of the 100, revealing that the core of the organization consisted of 10 separate divisions, each consisting of 10 specialists. Superman and Lois put that information to good use in striking at the 100 and knocking out two of the syndicate's core divisions.[197]
The Anchorman Era
New Friends and Foes
In his new capacity as a WGBS anchorman, Clark was effectively distanced from most of his peers from his former career as a Daily Planet reporter.
Clark Kent first met arrogant football quarterback Steve Lombard while on an assignment to interview him about his career. Superman later fought a "phantom quarterback" entity created by an experimental healing ray to repair Steve's knee injury. Steve retired from football after publicly admitting that he took credit for a victory handed to his team by the intervention of the entity. Still, to Clark's chagrin, Morgan Edge decided to hire Steve on as WGBS sportscaster.[198] Steve repeatedly used his position as an opportunity to tease and bully Clark for his amusement, but while "timid" Clark Kent may have had to take Steve's abuse to maintain cover, Superman did not. As such, Clark secretly used his powers to repay Steve for every insult suffered in a manner that Steve and others could only attribute to karma instead. On one occasion, Steve tricked Clark into pretending to be his roommate to impress Steve's visiting aunt, a famous novelist Kaye Daye.[199]
Actor Gregory Reed first encountered Superman under less-than-ideal circumstances, using black magic to strike at Superman out of hostility. Gregory had portrayed Superman on the silver screen for years but was deformed in a stunt accident. However, Superman forgave Gregory and encouraged him to work past his hate.[200] Undergoing facial reconstructive surgery to make himself a genuine dead-ringer for Superman, Gregory resumed his career. He used his appearance to raise money for various charity functions. In addition, Gregory helped Superman by doubling for him in numerous dangerous situations.[201][202][203]
A trip to Maine for a story brought Superman into a chance encounter with the latter-day Viking warrior Valdemar of the Flame and his hidden Nordic village of Valhalla. After an initial misunderstanding, Superman and Valdemar agreed to part as friends.[204] Superman met the jovial sailor Captain Strong after Strong was manipulated by a corrupt businessman into handing over a sample of Sauncha, the psychoactive alien seaweed that Strong used to grant himself temporary super-powers. After realizing the deception, Captain Strong flew into a murderous rage fueled by his consumption of Sauncha and fought Superman until Superman destroyed Strong's source of the seaweed. Superman supported Captain Strong through rehab to wean off his Sauncha addiction, and the two became fast friends.[205]
Vartox, the hero of the planet Valeron, first came to the attention of Superman after the murder of a Metropolis shop clerk resulted in the sudden death of Vartox's wife by way of a remote biological link. Vartox ran a computerized simulation of a scenario in which Vartox attempted to seize the murderer on Earth without respecting Superman's jurisdiction, with a projected result being a destructive battle with Superman and the accidental death of Lois Lane. Tailoring his approach correspondingly, Vartox did not announce his arrival on Earth and used deception to convince the killer to submit to punishment on Valeron. Only afterward did Vartox reveal his existence to Superman. Both heroes appreciated their parallel roles on their respective homeworlds and would have many future interactions.[206]
While Superman's circle of friends grew, so did the size and threat of his rogues' gallery. One of Superman's most fearsome foes, the Galactic Golem, was created by Lex Luthor as another attempt to create a monster that would destroy the Man of Steel. Even though the Golem was defeated once by tricking it into flying out into space[207], it returned sometime later to assault Superman at the North Pole.[208] The space-desperado Terra-Man came to Earth on Superman's birthday to kill Superman in an Old West-style duel.[209] Even though defeated, Terra-Man returned several times to vex Superman, such as by using an artificial aging ray[210], holding Superman's friends hostage[211], and duping Superman and another alien enemy into trying to kill each other.[202]
A new Toyman also made his debut, inspiring Superman to bring his reformed predecessor Winslow Schott out of retirement to help suppress the upstart.[212] Superman was then frustrated by the appearance of a superhero competitor named Blackrock, who eventually took to attacking Superman to get ahead in media exposure. As it turned out, Blackrock was actually Sam Tanner, the President of the United Broadcasting Company and competitor to Galaxy Communications. Tanner had charged his head scientist Peter Silverstone with creating a superhero that would be loyal to the company, and Silverstone's response was to mesmerize Tanner into becoming Blackrock personally.[213]
Who Took the Super Out Of Superman?
Superman faced an identity crisis when an Intergang assassin robot proved nearly capable of killing him in his Clark Kent identity. Clark soon determined that he still possessed all his powers while in costume as Superman but immediately lost them upon switching to Clark. Clark suspected that his power loss might be his subconscious mind's way of telling him that he could no longer cope with the stresses of a double life. Acting on this theory, Clark resolved to spend a full week as his powerless civilian self and spend another full week only in action as Superman to determine which side of his life was closer to his true self and abandon the other "unnecessary" side.[214]
After stopping Intergang from unleashing a weapon that would have destroyed the city, Superman began his week of living solely as Clark Kent. Without acting the meek and timid persona to deflect suspicions about his Superman identity, Clark acted more assertively and confidently in all his relationships with his co-workers, impressing Morgan Edge, frustrating Steve Lombard, and turning on Lois Lane. Clark fully embraced Lois's advances and shared several passionate nights with her in his 344 Clinton Street apartment, showing a side of himself to Lois that she had never experienced before. Even without his powers, Clark resolved to take down Intergang, learning the location of the syndicate's rolling office from an underworld stoolie and incapacitating the leadership with an anti-gravity device borrowed from Professor Pepperwinkle.[215]
However, Clark began to suffer nightmares from the internalized anxiety of ignoring crime and disaster for the past week. Once the time for the full-time switch to Superman was made, the Man of Steel engaged in crime-fighting nonstop, taking down a supervillain called Solarman. At the end of the second week, the pressure of serving as a full-time superhero became too emotionally exhausting to endure, proving to Superman that he needed the anchor to the ordinary life that Clark Kent provided. In the end, Superman concluded that both sides of himself were equally valid.[216]
Superman then deduced that Clark Kent's reclusive next-door neighbor, Mister Xavier, orchestrated the power loss in his identity as Clark. "Xavier" was an alien agent named Xviar, who had planned the destruction of Earth on a rough 30-year timetable and pursued Superman incognito throughout his life to fulfill his mission. Xviar had caused Clark to embark on his experiment and leave his apartment empty for one week, enough time for Xviar to move an energy crystal from Superman's hidden trophy case to elsewhere in the apartment. After Superman discovers Xviar's true nature, Xviar uses the crystal to charge Superman's body with enough kinetic energy to make Superman and the rest of the Earth explode if Superman has expended enough physical work. Xviar then assembled nine super-villains -- Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Mister Mxyzptlk, Parasite, Amalak, Terra-Man, Toyman, Prankster, and Kryptonite Man -- and scattered them around the world to force Superman to fight them, and in so doing, detonate the energy-charge inside himself. Using his ingenuity, Superman managed to capture Xviar and the nine villains without destroying the planet.[217]
The Battle Against SKULL and Return of Lana Lang
Superman tackled the threat of the SKULL crime cartel as it muscled its way into Metropolis turf.[218] In retaliation, SKULL pulled strings with their industrial espionage agent Albert Michaels to frustrate Superman's connections with S.T.A.R. Labs, where Michaels held the chief administrative post.[219] With Michaels's help, SKULL boosted synthetic manufactured elements from a S.T.A.R. facility and used them to create artificial Kryptonite, then engineered an accident to destroy the body of their operative Roger Corben, brother of the original Metallo. SKULL transforms Roger into a new Metallo and sets him against Superman, but Roger appears to perish in battle.[220] Meanwhile, Clark took tentative steps towards a relationship with Lois, realizing that Lois could find his bespectacled civilian self genuinely attractive so long as he dumped his "mild-mannered" facade.[219] However, despite going on a few dates, Lois ultimately decided that she could no longer put up with the mysteries behind Clark's shifting behavior and confessed that she had plans to relocate to Central City.[220]
Clark accompanied Lois to an international news conference in Central City, partially to say farewell when the assembled reporters were struck with a sudden sickness dubbed journalist' Disease by the media. After an initial misunderstanding with Nam-Ek, Superman deduced that Amalak was responsible for the outbreak, using his plague-bearing pet creature Jevik. Superman battled and defeated Amalak without violating his moral code. Amalak tried to goad him into doing so and used the properties of Nam-Ek's Rondor horn to cure the afflicted journalists. Afterward, Clark approached Lois with an unexpected proposal, desperate to somehow salvage his relationship with Lois. Lois agreed to consent only on the condition that Clark finally admit to being Superman, but this request was a step too far for Clark to consider. However, Lois put off her relocation plans and stayed in Metropolis.[221]
While returning to the scene of his fight with Nam-Ek, Superman came upon a SKULL operation to recover Kryptonite newly fallen to Earth in the wake of the iron-transmutation incident, leading to an investigation of a series of theatrical Kryptonite-related murders of SKULL agents. Superman traced the murders to the still-living Roger Corben, who now wanted revenge on his old organization for turning him into a cyborg. With Lois Lane's help, Superman captured Metallo and busted a SKULL hideout, further exposing Albert Michaels as one of their members. Still, Michaels managed to escape and swore vengeance on the Man of Tomorrow. Clark's routine was shaken once again when Morgan Edge revealed that he would host the evening news with a co-anchor: a more mature, refined Lana Lang just back from a lengthy European vacation.[222]
Superman then had to combat a Solomon Grundy duplicate created by the Parasite and stop Parasite from ransoming Metropolis with a top-secret military project. During this adventure, a close brush with death reignited the passions that Superman and Lois once felt for each other, and they decided afterward to pick up their old relationship where it had left off.[223] Albert Michaels returned as the villainous Atomic Skull with a new plot to destroy Superman, involving the capture of new S.T.A.R. Director Jenet Klyburn, the contamination of the Earth's ionosphere with Kryptonite radiation, and unleashing Titano the Super-Ape. Superman saved the day anyway and put Michaels behind bars. Meanwhile, Lana reignited her old rivalry with Lois for the Man of Steel's attention, though Lois felt they both should have outgrown such pettiness.[224] Superman then fought Blackrock[222][225], Kobra[226], the Kryptonoid[227], the Prankster[228][229], the Phantom Zoners[230][231], Whirlicane[232][219], Radion and the Protector[233], Karb-Brak[234][235], Doctor Light[236], Amazo[237], the Microwave Man[238], Bizarro[239][240], the original Toyman[239][228], and Brainiac.[241][242]
Childhood acquaintance Carl Draper reappeared as a security consultant and designed the Mount Olympus Correctional Facility to hold super-criminals to impress his long-time crush, Lana Lang. When Lana's preference for Superman led her to give all the publicity to the Man of Steel for suspending the prison facility on an anti-gravity platform, Draper kidnapped Superman and Lana as the Master Jailer and tried to kill the former to make a statement to the latter. With Lana's help, Superman defeated the Jailer. However, Superman rejects Lana's advances, telling her that her feelings -- like those of Draper -- are not true love but obsession.[243] When Lana's stubborn nature nearly got her killed during an investigation of a SKULL splinter group, Superman saved her with help from Lois, who listened to Superman and helped him set the criminals up to be captured. Superman contrasted Lois's and Lana's attitudes to explain to Lana why a relationship between the two of them would never work out; it came down to a matter of trust.[244] Lana eventually recovered from the pain of rejection and asked Superman whether they could remain friends.[245] Morgan Edge gave Clark a week of vacation time from his newscaster role but also permitted Perry White to bring Clark back onto the staff of the Daily Planet to do print journalism. Clark's return to his old job allowed him to investigate an alleged haunting of the Kent family home binSmallville.[246]
After narrowly averting a catastrophe caused by a super-microbe from Kandor[247], Superman put the finishing touches on a re-sizing ray that he believed could be used to restore Kandor to its original size without issue. After testing the device by baiting Brainiac into a confrontation, Superman re-sized Kandor on a planet of the Science Council's choosing, which they selected specifically because it existed within a spacetime anomaly that would periodically phase into another dimension at certain intervals. Unfortunately, while tested for safety on living beings, Superman failed to account for the effect of the re-sizing process on inorganic materials. Consequently, the city of Kandor disintegrated mere minutes after being restored to its former splendor. Still, the residents saw their circumstances as a chance to rebuild without making the same mistakes as Krypton, naming the new planet instead as Rokyn.[248]
When Pete Ross's son Jon was abducted by the Nrvynian alien race, Pete revealed to Clark what he knew for all their lives -- that he was secretly Superman -- in a desperate plea to rescue his boy. Superman set off to bring Jon back, only to be stopped by the Legion of Super-Heroes, who explained that Jon's presence on Nrvyn was a necessity for the existence of their entire future timeline. Pushed to an anguished acceptance, Clark took measures to guarantee Jon's safety on Nrvyn and returned to Earth to inform Pete of his failure. Driven to temporary insanity by the news, Pete uses technology from a mothballed Luthor's Lair to switch bodies with a time-displaced Superboy and makesmpted the lives of Superman and his closest friends. In Pete's body, Superboy escaped from his bonds and brought Krypto into the fight to turn the tables before the mind-swap and time travel were undone.[249] Later, a contest between the Phantom Stranger and Tala for Clark's and Pete's souls precipitated Superman's re-evaluation of the situation and a resolution to reunite Pete with his son regardless of what the Legion said.[250]
