How would YOU have rebooted Superman in 1986?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

A lot of solid writers have made good use of the surviving Kents, and I know that there's enough fans of Clark getting advice from his parents that it's not something that necessarily should be tossed aside. However, there's nothing gained from having both of them alive that outweighs the crucial element of losing Pa Kent to natural causes when he's on the cusp of manhood. It's as essential an element to his backstory as Crime Alley or Uncle Ben is to Batman and Spider-Man. Why DC felt it wise to take a character so often criticized for being 'too perfect' and deciding to retcon his origin to make his life even more perfect and unmarked by any whiff of tragedy is truly baffling.

[GreatKungLao]

I would have made Man of Steel film as Superman's reboot in 1986 with some tweaks and filling pages in between scenes we saw in the movie. With more details and such. It would have been nice to have non crystal Krypton and if Fortress of Solitude was a kryptonian space ship. Moving Fortress makes more sense, because the Arctic one will be located one day or another while space ship can be relocated, held on the Moon or floating in space.

What I definitely would have changed to make things more interesting for Superman's mythology is that Lara was an AI mentor instead of Jor-El or both of them, but not Jor-El alone.

[Coal Tiger]

For the most part, MoS was fine. I always hated the "kryptonian birthing matrix" thing that made Superman "technically" born on earth though, so I'd eliminate that. Let him be born on Krypton and raised on Earth.

[bat39]

I've said before that the reboot was an overreaction to the SA. They wanted to eliminate any chance of those aspects ever being brought back. And it was obvious that by the mid to late nineties these restrictions put too many limitations on the creators creatively. You don't turn Metropolis into a techno future wonderland because you have a ton of other ideas lined up. One of the reasons why I liked things like Smallville and New 52 is that it managed to find a healthy middle ground.

That's the thing though...you need to go to an extreme in order to find a healthy middle ground!

Some of DC's best eras have been the times they have tried to find a middle ground between two fairly different eras. The bulk of the 2000's, particularly post-IC was one such time. The current Rebirth era is arguably another.

[GreatKungLao]

Forgot to mention that I would have got rid of the red trunks back 1986 as well so that by today trunkless was considered a classic.

[Kuwagaton]

Thanks man, and yeah, this is actually a lot of fun. Getting your head into what the style and frame of mind was back then is a nice challenge, and makes you a bit more appreciative of the era and the writers in it. Reading MOS again made me realize just how quickly we got to the suit and full on Superman. I'm for sure more of a fan of Miller's style with Year One with the build to it. But I can appreciate where a writer at the time is coming from when they decide to move relatively fast to the suit. They wanna hold the reader's attention, get them into some awe, and get them to the comic's namesake as soon as possible. Hopefully that's theoretically alleviated by technically showing Lara in her fantastic space suit (that's tooootally not gonna somehow inspire Clark's action suit in some way) and doing super stuff.

It's surprising to me how as late as 2001, Bendis said people were taken back by his first USM issue completely being a slice of life for some teenagers. That's still a little different from many origins but I feel that since then, even in much of this thread, the suggestions have been some pretty dense issues. The fascinating thing besides watching popular or infamous parts of the mythos start in earnest is seeing how Clark got interested in joining the superhero phenomenon if not starting it. It seems so obvious now but what's with that train of thought?

Clark being somewhat inspired by the imagery we see his mom evoke is a cool "year one" sort of thing that reminds me of what a lot of readers would remember: tying on our towels as kids. Sometimes not even thinking "I'm Superman" and just going with the vague impression. I'm interested in how that gets tied together.

My thinking would be to have Kara unleashed later and flip the relationship. She's a teenager, but still his older cousin and a raised Kryptonian. What he would learn about Krypton would come through her anecdotes, and the crazy technology to see or visit would only come much later in specific context. That would be my stance on the controversial monologue, where he learns everything about Krypton at once but doesn't have anyone or any experiences to give it a real place in his life.

In time we would be aware of his fascination when he gets real experiences there, but for the origin we'd have a trade: the viewers get access to his backstory that he doesn't, and while we see his life play out and know who he's becoming as a person, we don't get his thought bubbles. I was reading some comics about a year ago (a post Byrne stretch actually, going from the then-recent Man of Steel volume 9 to Dark Knight Over Metropolis) when he went around doing all this stuff and I realized that from outside of his thoughts the action would look completely different. I think it's been somewhat lost that Superman himself is a force of nature and how jarring it is when he say, breaks silence in the middle of a fight. If it's not too obvious from using Earth Two or zipping on air currents (I'd beg Mike Zeck to come and do it) one of my biggest inspirations would be the Fleischer cartoons. I love that guttural, wordless grit that we even got recent with Batman vs KGBeast. I don't see it as just a quirk that can be played out. With that in mind, I guess I'm biased to liking the idea of Lara's earthbound struggle.

