Superman is a world-famous comic-book superhero who fights crime with the aid of amazing powers, including X-ray vision, incredible strength, and the ability to fly. He is also bulletproof. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. After experimenting with different images of Superman beginning in 1933, Shuster and Siegel introduced the final version in an Action Comics comic book in June 1938.
Superman was actually born on the planet Krypton. Shortly after his birth, Krypton became a doomed planet, ready to explode. The baby’s scientist-father put the infant in a rocket ship and launched it toward Earth. An elderly American couple named Kent found the baby in his space capsule and eventually adopted the child. Shuster and Siegel named the infant Clark, after movie star Clark Gable. The boy grew up with incredible super powers.
Superman—as Clark Kent—eventually got a job in the city of Metropolis as a reporter on the city newspaper, the Daily Planet. Nobody knew his real identity. When he was needed to fight crime or to relieve a crisis, Superman secretly discarded his Clark Kent clothing and became Superman, wearing a blue bodysuit and red trunks and a flowing red cape. Preserving his secret Superman identity became a running theme in the stories.
Shuster and Siegel created a colleague and girlfriend for Superman in reporter Lois Lane. She knew him only as mild-mannered Clark Kent. The popularity of the comic-book stories led to a Superman comic strip (1939-1967), a radio serial (1940-1951), two motion-picture serials (1948, 1950), a 1951 feature film (Superman and the Mole Men), and a television series (1951-1957). The character has also starred in many television cartoons.
Superman was the hero of a Broadway musical called It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman (1966). A series of big-budget motion pictures, beginning with Superman: The Movie (1978), became internationally popular. Christopher Reeve played Superman in this film and in its three sequels, released in 1980, 1983, and 1987. Another Superman movie, starring Brandon Routh as the superhero, was released in 2006 as Superman Returns. In 2013, Henry Cavill portrayed Superman in the movie Man of Steel.
In 1945, a younger Superman character called Superboy was introduced in comics. This character was portrayed as Clark Kent during his college years in the television series “Superboy” from 1988 to 1991 and as Clark Kent during his high school years in the television series “Smallville” from 2001 to 2011.