Using a pavilion erected in Superman's honor as a front, Lex Luthor hatched a scheme to kill and replace him with a clone whose memories had been subtlely tweaked to allow Luthor to control him. As Superman related his life story to a tour group in the pavilion, Luthor downloaded those memories into his clone's mind before dropping Superman through a trap door into a red-sun prison and preparing to detonate the pavilion with explosives, which would kill all the visitors, including Lois and Lana. Superman thinks of a way out of his predicament and fights Luthor's clone, depowering him with Gold Kryptonite and exposing Luthor's scheme.[251] The clone eventually returned to battle the original Superman for the right to lead the life of Clark Kent, having built an artificial super-power armor from parts of a scrapped Superman Robot. The clone hesitated due to his lack of conviction, stemming from his shared morality with the real Superman, and was defeated. The clone suffered horrific injuries resulting in facial scarring during the battle. Still, at Superman's behest, he was given facial reconstructive surgery and a new set of memories to go out into the world as a unique individual.[252]
Journeys Through Space, Time, and the Phantom Zone
Superman encountered all manner of new threats, such as N.R.G.-X[253], Major Disaster, J. Wilbur Wolfingham[254], a revitalized Superman Revenge Squad[255][108][256], Chemo[245][257], Amos Fortune[258], and Vandal Savage.[259] As part of a deal made with powerful alien beings years before his death[85], Jonathan Kent came back to life for 30 hours to reconnect with Clark and see him as the fully-fledged Superman that Jonathan knew he would be. To maintain the stability of the timeline, the entire 30 hours were erased from everyone's memories at their conclusion, but Jonathan returned to the hereafter as a proud father.[86] Destiny compelled Clark to give up his Superman identity for a time to teach Clark a lesson about the need for ordinary people to be self-reliant and warn Clark against over-interference in humanity's social evolution.[260] Superman nearly succumbed to despair when he realized that Lois Lane and Lana Lang were unknowingly exposed to the Fever Plague. Still, Clark was able to take advantage of a slightly altered circumstance to save Lois and Lana and avoid a repeat of the tragedy that took his parents' lives.[261]
Mr. Mxyzptlk returned to play havoc with Clark's life by distorting reality into a version where everyone on Earth became an opposite-gender counterpart of themselves. However, Clark unraveled the trick and set things back to normal.[262] Lex Luthor reformed himself to make up for his past sins as Superman's partner, all in the name of his newfound love for a disease-stricken woman named Angela Blake. Tragically, it came to light that Luthor had brainwashed himself into making this change of heart as the centerpiece of a complicated scheme to get back at Superman through Angela (actually a clone of the original Angela whom Lex had killed). In a bit of irony, Luthor was left emotionally traumatized by his manipulation.[263] The H.I.V.E. came to Superman's attention when the Man of Steel rescued Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen from their agents while unraveling a political conspiracy directed by the organization.[264] The H.I.V.E. later targeted Superman personally with a barrage of Kryptonite weapons[265] and tried to trick Superman and Lois into facilitating an act of nuclear terrorism.[266]
The alien tyrant Mongul introduced himself to Superman by threatening his friends' lives to coerce the Man of Steel into doing his bidding. At Mongul's behest, Superman sought out the crystal key to a planet-sized superweapon called Warworld, locating the key on Mars II and battling the Martian Manhunter for its possession. Although Superman planned to use the key as a feint for Mongul to drop his guard, the villain overpowered and absconded with his prize. Superman and Supergirl headed out into space to stop Mongul before he could wreak untold devastation at the helm of Warworld, and together, the Kryptonian cousins triumphed and destroyed Warworld, although Mongul escaped. The blast of Warworld's detonation sent Supergirl careening beyond the bounds of time and infinity in an unconscious state. Superman endeavored to follow by stressing his endurance to its limits, but the Spectre stopped him and returned Kara with the reminder that there are certain limitations even a Superman must accept.[267] Superman faced Mongul again when the dictator usurped control over Throneworld to take control of a doomsday device in the heart of the system's sun.[268] Superman finally captured Mongul in a pitched battle on the Moon while the Legion of Super-Heroes stopped a Sun-Eater unleashed by the vindictive menace.[269]
Surviving his last encounter with Superman, Brainiac infiltrated the Fortress of Solitude and turned its contraptions against Superman while using the Fortress supercomputer to reprogram himself. Superman turned the tables against Brainiac by taking control of the reprogramming process, giving Brainiac a new personality capable of feeling remorse for his past crimes. Brainiac surrendered and headed back into space, intent on making amends to all the beings he had harmed since his creation.[270] Some months later, one of Brainiac's abandoned projects for a superweapon -- the Planet-Eater -- locked on a trajectory for Earth, prompting Brainiac to warn Superman of the danger. Despite the combined effort, Superman and Brainiac could not neutralize Planet Eaterater by themselves, as the knowledge of its inner workings was sealed behind Brainiac's old personality. Out of options, Superman re-programmed Brainiac back to his original self against the reformed Brainiac's will. Still, this action backfired when Brainiac merged with the Planet-Eater and sought to use it to destroy and recreate the universe. Ultimately, Superman had to tear the Planet-Eater asunder from the inside out with his raw strength, leaving Brainiac at the core of the collapsed structure.[271]
On the quieter side of things, Clark supported a campaign by Lois to convince Morgan Edge to reinstate the iconic Daily Planet globe atop the Galaxy building, as it had stood tall over Metropolis in the days before the Galaxy acquisition. While initially reluctant, Edge budged when Lois convinced Edge of the opportunity to exploit the event for a PR-boosting ceremony with members of the city elite. Meanwhile, Clark's defeat of the TNT Trio, a gang of industrial saboteurs in Lex Luthor's pocket, led to the accidental exposure of one of the criminals to a nuclear reactor, and his mutation into the mighty yet insane terrorist Neutron. Superman frustrated Neutron's campaign to assassinate the other two members of the TNT Trio but was defeated and knocked unconscious in his second run-in with the villain. Neutron then ddecidesto destroy Metropolis, trapping the city under a dome of force and challenging Superman to find the location of his explosive before it wgoesoff. Superman deduced that the Daily Planet globe had been converted into a nuclear device and disposed of before taking Neutron down in a rematch. Afterward, Superman replaced the globe, while Metropolis celebrated its hero's victory.[272]
Charlie Kweskill was driven by the other Phantom Zone prisoners, led by General Zod, into building a makeshift Projector using cannibalized parts from S.T.A.R. Labs and releasing them all while shunting himself and Superman into the Zone itself. Zod and the Kryptonians under his command set in motion a plot to cause worldwide nuclear panic, neutralize the Justice League, and banish the entire Earth to the Phantom Zone using a satellite-sized Projector in the planet's orbit. While Supergirl, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern struggled to combat Zod's minions in the physical world, Superman and Quex-Ul were led by Mon-El to a secret backdoor route to the Zone's center. After undergoing a series of events that restored his memories, Quex-Ul sacrificed his life to Aethyr, a demonic being at the core of the Phantom Zone, for Superman to escape back into the material world and smash Zod's scheme.[273]
Superman was taken out of his element when the sorceress Syrene recruited him into her conflict with her husband Lord Satanis for ownership of the mystic runestone of Merlin the Magician, which would grant either of the two power enough to defeat the other for absolute rule over their far-flung future timeline, where humanity regressed to superstition and the Dark Ages.[274] Satanis ripped Superman out of the Timestream. They drew him to a medieval English village to use Superman's invulnerable body to filter the magicks of Merlin's runestone into a usable form. Syrene intervened and cast a spell that split Superman into two people, each with half the complete power set, and stole away both the runestone and the half of Superman with invulnerability. Satanis sent the non-invulnerable part of Superman back to his own time and erected a magical barrier against all his known time-travel methods.[275]
After spending several days in the struggle against small-time crooks like The Mole and Jackhammer, and relying on the assistance provided by allies such as Cave Carson and the Omega Men[276], the vulnerable half of Superman collapsed and seemingly died while in his identity as Clark Kent, due to the invulnerable Superman being killed by the magic-purification ritual being performed in the past by Syrene. Clark's apparent death deeply disturbed Lana and unearthed feelings that had gone on for years without conscious acknowledgment. However, Satanis infused his life force into the invulnerable half of Superman to take possession of his body, causing Clark Kent to return to life mere seconds away from an autopsy miraculously. With no time to spare, the vulnerable half of Superman made use of Lois Lane's contacts to reach Rip Hunter and use his Time Sphere to circumvent Satanis's barrier. In the past, the two halves of Superman reunited into a single person and put a stop to Satanis and Syrene, exiling them to the ruthless era from which they came.[277]
World's Finest: The Superman-Batman Team
Superboy had a few encounters with a young Bruce Wayne, beginning with a Smallville excursion by Bruce in his days as a budding amateur detective. Bruce tracked Superboy's movements as he publicly performed super-feats to deduce Superboy's secret identity while being harassed by a hoodlum named Thad Linnis to divulge his search results. Although Superboy takes steps to confound Bruce, he makes a subtle error in his Clark Kent guise, which tips Bruce off. However, Bruce had only intended to test his sleuthing skills, not to expose Superboy, and destroyed the only article of evidence from his investigation that Linnis could use to make the same deduction.[278]
Shortly after the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, Superboy teamed up with Bruce in his first attempt at adopting a costumed identity, the Flying Fox, and the two tackled several emergencies together while Bruce was taking a temporary stay in Smallville. Bruce soon caught the attention of Lana Lang, who agreed to go out to the prom with him if he deduced Superboy's true identity. Although Bruce already knew, he set about to prove it again, succeeding in matching Superboy's voice printto that of Clark's. However, after being shown how he and Clark were destined to meet again and voluntarily exchange secrets years later as Superman and Batman by Superboy's time-scope, Bruce decides that the future scenario is how they ought to discover the truth about one another and arranges for his memories of Superboy's true identity to be erased by a self-hypnosis procedure.[279]
However, Superboy retains the knowledge of Bruce's future destiny: to become Batman. Sometime later, Superboy allied with Bruce in his next early costumed identity, the Executioner, and together they exposed a scheme by a dishonest Gotham Gazette reporter to alter crime and disaster scenes to hoax the public with claims of a zodiac-themed serial killer.[280] At some point after this encounter, Superboy decided to subject himself to the same self-hypnosis as Bruce in order that he would forget about their destined future meeting their heroic personae as adults.[281]
Years later, Superman first met the Dark Knight avenger called Batman and his youthful crime-fighting partner Robin, the Boy Wonder while they were chasing down a gang with access to a Kryptonite-irradiated liquid-spray gun. Batman and Robin pulled a ruse on the gangsters and wrested control of the K-gun, allowing Superman to join them in cleaning the crooks' proverbial clocks.[282] Soon, Superman and Batman learned each other's secret identity in the course of uncovering a criminal conspiracy on a cruise liner, shortly after their civilian alter egos, Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent and billionaire Gotham City socialite Bruce Wayne, were drawn by circumstance into a personal encounter on the very same ship. Both about-to-be-legendary crimebusters promised to keep each other's identity a secret. They subsequently started working on several cases together with greater frequency.[283] The act of exchanging secret identities at this time also undid the mental blocks created by Clark and Bruce over their conscious minds to keep them from remembering their encounters as teenagers, permitting them to recall the total of their shared history from that point onwards.[281]
When Superman rescues Batman and Robin from a mob attack, he accidentally reveals his secret identity to Lois Lane, prompting Batman and Robin to help stage an elaborate hoax to protect Superman's identity once more.[284] When Clark Kent and Lois Lane were captured by criminals who used heavy artillery in their crimes, Batman and Robin were led to their hideout thanks to Superman's secret aid, and they captured the thugs.[285] Sometime later, Batman and Superman come up with an elaborate hoax wherein Batman poses as a swami and needs Superman's assistance to capture a group of crooks.[286] When Batman was exposed to a lethal gas by the Purple Mask Mob that would've killed the Dark Knight should he be physically active, Superman and Robin made Batman believe that he had a broken leg to keep him out of action until his system fully metabolized it.[287]
Batman and Superman started a competition to determine which of their cities a science convention should be held. Still, the heroes proved equal in the final assessment, and the science convention took place in both cities.[288] Batman and Superman worked together to stop the evil Professor Pender, who used a machine to swap powers between them. Using their respective abilities, Super-Batman and Normal Superman defeated Pender and returned to their normal forms.[289] Next, Superman summons Batman and Robin to Metropolis to try and figure out who is trying to reveal Superman's secret identity. This turns out to be a ruse to keep the Dynamic Duo preoccupied. At the same time, Superman travels out to Gotham City to capture the Varrel Mob.[290] Superman and Batman stop the Mole Gang while also working on their civilian identities as temporary reporters to report the epic gang battle and save the Gotham Gazette from bankruptcy.[291]
When Superman goes missing, Batman and Robin are asked to track down the Man of Steel and help him expose another empty threat from a criminal who is attempting to expose Superman's secret identity.[292] Superman and Batman teamed yet again to stop a gang of crooks that had duped a preserved Kryptonian caveman into aiding their crimes. However, the caveman died from the combination of exposure to Kryptonite and cosmic rays.[293] Superman and Batman then had to contend with Clayface, who used his shapeshifting powers to take Superman's form and replicate his powers.[294] Sometime later, Batman and Superman investigated the mysterious case of the deaths of Robin and Jimmy Olsen, learned about a purposeful deception, and captured an important gang in the process.[295]
The Batman-Superman team almost disappeared as a grudge grew between the heroes, but after working together to save Kandor, they moved past their disagreements.[296] Following this, the heroes stopped the double threat of Brainiac and Clayface with help from their sidekicks Robin and Jimmy.[297] Superman, Batman and Robin joined forces once more to stop Bizarro and the newly-spawned Bizarro Batman from turning the world topsy turvy with the Joker.[298] Superman and Batman then went up against their evil counterparts Anti-Superman and Anti-Batman, realizing that they were actually Perry White and Commissioner Gordon under the influence of a mind-altering gas.[299] Batman and Superman later pulled a hoax on notorious con artist Doctor Zodiac to make him believe he could successfully predict luck through astrology and captured him along with several other gangsters once he had been tricked into lowering his guard.[300]