I struggle to think what to do with her. Maybe Jor-el dies before Kal leaves for Earth and she stays behind with the baby for a bit, haha.

No real comment on the Kents being alive or dead though. It's really up to the writer's discretion how often Clark works through a situation with them. I'm not really about "removing the temptation" but I've always appreciated, on a narrative level, one of his adopted parents passing of natural means. The lesson means more to me than one or the other not being there to talk him through whatever have you.

One parent passing seems to work. Honestly I found even Alice White to be a more interesting character on average, so I'd try to work with ma. Nature to me is when you see a pose in the middle issues that Jor-el does in the last issue while saying or doing something different enough to not make it too obvious. Nurture is seeing how ma is above average (Superman gets in his head that gain isn't something to be sought... "average" people would totally wanna get paid I think. I would.) but not so special that she's a chosen one. Her son zipping home under his own power to talk about psychic squids isn't something she really gets, and it's not as though his never ending battle wouldn't be what it is without her specifically. Pa ended with furrowed brows, because becoming a man (well, Clark would be 16) doesn't mean a dad will forget who his boy is, and the best intentions don't mean that boys won't be boys.

[superduperman]

That's the thing though...you need to go to an extreme in order to find a healthy middle ground!

Some of DC's best eras have been the times they have tried to find a middle ground between two fairly different eras. The bulk of the 2000's, particularly post-IC was one such time. The current Rebirth era is arguably another.

That's a fair point. At the time there was no other example to look to besides maybe the Donner movies. Which obviously had a huge influence on the reboot. Especially in regards to Krypton. The Donner Krypton wasn't exactly a warm and loving place either.

[bat39]

That's a fair point. At the time there was no other example to look to besides maybe the Donner movies. Which obviously had a huge influence on the reboot. Especially in regards to Krypton. The Donner Krypton wasn't exactly a warm and loving place either.

Yeah. I think Byrne actually looked to the few sources there were that did not match up to the 'classic' Silver Age/Bronze Age interpretation of Superman in some way or the other - for Krypton, he looked to The Movie, for Clark Kent he looked to the George Reeves' TV show, and for a lot of other stuff he tried to look back to the early Siegal/Shuster stories - the Lois/Clark journalistic 'rivalry', a stripped down take on the mythos without Superboy, Krypto, Kandor etc., Clark not knowing about his Kryptonian origins till later in life and not really caring much about them etc.

[Kuwagaton]

Certainly the Kidder looking Lois, too.

It was only with just posting that I realize how bad I would have wanted and still want Mike Zeck to pull Superman off. Popular back then, rare, and would have been an eye grabbing catch from Marvel. For my idea he'd be perfectly opposite drawing the near or far flying shots, always rather static and sometimes to the point where he might as well be thought bubbling about breakfast for all his time in the sky. Zeck could draw huge, dynamic shots where bam! He's already there. Superman shouldn't feel stiff and his speed shouldn't be displayed in the akimbo George Reeves pose unless he's making a point. Conveying control of his movement that particular way is nice but with all that speed I think he should feel very sudden, and my throwaway line to take away flight would also attempt an excuse as to why we get these dynamic poses leaping in and out of the foreground with no consideration for the damage such a landing would cause. A semi rushing at you without making a sound and not meeting any resistance before or after reaching you is frightening. Completely changing momentum by way of a curved leap (flipping, double jumping, changing mid air direction, etc.) is what I take from those old cartoons.





Of the very old comics I really miss how Superman wouldn't strike the same poses over and over and show off his agility. That's why I'd have him do a ton of shot put, vaulting, sprinting, swimming etc. as a kid. You go against him and you're fighting the whole Olympics at once. That said, being unstoppable didn't mean he couldn't be inconvenienced. The Superman who would fall through a trap door or get thrown from a boat and swim to Europe... is still unstoppable to the point where you can't have him tackle a problem too early in a story. Really he can't even afford to punch, I'd have him blow, throw, and rend until you get someone like Lobo. I'd have him eat the chamber of a gun or two because most people should relent before he does much of anything.

[manofsteel1979]

A lot of solid writers have made good use of the surviving Kents, and I know that there's enough fans of Clark getting advice from his parents that it's not something that necessarily should be tossed aside. However, there's nothing gained from having both of them alive that outweighs the crucial element of losing Pa Kent to natural causes when he's on the cusp of manhood. It's as essential an element to his backstory as Crime Alley or Uncle Ben is to Batman and Spider-Man. Why DC felt it wise to take a character so often criticized for being 'too perfect' and deciding to retcon his origin to make his life even more perfect and unmarked by any whiff of tragedy is truly baffling.

