Best Superman origin in all media

[stargazer01]

What is the best Superman origin story in all media in your opinion? The most interesting and/or complete? You can pick 3 if you want. or 5 if you really need.

I haven't seen or read them all, but I really like the origins in Superman the Movie and Man of Steel. All Star isn't an origin exactly, Is it? It's more like an ending story.

Any way, I'd like to mention more, but I really want to hear your thoughts and later find more things to read or watch if I want to.

[Vakanai]

I know someone's going to post that page from All Star, but by Rao am I sick of it!

My favorite is easily Birthright, followed by Man and Superman.

[superduperman]

1) Ruby Spears Family Album segments.

2) Donner movie.

3) Birthright

4) Smallville

5) Golden Age.

[Jokerz79]

1: Post Crisis John Byrne with World of Krypton and the Cleric, League of Life, & Black Zero.

2: Pre-Crisis Krypton.

3: Superman 1978.

[Naruto1996]

1. Post Crisis John Byrne
2. Smallville
3. Grant Morrison's Run on Action Comics

[Vordan]

1. Grant Morrison’s Action Comics Origin
2. Smallville
3. Man and Superman by Wolfman

[Powerboy]

Golden Age (granting it was slightly retconned by Jerry Siegal himself at the end of the first year but the full GA origin).

Birthright.

The Donner movie.

[Superfly Frankenstein]

1. Byrnes Man of Steel
2. Man and Superman
3. Smallville

[KurtW95]

1. Byrne
2. Man and Superman
3. TAS
4. Lois & Clark

[Adekis]

My absolute favorite is the post-Flashpoint Superman's origin. It's not all Grant Morrison, Sholly Fisch contributed a lot as well. Best Jon Kent ever, laughing with Clark over super-pranks pulled on a bank at the expense of a local farmer, stuff like that. The Pseudo Golden Age, the early period of Superman's career where he "merely" leaps tall buildings in a single bound, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, is a brilliant and perfect idea. I'm still salty they decided not to keep it around after Reborn. And the transition Morrison wrote between the pseudo-Golden Age and the later pseudo Silver Age is also just sort of self-evidently a good idea.

Not everything about Morrison's run is perfect. Both Lois and Jimmy are under-served (I've never been convinced that Morrison writes a great Lois, and lacking the Silver Agey trappings of All-Star, Jimmy loses his spark) and Morrison indulges his habitual problem of letting side characters kill in the main hero's stead so they keep their hands clean, though I suppose that only comes in later on, after the "origin" part of the arc is over. It still bugs me. I see Morrison's Action run as a perfect blueprint for Superman-in-General, rather than as the Best Possible Superman Run. I wish DC had stuck to that blueprint.

My second favorite is Zack Snyder's Man of Steel movie. It takes heavily post-Crisis source material (not my favorite era overall) and turns it into something utterly sublime. The observation, for example, that Clark can only be the Clark Kent he's always been fully, once he learns he's also Kal-El, is phenomenal, and Man of Steel has a brilliant Lois Lane and a fantastic relationship between her and Clark. It has a very complex relationship between Clark and Krypton, Clark and Earth, and generally is one of my favorite pieces of Superman media ever.

[Kuwagaton]

I know someone's going to post that page from All Star, but by Rao am I sick of it!

I think I get you. I'm not crazy about the idea of distilling, since his origin to me is roughly from the stride of his ancestors to his becoming a household name on Earth.

I like pretty much any take if it has enough of what makes the typical stories work. Although, I am into the comics almost exclusively to an extent. So I think Man of Steel is a really good movie with a particularly good take on Krypton, and I dug "New Kids in Town" from the animated series as a story about his destiny.

But my favorites are all comics: Man and Superman, Byrne's saga, Birthright, Action volume 2 #0-8 , and most of all the Secret Origin #1 from 1986.

[qwertyuiop1998]

Recently is man and superman,birthright,secret origin.Byrne's origin diluting superman's krypton/alien part i personally don't like.

[Miles To Go]

All Star Superman. All on one page.

[manwhohaseverything]

Birthright

[DCStu]

Donner movie and Smallville.

Very fond of Secret Origin too.