Superman and Batman were drawn into the extra-dimensional realm of an otherworldly collector named Jemphis, who tried to have them mesmerized under the pretense of hosting an intergalactic heroes' convention.[301] Brainiac created an android servant to trick Superman, Batman, and Robin into placing receivers in the five most significant cities on Earth for his shrink-ray to home onto. However, the heroes caught wise to Brainiac's scheme and prevented it from coming to fruition.[302] Superman, Batman, and Robin were beset again by the other-dimensional shenanigans of Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, who led the heroes to believe that Supergirl and Batgirl had turned evil and betrayed them.[303] Superman and Batman then interfered with the unethical experiment of biochemist Dr. Arron, who retaliated by exposing Superman and Batman to psychoactive chemicals that transformed them physically and mentally, into duplicates of their arch-enemies.[304]
On the day of Superman and Batman's annual contest of crime-fighting ability, the Superman Revenge Squad and its Earth-based spinoff, the Batman Revenge Squad, attempted to rig the trophies being competed for with deadly booby-traps.[305] Superman faked his death with a synthetic android to manipulate Lex Luthor into flushing a quartet of notorious gangsters out of hiding. Batman and Robin were in on the hoax. They kept Luthor and the gangsters busy until Superman had concluded a mission in the Andromeda galaxy.[306] Together, Superman and Batman escaped the labor camp of the bloodthirsty Colonel Koslov of Lubania and thwarted an espionage operation being run in the heart of Washington, D.C..[307]
Superman and Batman then dismantled an organized crime syndicate run by "Big Uncle" Lukaz.[308] Superman's next team-up with Batman was to rescue Lois Lane and the archaeologist whose Middle Eastern expedition she was covering from a Bedouin grave-robber who came into possession of a malfunctioning Superman Robot.[309] Sometime later, Batman and Superman worked together to stop Doctor Light from killing Superman with a magical staff he created using Zatanna's powers.[310] Superman and Batman then pulled a ruse on the agents of an aggressive alien empire to convince them to leave Earth.[311]
Batman and Superman worked with Metamorpho after he gained their powers, and together, they overthrew a dictator who had been developing super-weapons in contravention of international accords.[312] Superman and Batman worked together to tackle the cases of the desperate telepathic blackmailer Capricorn[313], the swamp-mutant South American avenger of injustice known as "El Monstro"[314], and a town in Northern Scotland where the children had been possessed by avian animist spirits and attempted to use supernatural powers to execute Bruce Wayne, the last surviving heir to the locale's historic Castle Wayne.[315] Superman and Batman liberated a captive scientist from a South American junta with another assist from Metamorpho.[316]
Superman and Batman then cracked the case of another psychic blackmailer Sagittarius[317], an alien plague carrier in disguise on Earth as a human woman[318], and the arrival of a Kryptonian beast on Earth sent by Jor-El to counteract a mutant swarm of space-borne giant locusts.[319] Superman and Batman helped J'onn J'onzz thwart a military coup on Mars II with help from Supergirl, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl.[320][321] Superman and Batman united to expose an ambitious plot by the Parasite to destroy Superman's reputation and take over the world.[322]
Superman teamed with Batman to infiltrate and dismantle Lex Luthor's scheme to switch Superman's mind into Batman's vulnerable body and then kill him, subsequently testifying in a mock court presided over by the Gotham crime underworld when Luthor appeared to take credit for the Batman's (wrongly assumed) demise.[323] Batman and Superman allied again to capture Kryptonian lycanthrope Lar-On and place him in the Phantom Zone.[324] Shortly after that, Batman contracted Lar-On's disease and transformed into a were-bat before Superman cured his condition.[325] Superman went to Gotham to rescue Jimmy Olsen and helped Batman stop the terrorist group called the Battalion of Doom.[326]
Batman and Superman then stopped the threat of the Pi-Meson Man.[327] When Clayface returned and kidnapped Lois Lane, Superman, and Batman used the oldest of their tricks and switched identities to confuse the criminal and stop his mad plan.[328] Superman and Batman were pitted in a race against the clock to stop Lady Lunar from devastating the planet.[329] Batman and Superman then stopped Metallo, who had started a crime wave using a miniature black hole.[330] Batman and Superman teamed up yet again to combat a Nazi super-villain from the past of Earth-Two, the Atoman, who had a bloody thirst for revenge on Superman's Earth-Two counterpart for a defeat from decades past and had not realized he jumped over to another plane of reality entirely.[281]
When several weapons were stolen from the Fortress of Solitude,[331] Batman and Superman investigated and came in conflict with the intergalactic villain called Weapon-Master.[332] When the Weapon Master captured Superman, Batman used one of Superman's machines to save his friend, but in the end, the Weapon Master escaped.[333] After this, the heroes worked together to stop Mister Freeze from altering the weather in both their cities.[334] They then worked together to defeat and capture Doctor Double X following a break-out from Arkham Asylum.[335] Batman and Superman then stopped the threat of a lethal plague.[336] and assisted Hawkman to restore peace on Thanagar.[337] Afterwards, Batman and Superman confronted and stopped General Scarr's Army of Crime.[338]
A mystical being then threatened Batman and Superman [339]. Batman was possessed by a dark entity[340] and taken away to Madame Zodiac's lair.[341] Superman searched all over the world and eventually found Batman. The Man of Steel helps Batman overcome the possession, and with unexpected help from Dr. Zodiac, the heroes defeat Madame Zodiac and the Dark Entity.[342] Later, they stopped the powerful duo called Null and Void.[343]
When Lucius Fox was held hostage by Baron Bedlam in Markovia, Batman called on the Justice League to intervene in the conflict to save his friend. However, Superman gave his word to the United States Department of State on behalf of the entire League that they would not intervene. This resulted in Batman's resignation from the League and subsequent formation of the Outsiders.[344] The fallout of this decision caused harmful frictions in Superman and Batman's working partnership, such as when Batman resisted open cooperation with Superman to fight Tonatiuh[345] and the Moon Dancers.[346] However, Superman and Batman salvaged their friendship. They rallied together both the Justice League and the Outsiders to save Earth and another alien planet from the Pantheon.[347]
Super-Hero Team-Ups
In addition to his history with the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin, Superman has allied with many other superheroes on numerous occasions.
The Flash
Superman participated in a UN-sponsored race with the Flash to raise money for charitable projects in underdeveloped countries. However, they agreed to cross the finish line simultaneously and end the race in a tie when it became apparent that rival gambling syndicates were trying to fix the outcome in their favor.[348] Such would only be the first of a series of races between the two legendary figures, often accompanied by a raising of the stakes in their contest.
The next race between the fastest men alive would be when Reverse-Flash and Abra Kadabra, impersonating the vexatious Venturan gamblers Rokk and Sorban, compelled the two to compete with the threat of destroying their cities Metropolis and Central City.[349] Superman and the Flash then worked together to stop an alien plant-parasite from destroying Earth.[350]
The Guardians of the Universe tasked Superman and the Flash with preventing robots created by Professor Va-Kox from shifting the entire Milky Way Galaxy into the same phase as the Phantom Zone. At the end of the mission, Flash was first to reach Va-Kox's shut-off switch on the robots, technically "winning" the race.[351] While under the control of the malignant sorcerer Effron, Superman was forced to combat the Flash and defeated the Scarlet Speedster, before thankfully being returned to his senses by the contrivance of Green Arrow and the Kandorians.[352] On a later occasion, the Weather Wizard tried to hypnotize Superman into killing the Flash for him, but the heroes outwitted him.[353]
Superman and the Flash held an impromptu rematch race from the 20th century to the End of Time when two warring alien races coerced them into acting as their representatives to decide the outcome of a conflict.[354] Superman and the Flash teamed up again when the linear flow of time on Earth was ground to a halt by the incursion of an extradimensional alien visitor, leaving the two fastest men alive as the only sapient beings unaffected.[355]
Teen Titans
Superman and Robin teamed up for the first time after Dick Grayson left Wayne Manor to monitor campus unrest at Hudson University, then became side-tracked when a pair of aliens abducted them with the intent of leeching their life forces.[356] Superman met the other members of the original Teen Titans (Speedy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Mal Duncan and Lilith Clay) when he received a telepathic distress-signal from Lilith as Clark Kent, drawing his attention to a small town whose population had been brainwashed by a supercomputer into holding reactionary social attitudes.[357]
Green Lantern
Superman and Green Lantern first met as adolescent boys when they were blark Kent and Hal Jordan. Clark embarked on a trip to Coast City, California, with his parents to attend the anniversary party of some affluent relatives. In the process, Clark witnessed several instances of Hal's exceptional fearlessness in the face of danger, such as remaining calm to keep order among the passengers of a plummeting airplane and braving tall and potentially deadly waves with his surfboard. Clark came to Hal's aid as Superboy when Hal inadvertently stumbled upon a smuggling operation and imparted the advice to Hal that his exemplary courage must always be tempered with sound judgment.[358]
Superman and Green Lantern were manipulated by Felix Faust, impersonating first a Guardian and then Dr. Fate, into completing a black magic ritual to unleash a dragon, but they managed to stop the dragon from endangering the Justice League Satellite.[359] While under the control of the malignant sorcerer Effron, Superman was forced to combat Green Lantern and defeated the Emerald Crusader, before thankfully being returned to his senses by the contrivance of Green Arrow and the Kandorians.[360]
Superman was turned into the patsy of an alien conspiracy to murder Green Lantern. Still, Superman learned the truth in time to help GL expose the mastermind as Sinestro.[361] Green Lantern temporarily sent his power ring to Superman after being knocked unconscious during a battle with Star Sapphire. As a result, Superman saved GL from being kidnapped from the Earth by Sapphire in his helpless state.[362] Superman later helped Hal Jordan reclaim his power ring from a vicious alien imposter.[363]
Wonder Woman
Despite serving alongside Wonder Woman for years in the Justice League, Superman never got to know her on a level beyond that of a professional acquaintance. Superman's first team-up with Diana was after she had been stripped of her Amazon powers and began a new vigilante career under the guidance of I-Ching. I-Ching convinced Diana to use a computer dating service to match her up on a blind date with a member of the opposite sex. By coincidence, Clark Kent used a computer dating service for his reporter job and was matched with Diana. Still, it was orchestrated by a sentient computer to tell Clark and Diana how to avert a future apocalyptic timeline.[364]
Shortly after Diana regained her Amazon powers and the title of Wonder Woman, she cooperated with Superman to hoax the public with a feigned high-profile romance. The true reason for this was because a dangerous mental patient with romantic delusions about Superman had escaped, and Lois Lane would have been the first woman in the psychopath's sights if Wonder Woman hadn't briefly seemed to be the "new woman" in Superman's life. In an ironic twist, Lois and her fellow Daily Planet reporter Melba Manton became pivotal to saving Wonder Woman's life from mortal danger.[365]
Years later, Superman and Wonder Woman teamed again to defeat an alien ice creature.[366] On another occasion, Wonder Woman and Superman were unnaturally drawn together by the love-inducing arrows of Eros, causing embarrassment for their usual love interests Lois Lane and Steve Trevor.[367]
Aquaman
The first time Superman and Aquaman met was when the two were fledgling teen heroes Superboy and Aquaboy. Together, Superboy and Aquaboy worked to clean up environmental pollution and shut down the operations of an irresponsible crude oil importer.[368] Superman and Aquaman would encounter each other on occasion in the years to come.[369] The frequency of interaction would only increase upon the formation of the Justice League. Superman teamed up with Aquaman to interfere with a plan by a bizarre race of man-dolphins to melt the polar ice caps and flood the human world.[370] Later, Superman teamed up with Aquaman to defeat his half-brother Ocean Master when a scheme was hatched to take over the Atlantean city-states of Poseidonis and Tritonis by manipulating them into going to war.[371] Superman and Aquaman allied yet again to prevent a colony of octopus-like aliens from mutating themselves with S.T.A.R. Labs technology to overrun the surface world.[372]
Hawkman and Hawkwoman
Superman's first adventure with Hawkman outside of the Justice League was instigated by a demonic entity known as the Tempter, who wanted to play on Clark and Carter's insecurities and grievances until they caused one of the heroes to make a fatal mistake. Fortunately, tensions were cooled when Lois and Shayera entreated their partners to remember their defining values.[373] While under the mind control of a criminal, Hawkman attacked Superman with a powerful explosive in Paris, France and sent Superman back in time to World War II with amnesia. Superman regains his memory and returns to his own time; after that, he frees Hawkman's mind, and the two nailed the attack's mastermind.[374]
The first occasion Superman teamed up with Hawkwoman was when one of Carter Hall's archaeologist peers uncovered the existence of an underground ruin bearing markings unlike the pictograms used by any Native American tribe. Due to Carter's unavailability at the time, Shiera Hall learned about this site instead and correctly interpreted the language as Kryptonese, leading her to bring Superman over at night to investigate in secret. Superman and Hawkwoman pieced together that the ruin was an eroded facade obscuring the lab of Superman's great-grandfather Var-El and surmised that Var-El set up a base of operations on Earth to conduct experiments which were forbidden on Krypton.[375]
Green Arrow
Clark Kent first met Oliver Queen in their adolescence, during a time when Oliver was stopped over in Smallville. An atmospheric disturbance allowed one of Superboy's non-functional scientific projects, a view-screen built to visualize the future, to reveal Oliver Queen's destiny to become the crime-fighting expert bowman Green Arrow. Seeking to help Oliver jumpstart his interest in archery early, Clark convinced Oliver to attend a Smallville High School costume pageant while dressed as Robin Hood. He encouraged Oliver to try using the bow and arrow to stop several tricksters from causing a public disturbance. Although Oliver succeeded in using the bow and arrow creatively in some instances, he failed to reveal any true marksmanship talent. Nevertheless, Oliver's actions unintentionally clue Superboy in on a gold smuggling operation, which the tricksters' disruption was meant to obfuscate.[376] Clark Kent and Oliver Queen did not have many notable encounters with one another until both joined the Justice League of America years later as Superman and Green Arrow.