If i understand it, keeping the Kents alive was partially because as originally conceived, Byrne's intent was to follow a rookie Superman learning the ropes, which is partially why Superboy was eliminated. When he came up with MOS the entire DCU was apparently going to undergo a similar square one reboot, but editors got nervous and convinced the powers that be to hold back on rebooting everything. Ultimately only Superman and Wonder Woman got a ground up reboot.

I have a feeling had Byrne continued beyond 1988 on the character, he may have killed Martha, Jonathan or both eventually. Of course he left and the triangle teams made them part of the support cast.

I personally am on the fence with the Kents. From a practical point they don't REALLY need to be dead, because Kal's origin has enough tragedy as it is given what occurs with Krypton, but when his kryptonian side and heritage is downplayed to the degree Byrne did, and when he essentially made Krypton's demise be almost a deserved fate, it does give one the impression that Superman did have a pretty charmed life and circumstances. Also that's how Supes creators Jerry and Joe wanted it, so that sort of tips the scales toward the idea that the Kents should pass.

However, nearly all live action incarnations keep at least Ma around for at least a short time into Superman's adult career, so there is value with having one of them around to be a touchstone of sorts for Clark.

If i ever was entrusted to do a reboot or a new origin for Supes I would probably leave one alive. For the sake of a new take or mining some new story possibilities i would have Martha be the one who passes at some point.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I personally am on the fence with the Kents. From a practical point they don't REALLY need to be dead, because Kal's origin has enough tragedy as it is given what occurs with Krypton, but when his kryptonian side and heritage is downplayed to the degree Byrne did, and when he essentially made Krypton's demise be almost a deserved fate, it does give one the impression that Superman did have a pretty charmed life and circumstances. Also that's how Supes creators Jerry and Joe wanted it, so that sort of tips the scales toward the idea that the Kents should pass.

There's very few elements of Superman that you absolutely NEED. You could ditch the costume, the undies, the cape, the Daily Planet, Lois, flying, and more and you could still have a pretty good version of Superman, but that version of the character is always going to feel a little under-cooked. Similarly, several good Spider-Man stories could be told without Uncle Ben dying, but they wouldn't be nearly as good. Batman could technically work with only one of his parents dying, too.

The Triangle Era proved that Superman could work with Ma & Pa Kent still puttering around Smallville, but the character works much better when all the formative elements established by Seigel & Shuster are intact. Keeping only Ma Kent alive gives readers and creators everything they would get from both, whereas keeping the death of Pa Kent intact gives Superman so much more emotional depth and pathos that he never possessed for most of the Post-Crisis era.

[Jon Clark]

There's very few elements of Superman that you absolutely NEED. You could ditch the costume, the undies, the cape, the Daily Planet, Lois, flying, and more and you could still have a pretty good version of Superman, but that version of the character is always going to feel a little under-cooked. Similarly, several good Spider-Man stories could be told without Uncle Ben dying, but they wouldn't be nearly as good. Batman could technically work with only one of his parents dying, too.

The Triangle Era proved that Superman could work with Ma & Pa Kent still puttering around Smallville, but the character works much better when all the formative elements established by Seigel & Shuster are intact. Keeping only Ma Kent alive gives readers and creators everything they would get from both, whereas keeping the death of Pa Kent intact gives Superman so much more emotional depth and pathos that he never possessed for most of the Post-Crisis era.

The compromise of losing one parent works well, and could even be done keeping both parents alive if a writer found a decent counterweight. My main problem Post-Crisis was less the fact the Kents were alive (though I still have issues there) as much as the loss of pathos. Byrne's origin gave us no real tragedies at all. Krypton, except for one brief mention in it's mini, wasn't something we saw Clark bothered by. Both his parents were alive. Lana had some heartbreak about their relationship, but Clark was oblivious. Clark had been popular at school. We never really saw a loss for Superman at any point in the Byrne/Wolfman backstory. Pre-Crisis we always had at least the Kents' death as a touchstone that things weren't always going to go Clark's way.


I might have replaced the death of Jonathan and Martha with something like the kid Billy Cramer from Pre-Crisis who died when Clark was unable to come to his rescue because of a larger emergency. Or an expanded take on something like Post-Crisis Scott Brubaker's drunken accident with a focus on how it might have influenced Clark's Superman career. But there really needed to be something to replace the loss of his support system to counterbalance keeping the Kents.

[bat39]

There's very few elements of Superman that you absolutely NEED. You could ditch the costume, the undies, the cape, the Daily Planet, Lois, flying, and more and you could still have a pretty good version of Superman, but that version of the character is always going to feel a little under-cooked. Similarly, several good Spider-Man stories could be told without Uncle Ben dying, but they wouldn't be nearly as good. Batman could technically work with only one of his parents dying, too.

The Triangle Era proved that Superman could work with Ma & Pa Kent still puttering around Smallville, but the character works much better when all the formative elements established by Seigel & Shuster are intact. Keeping only Ma Kent alive gives readers and creators everything they would get from both, whereas keeping the death of Pa Kent intact gives Superman so much more emotional depth and pathos that he never possessed for most of the Post-Crisis era.

