What Are The Key Differences Between The Superman Origins?

[Timothy Hunter]

I'm mainly interested in seeing how the three "official" Post Crisis origin stories for Superman, "The Man of Steel", "Birthright", and "Secret Origin" differ in their approach to continuity.

Man of Steel

-Lex Luthor is never arrested

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as an adult

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Metropolis

Birthright

-Lex Luthor is arrested for faking a Krpytonian Invasion of Metropolis

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as an adult

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Smallville

Secret Origin

-Lex Luthor is never arrested, but his public image is in shambles

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as a teenager

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Smallville

[Robanker]

The people getting royalty checks.

Bored at 3AM did a project about this that's kind of awesome in it's brevity and scope. Hopefully he'll post it here.

[Thor-Ul]

I'm mainly interested in seeing how the three "official" Post Crisis origin stories for Superman, "The Man of Steel", "Birthright", and "Secret Origin" differ in their approach to continuity.

Man of Steel

-Lex Luthor is never arrested

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as an adult

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Metropolis

Lex Luthor got arrested for putting in risk civilians only to see what Superman could do. That is why the hated Superman there.

An element than I would add is than the Man of Steel Lex Luthor is not the genious than other versions is. He is smart enough but not a superscientist as in other iterations.
Also, in Man of Steel Superman debuted in civilian clothes, without a supersuit.

Birthright

-Lex Luthor is arrested for faking a Krpytonian Invasion of Metropolis

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as an adult

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Smallville

Also, Birthright set the return of nerdy Clark Kent. And a debut, with his supersuit.

Secret Origin

-Lex Luthor is never arrested, but his public image is in shambles

-Clark Kent becomes Superman as a teenager

-Clark Kent and Lex Luthor meet in Smallville

More like "train in secret with the legion of Super-Heroes", but the three keep the element of a public debut of the Superman.

Thinking about, Man of Steel set a lot of changes than were maintained in later versions .

[Vordan]

Secret Origin was the only one of the three to include the Legion as Clark’s childhood friends

Birthright made Clark a vegetarian

Birthright and Secret Origin went with the traditional dynamic of “public” Clark being a dweeb while MoS tried to make both Clark and Superman “cool”

[Adekis]

Fat Lex, skinny Lex, buff Lex.

[Jim Kelly]

Yes, but are we really saying that Luthor is so integral to the Superman origin story that a change in him constitutes a significant change to Superman?

It might be that Luthor has got a lot more attention from the writers of these later origin stories, but since he enters the picture later, he isn't the driver of the origin story. I guess, if Clark hasn't already become Superboy or Superman before meeting Luthor and it's only through Lex's actions that Clark decides to become a super-hero, then you could make the argument.

With the Byrne origin the most significant elements surround Krypton. It is so alien and there is no Kal-El born there. I feel like the Byrne origin is trying to push us away from having any sentimental investment in Krypton, in its humanity and in the embryo that will eventually gestate into Kal-El but only after it has left the doomed planet and been born to Jonathan and Martha on Earth. All the nice stuff happens on Earth.

Waid gave Krypton more humanity and let us see a baby Kal-El born there. Although, I still feel it's not that nice a place to visit and I wouldn't want to live there.

Geoff Johns revived some of the positive aspects of Krypton's culture, but even his version is a rather bleak place and could make you think they got what was coming to them.

[superduperman]

I would say that the biggest difference is that MOS was an attempt to make him as "human" as possible. Even going so far as to make him "born" on Earth. By removing all major connections to Krypton and the goofy elements attached to him over the years. BR was clearly an attempt to graft Smallville onto the main canon. Whether it fit or not. It should have been a secondary universe and my understanding is that it was meant to be. SO was just an attempt to make everyone happy that fell short because it tried to be all things to all fans. As a result, it kind of went about things in a hamfisted way.

[Jon Clark]

Man of Steel- six separate stories designed to introduce the "new" Superman and establish the basics of his story.
-Basic origin
-establish Lois
-first meeting with Batman
-first meeting with Lex
-Bizarro
=Superman learns of Krypton

Birthright- a single epic story that redefines Superman's relationship to Lex and Krypton

Secret Origin- a bunch of vignettes with a story at the end. Contained a lot of advertising moments that set up details for coming stories rather than background.

[Sacred Knight]

Key component that differentiates MOS/triangle era origin is that Clark develops his powers MUCH more slowly. To the point that by the 90s Byrne's take had even been given an extra push to say he had absolutely no semblance of being different than a normal human being till 18. This allows a trickle down effect where we ended up with "simple farm boy" "Just a kid from Kansas" seeping in because for the formative years of his life he was just that; he didn't have to deal with being different because he quite literally wasn't.

[Jim Kelly]

Secret Origin- a bunch of vignettes with a story at the end. Contained a lot of advertising moments that set up details for coming stories rather than background.

But the Geoff Johns one is the one that reads like "Blame it all on Luthor!" His fingers are in every pie. It's like no one else has agency.

[Sacred Knight]

Ahh the cliffs notes that is Secret Origin. Most of the ideas and bullet points for an origin I vastly prefer. It just wasn't a story.

[The Frog Bros]

In music parlance, SO is the “greatest hits” compilation and Birthright is the well crafted album.

[DABellWrites]

Man of Steel focused more on Clark Kent and stripped away all of his connections to Krypton. Also, businessman Luthor.

Birthright A mix of some silver age and Byrne, but the key difference is the meek facade is back. Businessman and mad scientist Luthor.

Secret Origins Less of an story in my opinion, more of a series of events that happened in Superman's life as a boy to adulthood. God complex and businessman Luthor.

[Timothy Hunter]

I heard that Birthright, for a brief window of time prior to Infinite Crisis, was treated as the canon origin of Superman.

How did the changes brought forth by Birthright seep into the Supefman books at the time?

[Jon Clark]

But the Geoff Johns one is the one that reads like "Blame it all on Luthor!" His fingers are in every pie. It's like no one else has agency.

That had been the case long before Secret Origin. Lex as the prime mover of everything Superman encountered had been building since early in the Triangle period. Lex had been the only Superman foe in Man of Steel too- t's just that Byrne managed to find a better balance of Lex with non-villain challenges