While Clark Kent was covering the Star City mayoral election, which Oliver Queen had decided to run in, both Clark and Ollie were taken without warning to the alternate dimension of Effron the Sorcerer, who wanted to enslave the heroes for his entertainment.[377] Superman and Green Arrow were maneuvered into teaming up again by Effron as part of a plot to reclaim his magic powers and enslave Superman. As leverage to hold over the heroes and make them cooperate, Effron held Valdemar's village of Valhalla hostage and made Superman fight the Flash and Green Lantern for his amusement, but Green Arrow received help from Superman's Kandorian friends to turn the tables..[378]
Superman and Green Arrow teamed up again to stop a filmmaker's art project, a construct of scrap metal, from destroying the bottle city of Kandor after being brought to life by a weird electrical phenomenon.[379] Superman and Green Arrow teamed up later to take down a corrupt ex-politician-turned-oil-baron who was involved in murder and assault to safeguard his monopoly on a source of groundwater which was contaminated by combustible impurities.[380] Superman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary later joined forces to stop a reckless experiment by the Zeta Corporation to harness a clean energy source from outer space, at the expense of causing enough concentrated air pollution in the short-term to suffocate Metropolis.[381]
Captain Marvel
Superman's first encounter with Captain Marvel outside of the Justice League was engineered by the Martian sorcerer-scientist Karmang the Evil, who forced Black Adam and the Sand Superman to impersonate their heroic rivals, deceive Superman and Captain Marvel into fighting one another, and plant devices that would merge Earth-One and Earth-S, resulting in their mutual obliteration. Superman and Captain Marvel saw reason, thanks to Supergirl and Mary Marvel, and the heroes pooled their resources to put a stop to Karmang's plot.[382]
In collusion with Captain Marvel's enemies Mister Mind and King Kull, Mister Mxyzptlk trapped Superman on Earth-S and linked Shazam's enchantment to Kull's physical strength. However, Mxy backed out of the plot when he realized the depths of the Monster Society of Evil's malice, allowing Superman and the Marvel Family to win the day.[383]
At a later date, Black Adam broke through from Earth-S into Earth-One reality by a mystical fluke and created an interdimensional barrier to keep Captain Marvel from following, seeking to enslave Earth-One without the Marvel Family's interference. Adam used the Billy Batson of Earth-One as a hostage to keep Superman at bay. Still, Superman rescued Billy and used his connection to his Earth-S counterpart to summon Captain Marvel past the barrier. Though Superman and Captain Marvel then took the fight to Black Adam, Earth-One's Billy had the idea to trick Adam into saying the enchanted word to render himself powerless.[384]
Other Heroes
One of Kal-El's earliest team-ups with another figure of repute in the superhero community transpired when he was a toddler with poor control over his Kryptonian powers. Jonathan and Martha Kent had taken young Clark out to see a magic show put on by John Zatara. Zatara ran into a rambunctious Clark after the show, initially believing that Clark's flight powers were an aberration of his mystical incantations. However, Zatara was held up by a gang of criminals who wanted to exploit his talents, and young Clark used his other superpowers to humiliate and subdue the hoods. Although he knew better after the encounter, Zatara allowed the goons to believe that the young boy was granted these powers by his magic and kept the incident to himself out of gratitude and amusement.[385] Years later, Superboy joined forces with Zatara to stop an other-dimensional barbarian warlord that Zatara accidentally materialized during a stage show in Smallville.[386]
Shortly after all Kryptonite on Earth was transformed into iron[387], Superman decided to consult a friendly sorcerer about the prospects of nullifying his weakness to magical forces. Superman met with Zatanna following his near-demise at the hands of Doctor Light by a magic scepter [388], only to be informed that neither Zatanna nor her father Zatara possessed the intimate knowledge of the mystic arts to help with the matter. Refusing to allow himself to be discouraged, Superman traveled to Earth-Two to speak to Doctor Fate about the same, only to be interrupted by the urgent threat of a trio of psychokinetic alien visitors who sought to fuse the tectonic plates of the Earth under the belief that it would release enough energy to enable them to ascend to a higher form of existence. Superman defeated the aliens and set the tectonic plates right again due to the empowerment of a mystic aura provided by Dr. Fate, inspiring Superman that his vulnerability to magic could be a boon just as much as a hindrance and that the world would be better off with a Superman who possessed at least one weakness to keep him humble about his place in respect to the greater cosmic powers.[389]
Superman teamed up with the Atom to save a subatomic universe inside the current, passing through a telephone line from destruction.[390] During an episode when his powers had become unreliable, the Atom came to Superman for a solution. It wound up cooperating to defeat a group of alien invaders.[391] On a third occasion, Superman and the Atom traveled back in time 100 years using Professor Hyatt's Time Pool to determine the fate of Superman's ancestor Var-El.[392]
In Montana, Clark Kent covered a rodeo event for WGBS-TV when a man unleashed a stampede of broncos to destroy Clark's camera set-up so he couldn't be recognized on film. Changing to Superman, Clark teamed up with the Vigilante to track the culprit down, discovering along the way that he was a werewolf.[393]
While on a date with Congresswoman Barbara Gordon at Batman's insistence, Clark Kent was kidnapped by the international crime syndicate MAZE for his apparent knowledge about top government secrets. Barbara came to Clark's rescue as Batgirl, never realizing that the reporter was Superman and perfectly capable of handling himself, having only gone along with the kidnapping to learn more about MAZE's operation by pretending to be their prisoner.[394] Superman and Batgirl teamed up a few months later to thwart a gang of energy thieves in the pay of bankrupted oil magnate J. Saul Kerry.[395] Years later, Superman and Batgirl allied a third time to investigate an overnight millionaire whose secluded desert estate became struck by a hate plague.[396]
Superman ran up against Black Lightning, or rather vice versa when he mistakenly believed BL had assaulted Jimmy Olsen. Once the misunderstanding was resolved, both heroes joined forces to defeat The 100's super-powered hitman Cyclotronic Man.[397] At a later time, Superman and BL were attacked by an alien being that took prehistoric forms.[398]
Superman teamed up with Captain Comet for the first time when the Secret Society of Super-Villains sprung a trap on him in his Fortress of Solitude. Incidentally, stopping the Society at that juncture also saved the lives of Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern.[399] Superman allied with Captain Comet on another occasion to defeat Starstriker.[400]
Shortly after the debut of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man, Superman made a point of seeking the young hero out in New York City, believing him to be a potential future recruit for the Justice League. Superman interrupted in Firestorm's first battle with Multiplex and lent a helping hand.[401] Superman and Firestorm later teamed together to defeat Killer Frost, after which Superman formally extended an invitation to join the JLA to the younger hero.[402] Superman and Firestorm teamed up a third time, after Firestorm's inauguration into the League, to combat the technopathic saboteur Kriss-Kross and clear Martin Stein of charges of treason.[403]
Superman's first team-up with Adam Strange outside of the Justice League saw the heroes' respective planets of Earth and Rann exchange places in space due to an evil scheme of Kaskor.[404]
Superman teamed up with the Metal Men for the first time to prevent I.Q. from using Chemo to alter the composition of the Sun.[405] After being kidnapped by the Weaponers of Qward to filter a Q-Energy field that would paralyze every living being on Earth, Superman was saved by the heroic actions of Red Tornado, who was unaffected due to his android nature.[406]
Superman ran into Swamp Thing for the first time in the sewers of Metropolis while the Man of Steel was on a mission to purge an army of Solomon Grundy duplicates.[407]
Although the two had heard much about each other prior, the first time Superman met Mister Miracle was when the escape artist of the New Gods challenged him to a duel in the Nevada Desert, with the hidden intention of using the circumstance to sabotage a plot by Intergang to unleash a psychic weapon on the Man of Steel.[408]
Superman was later approached by his Justice League teammate Black Canary about disturbing visions of the deceased Larry Lance in her dreams. The two heroes eventually put together that it was a subconscious warning of a psionic attack by Doctor Destiny and warded off the threat.[409]
Superman and Batman allied with the Challengers of the Unknown to defeat a gang of terrorists with an anti-gravity weapon at the behest of the U.S. government.[410]
Superman teamed up with the Vixen in one of her earliest public appearances to capture an American fur merchant who was involved in poaching operations in India.[411] Superman and Vixen joined forces once again when the kidnapping of Mari McCabe's nephew caused them to stumble onto a child-abduction ring headed by Admiral Cerebrus.[412]
Superman first teamed up with Plastic Man when the Toyman attempted to perpetrate a bank heist in Plas's city in alliance with some of Plas's enemies.[413]
Superman was vitally assisted by the Unknown Soldier (or his ghost) to sabotage an attempt at staging a worldwide nuclear holocaust by a ring of insane renegade generals and scientists.[414]
While telling a story for the Daily Planet about the plethora of heroes that had recently appeared in Fairfax, Maine, Clark and Jimmy ran across a monster known as Beast-Maniac and a heroine called Sphera. As Superman, Clark discovered that they were teenagers Chris King and Vicki Grant, the latest recipients of the mystic H-Dial. After determining that Chris's transformation was an unfortunate result of using the H-Dial to spell out "H-O-R-R-O-R" instead of "H-E-R-O," Superman lent his assistance to Chris and Vicki to combat the villainous clone creations of their arch-enemy The Master.[415]
Superman joined forces with Doctor Mist, Seraph, Olympian, Little Mermaid, Jack O'Lantern, Green Fury, and Rising Sun of the Global Guardians to stop a group of international villain-sorcerers from resurrecting an ancient Atlantean tyrant.[416]
Superman first allied with the Doom Patrol when Negative Woman's powers began to run out of control, causing collateral damage as her Negative Energy Form rampaged through Metropolis. While Superman lent his assistance to Tempest, Celsius, and Robotman to contain their teammate, they also had to contend with a psychotic would-be super-villain named Ambush Bug.[417]
The Justice League of America
Main article: Justice League of America (New Earth)
The Early Years
The secret origin of the Justice League of America revolved around the circumstance of J'onn J'onnz, in particular his first few years on Earth hiding among the human populace and the moment of his reveal to the world at large. J'onn came under attack from the genocidal White Martian dictator Commander Blanx, exposing the existence of Martians to the people of the small Midwestern town of Middleton. The Flash was the first costumed adventurer to investigate, but feeling out of his league, he reached out to Superman in Metropolis for assistance. Flash got more than he bargained for, recruiting Batman and Robin along the way. Many more exceptional figures joined the hunt for Martians, but it was the team consisting of Superman, Batman, Robin, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Roy Raymond, and Rex, the Wonder Dog, that found Blanx at a space shuttle launch site, acting on a recommendation by Ferris Aircraft test pilot Hal Jordan.[418]
Blanx had tied J'onn to the nose of the shuttle, intending for J'onn to be incinerated by the combustion of the rocket fuel and the loss of his invulnerability once the shuttle penetrated the atmosphere. Batman and Robin get to J'onn and learn from him about the Martian's vulnerability to fire, which Superman exploits to defeat Blanx and his minions with heat-vision. Blanx was deposited back on Mars, but J'onn was allowed to remain on Earth, pleading that he had nothing left for him on Mars since evil in the form of Blanx and his toadies triumphed over good there. Convincing the assembled heroes that he would prefer to wage the eternal battle of good against evil on Earth, where the conflict still raged indecisively, J'onn prepared for his public debut as the Martian Manhunter. However, Superman and the others realized that the public was too hysterical to accept the presence of Martians on Earth and made arrangements to unveil J'onn to the world later. Then, the first plans were drafted for a team to stand up for the cause of justice.[418]
One year later, humanity was plunged again into peril by the invasion of the alien Appellaxians, who sought to make Earth into the battlefield for the contest over rulership of their world. The Appellaxians, taking elemental forms, projected themselves to Earth as meteorites before awakening upon impact. Superman and Batman met the Appellaxian warrior called the Crystal Creature. At the same time, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Hal Jordan (who became a masked hero as Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 in the interim), and the Martian Manhunter fought the entities elsewhere. In the aftermath, Superman and the other heroes banded together as the Justice League of America to combat threats too powerful for any single hero to handle. This event would go on record as the official first meeting of the JLA.[419]
In the League's earliest adventures, however, Superman played somewhat of a backseat role. For instance, he was confined to outer space, protecting Earth from a swarm of meteoroids, as the JLA fought the starfish-like alien invader Starro the Conqueror[420], arrived only during the team's final battle against Xotar, the Weapons Master, to turn the tables[421], and got taken out by Professor Anthony Ivo's Kryptonite gas-trap. In contrast, the rest of the League fought Ivo's android Amazo.[422]
Superman took a more active role starting with the JLA's encounters with Despero[423], Kanjar Ro[424][425], the Lord of Time[426], the Demons Three[427], Doctor Light[428], Brain Storm[429][430], Doctor Destiny[431][432][433], the Key[434][435], the Unimaginable[436][437], Professor Amos Fortune and his Royal Flush Gang[438], the Queen Bee[439], and T.O. Morrow.[440]
Superman also met the Atom[441], Adam Strange[425], Hawkman and Hawkgirl[442], Metamorpho[436], the Creeper[443], and Red Tornado[440] for the first time as a member of the JLA. Atom and Hawkman joined the League, as did Green Arrow[444], whom Superman first met as a young Oliver Queen back in the Superboy days.[376] Metamorpho was extended a membership offer, but being too much of a loner, he accepted only a reserve-membership status. Superman played an important role in the first couple of team-ups between the Justice League and its counterpart, the Justice Society of America of Earth-Two, first combatting a team of villains drawn from both Earth-One and Earth-Two called the Crime Champions[445] and later the League's evil counterpart from Earth-Three, the Crime Syndicate.[446]