On the issue of the Kents dying, I can understand all the pros and cons of keeping them alive, but the one argument I personally don't agree with is the idea that its an 'essential' element of the Superman mythos - comparable to the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

The very first Superman origins didn't even include the Kents! The essential elements that Siegal/Shuster conceived of at the very beginning were the destruction of Krypton, the rocketship, and Clark Kent gaining powers due to his alien nature and deciding to become Superman. Yes, they added in the Kents soon enough and wrote them, specifically Pa Kent, as being the ones who influenced Clark to use his powers for good. And yes, the image of Pa Kent on his deathbed making Clark promise to dedicate his life to truth and justice is an iconic one that recurred in retellings throughout the Pre-Crisis era. But I certainly wouldn't regard it as an essential element of the origin. It was an embellishment added on later (though admittedly not long after Superman's origin) and was IMO never essential to the story of how and why Clark became Superman. In my book, as far as importance to the mythos goes, their deaths were more akin to the issue of whether or not Batman ever catches his parent's murderer, and when and how he does it - an important moment that can influence the direction of the character, but not really a sacrosanct one.

I also honestly don't see the need for Superman to necessarily suffer some tragedy in his life - above and beyond the tragedy of being one of the sole survivors of an entire species. What's wrong with Clark leading a 'charmed' personal life (well, as 'charmed' as your life can be growing up with strange abilities and on some level feeling alienated from others - not to mention discovering at some point that your biological parents and the entire society and race you were born to were wiped out in a cataclysm)? Does a hero need to suffer some personal tragedy to motivate him/her? Can't Clark consider himself lucky because of his 'charmed' life and be motivated to help others lead as 'charmed' a life as possible by watching over them? And won't he see enough violence and tragedy in BOTH his chosen occupations anyway to be well-acquainted with the ugly side of life?

As a concluding note - Most of what I associate with Superman comes from the Post-Crisis era so my instinct would be to lean towards having both of them alive, at least for the beginning of Superman's career. That said, in my post on what I would have done in 1986, I went with only Martha being alive because that's how it was in the Movie and even the George Reeves TV show.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The very first Superman origins didn't even include the Kents! The essential elements that Siegal/Shuster conceived of at the very beginning were the destruction of Krypton, the rocketship, and Clark Kent gaining powers due to his alien nature and deciding to become Superman. Yes, they added in the Kents soon enough and wrote them, specifically Pa Kent, as being the ones who influenced Clark to use his powers for good. And yes, the image of Pa Kent on his deathbed making Clark promise to dedicate his life to truth and justice is an iconic one that recurred in retellings throughout the Pre-Crisis era. But I certainly wouldn't regard it as an essential element of the origin. It was an embellishment added on later (though admittedly not long after Superman's origin) and was IMO never essential to the story of how and why Clark became Superman. In my book, as far as importance to the mythos goes, their deaths were more akin to the issue of whether or not Batman ever catches his parent's murderer, and when and how he does it - an important moment that can influence the direction of the character, but not really a sacrosanct one.

Sorry, this isn't really accurate. The origin in Action Comics #1 was a cut up version of the full length version, which included Clark's promise to his dead parents. The death of Seigel's father from a heart attack during a burglary was a deeply important formative event for him that informed much of his work (particularly The Spectre). Pa Kent's death was very important to the original conception of the character and was baked in from the very beginning.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I also honestly don't see the need for Superman to necessarily suffer some tragedy in his life - above and beyond the tragedy of being one of the sole survivors of an entire species. What's wrong with Clark leading a 'charmed' personal life (well, as 'charmed' as your life can be growing up with strange abilities and on some level feeling alienated from others - not to mention discovering at some point that your biological parents and the entire society and race you were born to were wiped out in a cataclysm)? Does a hero need to suffer some personal tragedy to motivate him/her? Can't Clark consider himself lucky because of his 'charmed' life and be motivated to help others lead as 'charmed' a life as possible by watching over them? And won't he see enough violence and tragedy in BOTH his chosen occupations anyway to be well-acquainted with the ugly side of life?

For me, it comes down to Superman as a beacon of hope. It's very easy to be hopefull when you've never really been touched by anything that would cause you to doubt in that hope. If the worst Clark Kent has faced in his young life prior to becoming Superman are feelings of alienation because of his amazing powers, that's not really enough. Everyone feels alienated and different from others when they're young. It's why the young Clark Kent character connects to people. However, there needs to be a difference between young Clark Kent and Superman. The death of Pa Kent, the man who raised him to become the hero he is, is what makes him truly become a man. Without that painful lesson in the limits of his own powers, the transition from boy to Superman just doesn't work as well.

The light doesn't work without the shadow putting it into stark relief.