The following months constituted one of the most turbulent periods in the Justice League's history. Wonder Woman lost her Amazon powers and resigned from the group while she trained to develop her talents anew with I-Ching.[447][448] The Martian Manhunter turned up after a months-long unexplained absence to recruit his JLA comrades in the effort to overthrow Commander Blanx, who now aimed to exterminate all life on Mars and sell what remained of the planet to an intergalactic corporation for its mineral wealth. Superman and Green Lantern tried to prevent Mars from being consumed by an unquenchable blue flame while J'onn battled Blanx to death. By the end of it, Blanx was dead, but all but a few Martians who fled the planet before it was too late had perished, leaving J'onn a man without a home. In the aftermath, J'onn resigned from the Justice League to search the universe for the Martian survivors on other worlds and lead them to a new home.[449]
Red Tornado arrived on Earth-One to warn the JLA about the menace of the sentient star Aquarius, who had destroyed all of Earth-Two, except for a small contingent of JSA members who held out thanks to the magic of Doctor Fate. Piercing the dimensional veil, the JLA was forced to fight the remnants of the JSA, who had been placed under Aquarius's mental domination as such, with the Superman of Earth-One fighting his Earth-Two counterpart until both collapsed from exhaustion. Once the JSA were broken out of their trance, both teams of heroes focused their energies on Aquarius, who was finally destroyed by a trick perpetrated by the two Green Lanterns. A casualty of this incident was Larry Lance, the husband of the Black Canary. Although Earth-Two sprang back to life from the smolders of Aquarius's downfall, Black Canary's grief became so great that she could not continue living on Earth-Two. Superman decided to accept her request to join the JLA on Earth-One.[450] Unbeknownst to most, the original Black Canary died from radiation poisoning acquired from the battle with Aquarius, and the Black Canary who migrated to Earth-One was the original's daughter, imbued with copies of her mother's memories. Superman was one of the few to be privy to this knowledge during the events.[451]
Superman moved to waive all requirements and call a vote for Black Canary to join the League immediately. Green Arrow was then affected by the interaction of a psychiatrist's psyche-analyzing machine with residual magic from the battle against Aquarius, manifesting his id as an evil duplicate. This effect spread to the other JLAers, except for Superman, who was not sufficiently altered by Aquarius's magic. However, Superman faked the appearance of his evil duplicate with a Superman Robot and made a show of defeating it, intended to motivate the other JLAers to go after their darker halves. The ruse succeeded, and the id manifestations faded from existence.[452]
Doctor Light enacted a scheme to disguise himself as an ice monster and smuggle himself into the Fortress of Solitude's intergalactic zoo to steal Absorbium samples from the Fortress and use them to scramble the Justice Leaguers' recognition of their secret identities. Superman and Aquaman, unaffected by the Absorbium for different reasons, led their confused teammates back to the Fortress to take on Doctor Light and flush him out. Green Arrow suggested in the aftermath that the Leaguers should reveal their identities to avoid repeating the situation. Superman and the other JLAers unanimously voted in favor of the action and made it common practice for secret identities to be exchanged with all present and future members.[453]
This early era of the Justice League's history was brought to an abrupt close when popular cult leader "John Dough" convinced team mascot Snapper Carr to betray the League and the location of its Secret Sanctuary to him, with the argument that superheroes made a mockery of the average working man with their larger-than-life personae. Batman unraveled the plot to discredit the JLA, and "John Dough" himself was unmasked as an alter ego for the Joker. However, Snapper had fallen into disgrace, the Secret Sanctuary's location was compromised, and the League still had to account with the press and the public for the chaos that had transpired.[454]
The Satellite Years
A few weeks after the Secret Sanctuary's location was compromised, the Justice League set up a higher-tech and higher-security headquarters in geosynchronous orbit: The all-new Justice League Satellite. This base of operations would serve the Justice League well for many years, defining its historical era in the League's history. The satellite was accessible by a relativity-beam system utilizing Thanagarian technology installed by Hawkman. Superman, Green Lantern, and Hawkman started the project of constructing a new HQ for the JLA by pooling their resources into building a massive supercomputer, partly based on the Fortress of Solitude's Kryptonian supercomputer and partly on the A.I. of Hawkman's Thanagarian spacer. The rest of the satellite had to be assembled in the resulting computer core. A tabloid newspaper that had chased after the League in the past to boost its circulation donated the space on its office building's rooftop to the JLA to use as the site for the Earth-side end of the relativity-beam system, which required a computer interface to confirm each Justice Leaguer's identity with a retinal scan and electroencephalogram before activating. Superman began his service as de facto chairman of the Justice League during this period, being the member most frequently giving orders and coordinating missions.[455][456]
In their first case after adopting the Satellite base, the JLA was joined by Superman in uncovering the Doomster aliens' scheme to make Earth uninhabitable.[455] Superman also participated in the Justice League's team-ups with the Justice Society against the alien being Creator²[457] and Solomon Grundy.[458] After helping to thwart Merlyn's assassination attempt on Batman for the League of Assassins[459], Superman observed as a group consisting of Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman tested an overhaul of the Satellite's relativity-beam teleportation system, intended to accommodate mass-transit. Instead, the JLAers failed to rematerialize on board the Satellite, but an SOS call later broadcast by GL's Power Ring confirmed that a Zeta-Beam interfered with their transmission and brought them to Rann instead. Superman headed for Rann to investigate and discovered that his comrades were at war with an energy vampire called Starbreaker for the planet's survival. After halting Starbreaker's advance on Rann, the creature directed his attention against Earth in revenge. Still, Superman and his JLA colleagues bested Starbreaker once more with a magical assist from Sargon the Sorcerer.[460]
After the JLA's 100th-anniversary meeting was interrupted by a cross-dimensional crisis sparked by the Nebula Man and the Iron Hand, Superman teamed up with Metamorpho and The Sandman to retrieve Shining Knight from 13th Century China. By reuniting the Seven Soldiers of Victory, the JLA and their allies found a solution to the threat facing Earth-Two. However, the Red Tornado sacrificed his artificial life to apply it.[461] Superman then welcomed Elongated Man to the League during a caper involving robots created by T.O. Morrow, and when Red Tornado was recreated on Earth-One by Morrow only to revolt, Superman offered the same opportunity to Reddy as well.[462]
Superman lent his power to the team in their battles with Felix Faust[463], the Shaggy Man[464], the Key[465], the Injustice Gang[466], Amazo[467], and Dr. Destiny, in his more unhinged skeletal form.[468][469][470] Aware that the Queen Bee and her Anti-Justice League dispatched his fellow JLAers using divide-and-conquer tactics, Superman created an elaborate ruse, dependent on temporarily brainwashing the entire population of Earth with a Kandorian machine, to free his teammates. Although a direct assault on the Anti-Justice League saw Superman overcome, the Man of Tomorrow's strategy was sufficient to put his comrades back in action and level the playing field, resulting in another JLA victory.[471]
Superman joined the Justice League in repelling the Equalizer from Thanagar[472], suppressing Kanjar Ro's assault on Rann on the eve of Adam Strange's wedding[473], forming an odd alliance with Two-Face against the Weaponers of Qward[474], and inaugurating Wonder Woman back into the League just in time to oppose an alien fear-parasite named Nekron.[475] While working with the JLA to stop a plot by Queen Bee to enslave humanity using Sonar's technology, Superman was whisked away to a distant alien world to help the native Sirkians stop an invasion force led by Despero. Back on Earth, Supergirl brought Superman's unexplained absence to the JLA's attention and led a group of heroes into the farthest reaches of space to rescue her cousin.[476]
The Justice League was then gathered by Mercury along with the Justice Society and Shazam's Squadron of Justice to stop King Kull from exterminating the human race on Earth-S, Earth-One, and Earth-Two. Dispatched to Earth-Two, Superman was teamed up with that reality's Wonder Woman and Spy Smasher to defeat Kull's unwitting minions Clea, Penguin, Blockbuster, and Ibac. In the final battle at the Rock of Eternity, King Kull used Red Kryptonite to corrupt Superman and turn him against the other heroes, but Captain Marvel broke the spell with a flash of his mystic lightning.[477]
Superman fought with the JLA to clear Hal Jordan from fabricated charges by the Manhunters of destroying the planet Orinda[478], eradicate the Construct to end its war against humankind [479][480], stop Mordru and the Demons Three from ravaging the 30th century[481], and unravel the conspiracy behind an enigmatic new villain called the Star-Tsar.[482]
After being shifted to Earth-Prime, Superman and other JLA members helped Ultraa realize his destiny as his world's first superhero to strike down its first super-villain Maxitron. Superman and the JLA invited Ultraa to migrate to Earth-One reality, where the human race had already become accommodated to beings like himself.[483] However, Ultraa observed this other world and concluded that the existence of super-powered beings would one day be its downfall, using his abilities to strip the unique talents from heroes and villains alike. Ultraa realized his error when these actions did not preempt the battle between good and evil. They merely handicapped Superman and the JLA when they rose against the Injustice Gang's ambition to control the Earth's natural resources.[484] The JLA decided Ultraa was too great a threat in his own right and placed him in a hidden suspended animation pod, only for him to be discovered and released by the advance scout of an alien invasion, who wanted to push Ultraa into challenging Superman and other Justice Leaguers before the World Court. The JLA, in turn, learned of their errors and apologized to Ultraa, burying the hatchet just in time to join forces against the common alien threat.[485]
When Zatanna joined the Justice League, Superman joined her search for her Homo Magi biological mother Sindella.[486] Superman and other Justice Leaguers exchanged bodies with the Secret Society of Super-Villains and were sent on a course for the Sun. At the same time, the supervillains planned to take out the rest of the League and resume their crime careers in the heroes' bodies. Red Tornado freed the heroes in the villains' bodies after the ruse was discovered, and Superman (in the body of the Wizard) was able to prevail over his counterpart using the Wizard's magical items.[487] When Mr. Terrific was murdered aboard Justice League Satellite during an annual JLA-JSA get-together, Superman took charge of the situation and appointed Batman and Huntress as the investigators who flushed out the culprit as the Spirit King, who was possessing Earth-Two's Flash at the time of the murder.[488]
At Green Arrow's suggestion, Superman tested Black Lightning for membership in the JLA and passed him with the utmost eagerness. Still, BL turned down the invitation to join based on distracting him from local commitments to Suicide Slum.[489] Impressed during a team-up against Killer Frost[402], Superman extended the membership offer to Firestorm.[490] Superman was one of several JLA and JSA members to be recruited by Metron to stop the resurrection of Darkseid by the Injustice Society on Apokolips, joining forces with Big Barda and Earth-Two's Wonder Woman to liberate Granny Goodness' Orphanage, and contributing to ending Darkseid's plans to move Apokolips into Earth-Two's dimensional space.[491] Superman fought the second invasion of Starro[492], a small army of Red Tornado duplicates dispatched by T.O. Morrow[493], Amos Fortune's Tarot Gang[494], and an antimatter-retrieval operation by the Lord of Time.[495]
Superman and the other founding Justice Leaguers fell under the thrall of the dormant Appellaxian champions. They were compelled to undertake steps to resurrect the destructive alien beings on Earth, but the JLA's newer recruits moved to break them out of their thrall. Once freed from mental domination, Superman coordinated with other JLAers, old and new, to save the world again.[496] Clark then played a role in the JLA's conflicts with Hector Hammond and his new Royal Flush Gang[497], Garn Daanuth[498], Professor Ivo[499], the villainous Johnny Thunder of Earth-One and the regrouped Crime Champions[451], and Paragon.[500] Superman and the JLA's other most powerful members were unexpectedly transported to Earth-Two to fight the Commander[501], while a fleet of fanatical Green Martian invaders destroyed Justice League Satellite and engaged the rest of the team.[502] Embittered by the losses incurred due to Superman and the other heavy-hitters' absence, Aquaman denounced the current structure of the League to the United Nations and disbanded the team, creating a new Justice League to replace it.[503]
The End
Superman would continue to try to protect the universe directly from various forces throughout all his career, such as Mongul's Warworld, up until the war against the Anti-Monitor. It would be during this conflict that Kal-El would lose his cousin Kara. He would not recover from the loss of Supergirl at the hands of the Anti-Monitor.
Like his Earth-Two counterpart, Superman decided to sacrifice his life to stop the Anti-Monitor, but was stopped by a somewhat-underhanded sneak-blow by the elder Kal-L, who decided the younger and more powerful Kryptonian would have a better chance at stopping the Anti-Monitor later if Kal-L's direct attack against the Anti-Monitor failed.
Kal-L's attack, along with the assistance of Superboy-Prime, succeeded, and the single surviving universe was saved. The Superman of Earth-One returned to the singular Earth. He continued to be active as Superman until such time when he was erased from existence and recreated as a new individual with a restructured history. When he and those connected to him were recreated, the people of the new singular Earth lost all memories of the previous Earth-One Superman but would still go on to know the brand-new individual as "Superman" on this new Earth.
Convergence
This section of the history takes place during Convergence, a massive crossover event revisiting characters from past eras and realities. The villains Brainiac and Telos plucked them from their own timeline and stored them together, causing them to cross over into each others' reality. Its precise chronological placement and canonicity may be unclear.
Two versions of him are taken to Convergence, back when he was Superboy and a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes and the adult version of him in the modern day. The 31st-century Metropolis and modern-day Gotham are taken by Telos, and they are stripped of their powers for a year. Back when he was Superboy, he and the Legion encounter Prime Earth Booster Gold, Rip Hunter and Goldstar, assumes they are villains and attacks them. But Rip Hunter teleports them a few minutes into the future, and they escape.[504] After the dome goes down, he and the Legion fight the Atomic Knights,[505] but ends up forming peace with them due to their mutual beliefs in justice.[506]
Meanwhile, Lucius teleports his adult self and Supergirl to the Phantom Zone while attempting to escape the dome. He and Supergirl are attacked by Phantom Zoners, and he sacrifices himself so Kara can escape. Supergirl later comes back to save him, but they are ambushed and trapped by the Phantom Zoners.[507]Lucius opens a portal for them to escape. Still, Superman sacrifices himself so Supergirl can escape, but the Phantom Zoners can't get out. He is narrowly saved when Supergirl uses a grapple gun to pull him out of the Phantom Zone. He and Kara then help Kamandi fight off General Symian and the Ape-Men. He then lets the Ape-Men take him to their ultimate weapon and destroys it.[508]
When Brainiac reveals that unless the destruction of the original Pre-Crisis multiverse is prevented, the current multiverse will collapse into one universe, New Earth Kal-El asks to be sent back to the Crisis along with Hal, Kara, and Barry. Lois and his baby son join him and are transported back to the first Crisis by Brainiac. His final fate after Convergence is unknown.
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Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Kryptonian Physiology: Under the rays of a yellow sun, Superman, like all Kryptonians and some species of extraterrestrial lifeforms with similar physiology, gained enormous power to wield as he sees fit. The below covers his variegated power set.
- Solar Energy Absorption: As a product of his Kryptonian physiology, Superman absorbs solar radiation and stores it within his cells to survive.[509]The rays of a white sun could amplify Superman's strength beyond normal limits, while the rays of an orange sun reduced Superman's strength and invulnerability to levels at which collisions with small meteoroids could stun him. According to some sources, the rays of an orange sun could also render Superman blind as well as at half-power. The rays of a red sun, while sufficient to sustain his life functions by providing his cells solar radiation, nonetheless negated all of his powers instantaneously and made him the equivalent of a human man with a well-trained, albeit vulnerable, body. Red sun radiation could strip Superman of his abilities even in environments which existed primarily under a yellow sun. Exposure to the rays of a violet sun could add the ability to psychokinetically conjure objects into existence, although this power would wear off shortly after cessation of exposure. Any objects conjured under the empowerment of violet-sun radiation would also vanish into thin air once the power itself disappeared.[510]
- Superhuman Strength: Superman possesses a truly extraordinary strength level, by no means capable of being precisely measured but certainly well within the range of being able to press or lift from millions to sextillions of tons. Although early Silver Age appearances portrayed Superman as being so strong that he could tow a galaxy of planets through space with an absurdly large chain with one hand and throw white dwarf star matter light years away without effort, later appearances showed Superman's physical might, though still incredible to say the least, to possess veritable and somewhat tamer limits. For instance, Superman once had to exert himself to the point of collapse to retrieve Hawkman's Thanagarian Star Cruiser from the gravity well of a neutron star, demonstrating that his strength and endurance were not infinite and could be exhausted by sufficiently challenging tasks.[511] In the Bronze Age, Superman could still move individual planets around the Earth's size and lift neutron star matter, though he would have to struggle and strain in the process, while these feats were presented at the time as if the uppermost bounds of his ability. This de-powering may have been the by-product of the Kryptonite Nevermore saga, in which Superman's power was permanently reduced by 33.33% by the Sand Superman. Afterwards, as Superman once lamented when tasked with shifting the tectonic plates of the Earth with brute strength, "Superman, who could once juggle planets with one hand, can't even manipulate one puny continent!"[512]
- Invulnerability: Superman's body was virtually invulnerable to all forms of mundane and ordinary harm. Neither bullets nor bazookas could even faze the nigh-invincible Man of Steel. Superman could even withstand the explosion of an atomic bomb at ground zero unfazed, and even the force and heat of planetary-level explosions and supernovas only had the power to stun Superman momentarily. Superman even withstood the Big Bang for a few minutes.[513] However, even excepting Superman's specific Kryptonian weaknesses, it was possible to hurt and/or daze Superman by channeling massive forces comparable to those which Superman himself could muster. Though uncommon, there has been a select host of powerful beings capable of fighting Superman on equal ground (e.g. Martian Manhunter, Galactic Golem, Bizarro, Darkseid, Mongul, Amazo, Shaggy Man, Neutron, Validus, etc.). It seemed that Superman could also increase his base durability level by bracing himself for an incoming attack; attacks that could send Superman reeling often had no noticeable effect once Superman prepared himself.[514][515] Due to years of exposure under a yellow sun, Superman's invulnerability is greater than that of the Phantom Zoners; Once, every Zoner was affected by Faora Hu-Ul's psychic bolts, while Superman was undamaged.[516]
- Accelerated Healing
- Longevity: Superman can live almost indefinitely if he resides under continuous exposure to Earth's sunlight or that of another yellow star/sun.
- Self-Sustenance: He does not need to eat or sleep (but is still capable of doing so) and doesn't require oxygen to breathe, enabling him to travel in space and underwater unprotected.
- Superhuman Stamina: He has the ability to maintain continuous physical activity for an undefined period. Although not unlimited, Superman's stamina is indeed considerable. His resilience in the face of perils that could potentially annihilate planets, galaxies, and even whole universes is tremendous.
- Flight: Superman is capable of defying gravity as a result of Krypton's greater gravity and its demands on Kryptonian physiology. Superman can travel through time and traverse dimensions by exceeding the speed of light.
- Superhuman Speed: He is capable of moving, reacting, running and flying at superhuman speeds. While not as fast as the Flash, Superman is considered one of the swiftest beings in the universe. He can use this power to disarm opponents, catch bullets or shrapnel, cross vast distances in seconds, and move himself and other objects at speeds exceeding the speed of light itself.
- Dimensional Travel
- Super-Friction[517]
- Time Travel
- Superhuman Hearing: Superman has vastly increased auditory sensitivity to even the slightest changes in sound and pitch, allowing him to pick up noises from across the globe. He has shown enough control to block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source/frequency. Superman can not only pick up acoustic waves with his super-hearing, but also receive radio-wave transmissions out in space.[518]
- Enhanced Sense of Smell
- Enhanced Senses
- Super-Breath: Superman can create hurricane force winds by blowing, and also exhale super-cooled gas to freeze a target. His super breath is so powerful that he once used it to blow earth back into orbit. He can also breathe in large amounts of air to dispel clouds of gas by exhaling it.
- Heat Vision: Superman can fire beams of intense heat from his eyes, a product of his capacity for optical release of electromagnetic radiation along a range of wavelengths. One time, when he was Superboy, he used heat vision to reignite the Sun, which had been drained by a Sun-Eater. Even still, some enemies were powerful enough to stand up to it and not even wince, such as Brainiac, whose Ultra-Force Shield Belt protected him from harm on a level even greater than Superman's invincibility, and Mongul, who withstood the full intensity of Superman's heat vision after being hit with it point-blank. In earlier appearances, heat vision was portrayed as a more intense version of X-Ray vision and therefore to be ineffective against lead[519], but in later appearances, heat vision and X-ray vision were depicted as entirely different powers.[520]
- Super Vision: Superman also possessed telescopic vision, enabling him to see objects from great distances away, and X-ray vision, which enabled Superman to see through objects via the optical projection of X-rays.
- Telescopic Vision: The ability to focus his vision to see something at a great distance, without violating the laws of physics.
- Microscopic Vision: The ability to see extremely small objects and images down to the sub-atomic level.
- X-Ray Vision: The ability to see through anything except lead. Since it is passive, this ability would not generate harmful radiation in the same manner as a focused projection of hard X-rays.
- Super-Ventriloquism: He could project his voice without visibly moving his mouth or lips across large distances.
- Super-Hypnotism: Superman was trained in how to mesmerize others using a variety of effects.
- Genius Level Intellect: Superman, like most Kryptonians, is possessed of a higher level of intelligence than the average Earth human. Even among Kryptonians, the House of El was a lineage associated with scientific, cultural and forensic achievement and possessed an above-average intelligence which Superman inherited.
- Total Recall: Superman had total and perfect recollection of all the events that transpired in his life since his birth on Krypton, being able to recall even trivial and minute details or information from decades ago with impeccable accuracy. He could learn surgery in minutes by reading the appropriate books, and re-build an exploded computer by recalling where each component was. This power was facilitated by augmentation of his already formidable intellectual capabilities by the Sun's rays.
- Superman can stop his breathing and heartbeat, faking death.[521] However, Superman can only sustain this effect for a limited time before his body gives out.[410]
- Psychokinesis (Temporarily; only after exposure to the rays of a violet sun)
- Summoning (Temporarily; only after exposure to the rays of a violet sun)
Abilities
- Artistry (sculpting)[522]
- Aviation: Superman piloted the Supermobile on occasions when he was deprived of his super-powers.
- Charisma
- Disguise[516]
- Equestrianism[523]
- Gadgetry: Brilliant scientist and inventor, especially in robotics.
- Expert Combatant: In combat situations, Superman makes use of an improvised fighting style that relies on overwhelming force and speed. Superman has revealed being skilled in a fair amount of martial arts, such as Judo, Wrestling, Boxing and Karate, thanks to his training with Batman.[524][525][526][527][528][529] Kal-EL was also trained by the Karate Kid in armed and unarmed combat, when he worked alongside the Legion of Superheroes.[530] Along with being trained by Muhammad Ali when it comes to Boxing, for two weeks.[531] He mostly relies on his martial arts, when fighting against foes who are equal to him in power or when he's placed in a desperate situation; due to having no powers. Clark has shown capable being able to overcome the Gnmod, when it took the form of a near invincible Dwalu Warrior.[532] Superman has even engaged in situations where and when he was forced to fight or operate while blind.[533][534][535]
- Boxing: Jonathan Kent taught Clark how to box when he was a kid.[536] Clark learned more of boxing when he trained with Muhammad Ali.[537] Even Batman has aided Clark with some training, when it comes to this marital art.[538][539]
- Judo[540][541][542]
- Karate[543]
- Wing Chun[544]
- Wrestling[545][546]
- Swordsmanship
- Pressure Points [547]
- Kryptonian Historiography
- Indomitable Will: Superman has shown to have a powerful spirit, free of corruption and temptation. Having been raised by a kindly Kansas farmer and his wife, he was taught to protect life and help others. He is very optimistic and never gives up, even when things look bad.
- Journalism: Clark is one of the top reporters on the Daily Planet, rivaled only by Lois Lane.
- Leadership: Superman has proven many times over his ability to command respect and inspire others with his charisma, ardor and idealism. He often serves as the primus inter pares of the Justice League.
- Medicine: Licensed doctor.[548][549]
- Multilingualism: Appears to read, speak and write every known language on Earth (even Ancient ones, such as Ancient Egyptian[550]) as well as several alien languages, including Kryptonese and the Interlac script. He can read lips.[551]
- Psychology [257]
Weaknesses
- Vulnerability to Kryptonite: There existed various kinds of Kryptonite, most of which affected Superman in a particular and invariably negative way.
- Green Kryptonite, of both real and synthetic varieties, could negate Superman's powers in a matter of seconds and immobilize Superman with waves of excruciating pain. Prolonged exposure would lead to fatal radiation poisoning and discolor Superman's blood and tissues green.
- Red Kryptonite, on the other hand, emitted radiation that would mutate Superman in unpredictable ways for a time span of 48 hours. No two samples of Red K would have the same effect on Superman, while any given Red K chunk could only affect Superman or any other Kryptonian once through exposure.
- Gold Kryptonite emitted radiations that would permanently destroy Superman's powers without causing him direct physical harm; he would became equivalent to a normal human man of his age and build from so on.
- While other varieties of Kryptonite, typically synthetic, existed, these three main varieties were the most commonly found in nature and impacted Superman each in their own unique, detrimental way.
- Vulnerability to Magic: Due to lacking the innate resonance with magical forces that became adaptive in humans over millions of years, the Kryptonian race, Superman included, were not only bereft of the human disposition towards magical mastery (though a secret cult of Kryptonian wizards did exist), but were also more acutely vulnerable to the effects of magic than normal humans.[73][552] This applies even to Superman, whose physiology is enhanced in numerous ways by Earth's environment to be immune to most natural forces. Superman thus has no special invincibility to harm inflicted through mystical means and could often be rendered powerless by the forces of magic. Supernatural creatures and human spell-casters as such were always formidable adversaries for Superman to contend with.
- Vulnerability to Red Sun Radiation: When exposed to the frequency range of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a red sun, whether naturally or artificially generated, Superman lost all his superpowers and became, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to a normal human man of his age and build. Even on worlds that exist under yellow suns, the projection of red sun radiation at close range could render him imminently powerless. However, unlike Green K, red sun radiation does not harm Superman directly, and unlike Gold K, its effect is not permanent.
- Vulnerability to Green Sun Radiation: Similarly to Red Sun, Kal-El will temporarily lose all superpowers in the presence of green sun radiation.[553]
- Vulnerability to Psionics: Superman could be totally incapacitated by a psychic intrusion if the source of the intrusion were capable of subverting his mental defenses quickly enough. Potentially, a talented psychic could render Superman unconscious or place him under mind-control if Superman were not given the opportunity to respond.
- Vulnerability to Q-Energy: Q-Energy had a similar effect on Superman as Green Kryptonite and could potentially destroy him.[554] [555]
- Although Superman can survive with no food, water, oxygen or sleep, it's been stated a lack of rest and dream taxes a Kryptonian's mind,[556][557][558] to the point Superman becomes prickly, irritable and psychologically unstable.[559] On one occasion, the mental stress from prolonged lack of sleep made Superman manifest a split personality that tried to kill his Clark Kent identity with deathtraps.[560]
- It is possible that Atron-Rays, which affected the renegade Kryptonian Klax-Ar might strip the powers of Superman or any other Kryptonian, if the exposure is prolonged.
- A special type of rare metal ore had the ability to siphon Superman's ecto-energy, weakening Superman's powers and potentially creating super-powerful monsters from the ectoplasm.[561] Another metal ore, buried deep into the Earth's mantle, had the ability to leech the solar radiation from Superman's tissue, leaving him in a perpetual state of lethargy until it was neutralized.[562]
- As a rule, any substance native to Krypton from before its destruction had the potential to affect Superman (or any other Kryptonian) in the same manner that an analogous substance made of Earth elements might do to a normal human.[563][564][565][566]
Paraphernalia
Equipment
- Superman's Costume: Originally the normal Kryptonian cloth that infant Kal-El was swaddled with during his flight to Earth, Superman's costume becomes just as invulnerable as its wearer, if not actually more so, under the radiation of a yellow sun. Evidence that Superman's costume may become more durable than his body on Earth includes the fact that fights with various enemies capable of physically harming Superman still fail to tear or rip his costume. As a result, Superman's costume provides some measure of protection even when Superman is stripped of his superpowers, as it can resist the effects of drastic temperature change and physical abuse, though this says nothing about the ability or lack thereof of its wearer to sustain this type of damage under conditions of powerlessness. Superman's costume is also known to be able to shield its wearer (or anything wrapped in its cape) from the effects of friction.
- Kryptonian Lenses: Clark Kent can use glasses with lenses from his Kryptonian spaceship to project his heat vision without melting them.
- Superman Robots: Android facsimiles of the Man of Steel imbued with inferior duplicates of Superman's main power set and used to stand in for him on occasions when it is necessary that Superman and Clark Kent be seen together in order to deflect suspicion or to defend Metropolis when their creator is unable to for a variety of reasons. Special Superman Robots have even been created to pose as Clark Kent in his civilian identity. Pollution eventually made it unsafe for them to use their superpowers.
- Lead Armor: Superman occasionally used an airight full-body armor suit made of lead to block lethal Green Kryptonite radiations from reaching his body. Although the armor had no eyeholes as such, Superman could navigate with the suit on by using a viewscreen built into the interior of the helmet. The suit was frequently destroyed or transmuted into glass by Superman's enemies, presumably being replaced each time.
- Super-Computer: Superman's highly advanced supercomputer, located in the Fortress of Solitude.
- Various technological artifacts from Krypton and other alien world Superman has visited in the past, usually contained within the Fortress of Solitude.
Transportation
- Supermobile: Usually just flies under his own power, but occasionally made use of a Supermobile to compensate for temporary loss of powers or for protection against non-yellow sun-systems in which Superman would often lose his powers or find them diminished.
- Rocket-Belt: During his time in Kandor as Nightwing, Kal-El used a rocket belt to give him the ability to fly as he would be able to under Earth's yellow sun.
Weapons
- Phantom Zone Projector
- Various weapons collected from past interstellar adventures, usually contained the Fortress of Solitude's armory.
Notes
- This version of Superman, including all history and corresponding appearances, was erased from existence following the collapse of the original Multiverse in the 1985–86 Crisis on Infinite Earths event and later restored following the rebirth of the infinite Multiverse during the Dark Crisis of 2022-2023. Even though other versions of the character may have appeared, this information does not apply to those versions.
- Superman first appeared in Earth-Two continuity in Action Comics #1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The Earth-One version first appeared (as Superboy) in More Fun Comics #101 by the same creative team. Superman #76 is generally considered his first historical appearance as an adult in Earth-One. Action Comics #393 (2nd story) and Superman: The Secret Years can be considered his first chronological appearance as an adult in Earth-One. The first time that Earth-Two and Earth-One Supermen are referred to as separate individuals is Justice League of America #73.
- Inconsistencies regarding Superman, Superboy and other "Earth-One" stories with Earth-One continuity resulted in many stories being retroactively assigned to a parallel Earth with Earth-Thirty-Two and Earth-Two-A being the largest of these.
Trivia
- Catchphrases:
- "Up, up and away" (when ready to fly)
- "This is a job for Superman" (when a threat or enemy is present)
- "Great Krypton!"
- "Great Scott!"
- "Great Rao!"
- Other temporary aliases Kal-El has used include:
- Reflecto[567]
- Andy Lang[568]
- Kirk Brent[569]
- Professor Milo[570]
- Mike Benson[571]
- Lightning-Man[572]
- Tag-Along[374]
- Cal Lewis[573]
- Kent Clark [citation needed]
- The Alchemist[574]
- Jim White[575][576]
- Brad Dexter[157]
- Ideal Man[577]
- Sonn[578]
- Prince Power[579]
- Former Superman[154]
- Hercules, Junior[580]
- Doctor Astar[581]
- The Masked Superman[582]
- Super-Thief[583]
- Motan[306]
- Kento the Great[584]
- Alonzo "The Penman" Scarns[308]
- Super-Clark[54]
- Chris Delbart, the "Wolf of Wall Street"[585]
- Missouri Mike[586]
- The Mighty One[587][588]
- Solomon Grundy of Earth-One[589]
- Zoraz[590]
- Lionel "Lon" Maxwell[591]
- Kralik the Conqueror[304]
- Sonzrr[561]
- "Duke" Derek[592]
- Bart McLusky[593]
- Vlatuu of Plyrox[108]
- Jonathan Clinton[594]
- Mystery Masquerader[595]
- Some of Kal-El's future descendants would be:
- Klar Ken T5477
- Kara Ken
- Laurel Kent (retconned as a Manhunter android during Post-Crisis)
- Jaxon (on Earth-AD timeline)
- Superman was granted the honorary degree of 'Doctor of Super-Science for all he has done for humanity.[596]
- Superman was an honorary citizen of all the United Nations.
- On the 1976 DC Comics Calendar, his birthday was listed as February 29th.
- Two variants of this Superman appeared in the Dominus Effect:
- Silver Age: Adventures of Superman #558, 559 and 560
- Bronze ("Polyester") Age: Action Comics #745, 746 and 747
- Superman was used as the model for Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy and Rembrandt van Rijn's The Night Watch while traveling through time. However, the facial features of the figures in both paintings were taken from other individuals.[597]
- As anchorman for the WGBS 6 o'clock news, Clark would frequently sign off by wishing facetiously that bad news isn't "your" (the viewership's) news, that good news is "your" news, or something to that general effect.[353][598][599][600][601][602]
- Clark Kent's favorite meal is Beef bourguignon.[215][219][603]
- Clark Kent's phone number is 555-0162.[603]
- Clark Kent was awarded a Pulitzer Prize at some point in his career.[598]
- As a teenager, Clark strongly disliked the music of The Beach Boys and expressed a preference for Andy Williams.[358] He was also opposed to girls' practice of applying non-traditionally colored nail polish[87] and regarded men with deliberately long hair as "freaks."[94] Such attitudes only helped Clark's perception of being a "square."
Recommended Reading
Related
- 2,803 Appearances of Kal-El (Earth-One)
- 312 Images featuring Kal-El (Earth-One)
- 378 Quotations by or about Kal-El (Earth-One)
- Character Gallery: Kal-El (Earth-One)
Footnotes
- ↑ Superman #149
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Superman #205
- ↑ Superman #257
- ↑ The 1960s versions of the origin story have the Kents sending Kal-El to an orphanage and adopt him later, while most 1970 versions of the story have the Kents pass Kal-El off as their distant relative whose birth parents die.
- ↑ Superboy #196
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Superboy #89
- ↑ Adventure Comics #210
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #12
- ↑ Superman #137
- ↑ Superman #139
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #20-21
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #26-27
- ↑ Superboy #124
- ↑ Adventure Comics #240
- ↑ DC Super-Stars #12
- ↑ Adventure Comics #247
- ↑ Superboy #204
- ↑ Superboy #98
- ↑ Adventure Comics #282
- ↑ Adventure Comics #310
- ↑ Adventure Comics #317-318
- ↑ Adventure Comics #321
- ↑ Adventure Comics #335-336
- ↑ Adventure Comics #338
- ↑ Adventure Comics #349
- ↑ Adventure Comics #340-341
- ↑ Adventure Comics #348
- ↑ Adventure Comics #330-331
- ↑ Adventure Comics #312
- ↑ Adventure Comics #342
- ↑ Adventure Comics #346-347
- ↑ Adventure Comics #350-351
- ↑ Adventure Comics #352-353
- ↑ Adventure Comics #355
- ↑ Adventure Comics #357
- ↑ Adventure Comics #359-360
- ↑ Adventure Comics #365-366
- ↑ Adventure Comics #367
- ↑ Adventure Comics #369-370
- ↑ Adventure Comics #372
- ↑ Action Comics #387
- ↑ Adventure Comics #271
- ↑ Superman #292
- ↑ Superboy #68
- ↑ Superboy #78
- ↑ Superboy #83
- ↑ Superboy #99
- ↑ Adventure Comics #454
- ↑ Adventure Comics #283
- ↑ Adventure Comics #300
- ↑ Adventure Comics #305
- ↑ Adventure Comics #287-288
- ↑ Adventure Comics #320
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 Superboy #173
- ↑ Superboy #188
- ↑ Superboy #197
- ↑ Superboy #198
- ↑ Superboy #199
- ↑ 59.0 59.1 Superboy #200
- ↑ Superboy #201
- ↑ Superboy #216
- ↑ Superboy #218
- ↑ Superboy #203
- ↑ Superboy #219
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #231
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #246-247
- ↑ Superboy #208
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #223
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #224
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #225-226
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #227
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #228-229
- ↑ 73.0 73.1 Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241-245
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #239
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #273
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #250-251
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #273
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #252
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #253-254
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #256
- ↑ Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #257
- ↑ 82.0 82.1 Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #258
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #259
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #3-4
- ↑ 85.0 85.1 Superboy (Volume 2) #5
- ↑ 86.0 86.1 Action Comics #507-508
- ↑ 87.0 87.1 Superboy (Volume 2) #6
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #15-16
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #17-18
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #275
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #277-282
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #19
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #22-23
- ↑ 94.0 94.1 Superboy (Volume 2) #25
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #31
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #32-33
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #34-35
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #42-44
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #45-47
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #41
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #52
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #53
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #50
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #290-294
- ↑ Superman #161
- ↑ 106.0 106.1 Superman #362
- ↑ Superman #359
- ↑ 108.0 108.1 108.2 Superman #365-368
- ↑ 109.0 109.1 Superman: The Secret Years #1-4
- ↑ Superman #129
- ↑ Action Comics #261
- ↑ Action Comics #241
- ↑ Action Comics #265
- ↑ Superman #176
- ↑ Superman #133
- ↑ Superman #136
- ↑ 117.0 117.1 Action Comics #252
- ↑ Action Comics #309
- ↑ Adventure Comics #393
- ↑ Action Comics #278-285
- ↑ Superman #106
- ↑ Action Comics #249
- ↑ World's Finest #88
- ↑ Action Comics #267
- ↑ Action Comics #271
- ↑ 126.0 126.1 Action Comics #277
- ↑ Superman #144
- ↑ World's Finest #126
- ↑ Action Comics #292
- ↑ Action Comics #294
- ↑ Superman #147
- ↑ Action Comics #242
- ↑ Superman #158
- ↑ Action Comics #254-255
- ↑ Action Comics #263-264
- ↑ Superman #131
- ↑ 137.0 137.1 Superman #135
- ↑ Superman #154
- ↑ Superman #148
- ↑ Superman #138
- ↑ Superman #157
- ↑ The Phantom Zone #1
- ↑ Action Comics #286-287
- ↑ Action Comics #300
- ↑ Superman #163
- ↑ Action Comics #313
- ↑ Superman #138
- ↑ Superman #139
- ↑ Superman #141
- ↑ Superman #164
- ↑ Superman #167
- ↑ Superman #168
- ↑ Action Comics #318-319
- ↑ 154.0 154.1 Superman #172
- ↑ Action Comics #332
- ↑ Action Comics #333
- ↑ 157.0 157.1 Action Comics #335
- ↑ World's Finest #142
- ↑ World's Finest #168
- ↑ Action Comics #340
- ↑ Action Comics #361
- ↑ Superman #190
- ↑ Superman #195
- ↑ Action Comics #342
- ↑ Action Comics #343
- ↑ Action Comics #351-353
- ↑ Action Comics #355-357
- ↑ Superman #201
- ↑ Action Comics #358-359
- ↑ Action Comics #380-381
- ↑ Action Comics #362-366
- ↑ Action Comics #385-387
- ↑ Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133-138
- ↑ Forever People #1
- ↑ 175.0 175.1 Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #139-141
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #115
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #111
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #116
- ↑ Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144-146
- ↑ Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #147
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #118
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #119
- ↑ Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #152
- ↑ Superman #233
- ↑ Superman #234
- ↑ Superman #235
- ↑ Superman #237
- ↑ Superman #238
- ↑ Superman #240
- ↑ Superman #241
- ↑ Superman #242
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #105
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #114
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #120
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #121
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #122
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #123-124
- ↑ Superman #264
- ↑ Superman #277
- ↑ Action Comics #414
- ↑ Action Comics #445
- ↑ 202.0 202.1 Action Comics #468-470
- ↑ Superman #396
- ↑ Superman #260
- ↑ Action Comics #421
- ↑ Superman #281
- ↑ Superman #248
- ↑ Superman #258
- ↑ Superman #249
- ↑ Superman #250
- ↑ Superman #278
- ↑ Action Comics #432
- ↑ Action Comics #458-459
- ↑ Superman #296
- ↑ 215.0 215.1 Superman #297
- ↑ Superman #298
- ↑ Superman #299
- ↑ Superman #301
- ↑ 219.0 219.1 219.2 219.3 Superman #303
- ↑ 220.0 220.1 Superman #310
- ↑ Superman #311-314
- ↑ 222.0 222.1 Superman #315-317
- ↑ Superman #319-322
- ↑ Superman #323-324
- ↑ Superman #325-326
- ↑ Superman #327
- ↑ Superman #328-329
- ↑ 228.0 228.1 Superman Family #184
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #41
- ↑ Action Comics #471-473
- ↑ Superman Family #190
- ↑ Action Comics #457
- ↑ Superman #307-308
- ↑ Action Comics #460-463
- ↑ Action Comics #475-476
- ↑ Action Comics #474
- ↑ Action Comics #480-483
- ↑ Action Comics #487-488
- ↑ 239.0 239.1 Superman #304-305
- ↑ Superman #333
- ↑ DC Special Series #5
- ↑ Action Comics #489-491
- ↑ Superman #331-332
- ↑ Superman #334
- ↑ 245.0 245.1 Superman #342
- ↑ Action Comics #493-495
- ↑ Action Comics #496
- ↑ Superman #338
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #13-14
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #25
- ↑ Action Comics #500
- ↑ Action Comics #524
- ↑ Superman #339-340
- ↑ Superman #341
- ↑ Action Comics #501
- ↑ Superman #383
- ↑ 257.0 257.1 Superman #370
- ↑ Superman #346
- ↑ Action Comics #515-516
- ↑ Superman #352
- ↑ Superman #362-363
- ↑ Superman #349
- ↑ Action Comics #510-512
- ↑ Superman Family #205
- ↑ Action Comics #513
- ↑ Action Comics #532-533
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #27-29
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #36
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #43
- ↑ Action Comics #514
- ↑ Action Comics #528-530
- ↑ Action Comics #525-526
- ↑ The Phantom Zone #1-4
- ↑ Action Comics #527
- ↑ Action Comics #534
- ↑ Action Comics #535-539
- ↑ Action Comics #540-541
- ↑ World's Finest #84
- ↑ Adventure Comics #275
- ↑ Superboy #182
- ↑ 281.0 281.1 281.2 World's Finest #271
- ↑ World's Finest #94
- ↑ Superman #76
- ↑ World's Finest #71
- ↑ World's Finest #72
- ↑ World's Finest #73
- ↑ World's Finest #75
- ↑ World's Finest #76
- ↑ World's Finest #77
- ↑ World's Finest #78
- ↑ World's Finest #80
- ↑ World's Finest #84
- ↑ World's Finest #102
- ↑ World's Finest #140
- ↑ World's Finest #141
- ↑ World's Finest #143
- ↑ World's Finest #144
- ↑ World's Finest #156
- ↑ World's Finest #159
- ↑ World's Finest #160
- ↑ World's Finest #163
- ↑ World's Finest #164
- ↑ World's Finest #169
- ↑ 304.0 304.1 World's Finest #173
- ↑ World's Finest #175
- ↑ 306.0 306.1 World's Finest #189-190
- ↑ World's Finest #192-193
- ↑ 308.0 308.1 World's Finest #194-195
- ↑ World's Finest #202
- ↑ World's Finest #207
- ↑ World's Finest #211
- ↑ World's Finest #217
- ↑ World's Finest #218
- ↑ World's Finest #219-220
- ↑ World's Finest #225
- ↑ World's Finest #226
- ↑ World's Finest #235
- ↑ World's Finest #236
- ↑ World's Finest #237
- ↑ Adventure Comics #449-451
- ↑ World's Finest #245
- ↑ World's Finest #246-247
- ↑ Batman #293
- ↑ World's Finest #256
- ↑ World's Finest #258
- ↑ The Brave and the Bold #150
- ↑ World's Finest #262
- ↑ World's Finest #264
- ↑ World's Finest #266
- ↑ World's Finest #270
- ↑ World's Finest #272
- ↑ World's Finest #273
- ↑ World's Finest #274
- ↑ World's Finest #275
- ↑ World's Finest #276
- ↑ World's Finest #277
- ↑ World's Finest #278
- ↑ World's Finest #279-281
- ↑ World's Finest #285
- ↑ World's Finest #286
- ↑ World's Finest #287
- ↑ World's Finest #288
- ↑ World's Finest #293
- ↑ Batman and the Outsiders #1-2
- ↑ World's Finest #294
- ↑ World's Finest #295
- ↑ World's Finest #296-300
- ↑ Superman #199
- ↑ The Flash #175
- ↑ Superman #220
- ↑ World's Finest #198-199
- ↑ Action Comics #437
- ↑ 353.0 353.1 Action Comics #441
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #1-2
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #38
- ↑ World's Finest #200
- ↑ World's Finest #205
- ↑ 358.0 358.1 Superboy (Volume 2) #13
- ↑ World's Finest #201
- ↑ Action Comics #437
- ↑ Action Comics #444
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #6
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #26
- ↑ World's Finest #204
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #136
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #9
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #32
- ↑ Superboy #171
- ↑ Superman #138
- ↑ World's Finest #203
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #5
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #48
- ↑ World's Finest #209
- ↑ 374.0 374.1 DC Comics Presents #10-11
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #37
- ↑ 376.0 376.1 Adventure Comics #258
- ↑ World's Finest #210
- ↑ Action Comics #437
- ↑ Action Comics #455
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #20
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #54
- ↑ All-New Collectors' Edition #C-58
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #33-34
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #49
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #14
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #49
- ↑ Superman #233
- ↑ World's Finest #207
- ↑ World's Finest #208
- ↑ World's Finest #213
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #15
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #51
- ↑ World's Finest #214
- ↑ Superman #268
- ↑ Superman #279
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #19
- ↑ Black Lightning #5
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #16
- ↑ DC Special Series #6
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #22
- ↑ Firestorm #2
- ↑ 402.0 402.1 DC Comics Presents #17
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #45
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #3
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #4
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #7
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #8
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #12
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #30
- ↑ 410.0 410.1 World's Finest #267
- ↑ Action Comics #523
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #68
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #39
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #42
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #44
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #46
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #52
- ↑ 418.0 418.1 Justice League of America #144
- ↑ Justice League of America #9
- ↑ The Brave and the Bold #28
- ↑ The Brave and the Bold #29
- ↑ The Brave and the Bold #30
- ↑ Justice League of America #1
- ↑ Justice League of America #3
- ↑ 425.0 425.1 Justice League of America #24
- ↑ Justice League of America #10
- ↑ Justice League of America #11
- ↑ Justice League of America #12
- ↑ Justice League of America #32
- ↑ Justice League of America #36
- ↑ Justice League of America #19
- ↑ Justice League of America #34
- ↑ Justice League of America #61
- ↑ Justice League of America #41
- ↑ Justice League of America #63
- ↑ 436.0 436.1 Justice League of America #42
- ↑ Justice League of America #44
- ↑ Justice League of America #43
- ↑ Justice League of America #60
- ↑ 440.0 440.1 Justice League of America #65
- ↑ Justice League of America #14
- ↑ Justice League of America #31
- ↑ Justice League of America #70
- ↑ Justice League of America #4
- ↑ Justice League of America #21-22
- ↑ Justice League of America #29-30
- ↑ Wonder Woman #179
- ↑ Justice League of America #69
- ↑ Justice League of America #71
- ↑ Justice League of America #73-74
- ↑ 451.0 451.1 Justice League of America #219-220
- ↑ Justice League of America #75
- ↑ Justice League of America #122
- ↑ Justice League of America #77
- ↑ 455.0 455.1 Justice League of America #78-79
- ↑ Justice League of America #130
- ↑ Justice League of America #82-83
- ↑ Justice League of America #91-92
- ↑ Justice League of America #94
- ↑ Justice League of America #95-98
- ↑ Justice League of America #100-102
- ↑ Justice League of America #105-106
- ↑ Justice League of America #103
- ↑ Justice League of America #104
- ↑ Justice League of America #110
- ↑ Justice League of America #111
- ↑ Justice League of America #112
- ↑ Justice League of America #154
- ↑ Justice League of America #176
- ↑ Justice League of America Annual #1
- ↑ Action Comics #443
- ↑ Justice League of America #117
- ↑ Justice League of America #120-122
- ↑ Justice League of America #125-126
- ↑ Justice League of America #128-129
- ↑ Justice League of America #131-134
- ↑ Justice League of America #135-137
- ↑ Justice League of America #138-141
- ↑ Justice League of America #142-143
- ↑ Justice League of America #145-146
- ↑ Justice League of America #147-148
- ↑ Justice League of America #149-150
- ↑ Justice League of America #153
- ↑ Justice League of America #158
- ↑ Justice League of America #169-170
- ↑ Justice League of America #164-165
- ↑ Justice League of America #166-168
- ↑ Justice League of America #171-172
- ↑ Justice League of America #173
- ↑ Justice League of America #179
- ↑ Justice League of America #183-185
- ↑ Justice League of America #189-190
- ↑ Justice League of America #192-193
- ↑ Justice League of America #194
- ↑ Justice League of America #198-199
- ↑ Justice League of America #200
- ↑ Justice League of America #214-215
- ↑ Justice League of America #217
- ↑ Justice League of America #218
- ↑ Justice League of America #224
- ↑ Justice League of America #231-232
- ↑ Justice League of America #228-230
- ↑ Justice League of America Annual #2
- ↑ Convergence: Booster Gold #2
- ↑ Convergence: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #1
- ↑ Convergence: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #2
- ↑ Convergence: Adventures of Superman #1
- ↑ Convergence: Adventures of Superman #2
- ↑ Action Comics #262
- ↑ Superman #371
- ↑ Justice League of America #80
- ↑ World's Finest #208
- ↑ Action Comics #553
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #61
- ↑ Action Comics #560
- ↑ 516.0 516.1 Action Comics #473
- ↑ Adventure Comics #213
- ↑ World's Finest #239
- ↑ Superman #167
- ↑ Action Comics #538
- ↑ Superman: The Secret Years #4
- ↑ Action Comics #294
- ↑ Adventure Comics #159
- ↑ World's Finest #279
- ↑ Superman #107
- ↑ Superman #229
- ↑ Superman #184
- ↑ Action Comics #348
- ↑ Action Comics #350
- ↑ Adventure Comics #368
- ↑ All-New Collectors' Edition #C-56
- ↑ Action Comics #495
- ↑ Justice League of America #36
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #58
- ↑ Superman #309
- ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #31
- ↑ All-New Collectors' Edition #C-56
- ↑ Superman #107
- ↑ Action Comics #350
- ↑ Superman #107
- ↑ Superman #229
- ↑ World's Finest #279
- ↑ Action Comics #348
- ↑ Action Comics #495
- ↑ Superman #184
- ↑ Action Comics #350
- ↑ Action Comics #495
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #12
- ↑ World's Finest #251
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #49
- ↑ Superboy #168
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #18
- ↑ Justice League of America #52
- ↑ Superman #204
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #1
- ↑ Superman #365
- ↑ World's Finest #232
- ↑ Action Comics #486
- ↑ DC Retroactive: Superman-The '70s #1
- ↑ Action Comics #409
- ↑ 561.0 561.1 DC Special Series #5
- ↑ Action Comics #454
- ↑ Action Comics #298
- ↑ Action Comics #329
- ↑ Adventure Comics #356
- ↑ Superman Family #179
- ↑ Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #279
- ↑ Superboy #63
- ↑ Superman #124
- ↑ World's Finest #97
- ↑ Action Comics #564
- ↑ World's Finest #89
- ↑ Action Comics #375
- ↑ Batman #140
- ↑ Superman #165
- ↑ Superman #169
- ↑ Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #56
- ↑ Action Comics #370
- ↑ Adventure Comics #175
- ↑ Adventure Comics #223
- ↑ Superman #210
- ↑ Action Comics #372
- ↑ Action Comics #374
- ↑ Action Comics #382
- ↑ Superman #283
- ↑ Superman #285
- ↑ Superman #295
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #64
- ↑ Superman #301
- ↑ Superboy #218
- ↑ Action Comics #471
- ↑ Action Comics #510
- ↑ Justice League of America #187
- ↑ DC Comics Presents #69
- ↑ Superman #396
- ↑ Action Comics #333
- ↑ Superman #211
- ↑ 598.0 598.1 Action Comics #477
- ↑ World's Finest #248
- ↑ Superman Family #196
- ↑ Superman Family #205
- ↑ Superman #392
- ↑ 603.0 603.1 Superman Family #211
Superman Family member |
Justice League member This character has been a member of the Justice League of America, or the Justice League in any of its various incarnations, sworn by a duty to act as guardians of America and the world by using their skills and/or superpowers to protect Earth from the clutches of both interstellar and domestic threats. |
Legion of Super-Heroes member |
Daily Planet Staff member |
Batman Family member This character is or was an incarnation of or an ally of Batman, and a member of the Batman Family. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "Batman Family members" category. |
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