54 Facts About Superman

Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics.

Superman has been adapted to a number of other media, which includes radio serials, novels, films, television shows, and theater.

Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton and was named Kal-El.

Superman's ship landed in the American countryside, near the fictional town of Smallville.

Superman was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent.

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Superman's supporting characters include his love interest and fellow journalist Lois Lane, Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen and editor-in-chief Perry White, and his enemies include Brainiac, General Zod, Darkseid, and his archenemy Lex Luthor.

Superman is the archetype of the superhero: he wears an outlandish costume, uses a codename, and fights evil with the aid of extraordinary abilities.

Superman was the best-selling superhero in American comic books up until the 1980s.

Superman uses these powers maliciously for profit and amusement, but then the drug wears off, leaving him a powerless vagrant again.

Additionally, this new Superman was a crime-fighting hero instead of a villain, because Siegel noted that comic strips with heroic protagonists tended to be more successful.

In later years, Siegel once recalled that this Superman wore a "bat-like" cape in some panels, but typically he and Shuster agreed there was no costume yet, and there is none apparent in the surviving artwork.

Siegel and Shuster showed him Superman and asked him to market Superman to the newspapers on their behalf.

Gaines informed Siegel that McClure had rejected Superman, and asked if he could forward their Superman strips to Liebowitz so that Liebowitz could consider them for Action Comics.

The love triangle between Lois Lane, Clark, and Superman was inspired by Siegel's own awkwardness with girls.

Superman collected fitness magazines and manuals and used their photographs as visual references for his art.

In early concept art, Shuster gave Superman laced sandals like those of strongmen and classical heroes, but these were eventually changed to red boots.

Since 1938, Superman stories have been regularly published in periodical comic books published by DC Comics.

Superman is part of the DC Universe, which is a shared setting of superhero characters owned by DC Comics, and consequently he frequently appears in stories alongside the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman, and others.

Superman has sold more comic books over his publication history than any other American superhero character.

Sales data first became public in 1960, and showed that Superman was the best-selling comic book character of the 1960s and 1970s.

Schwartz updated Superman by making Clark Kent a television anchor, and he retired overused plot elements such as kryptonite and robot doppelgangers.

Superman's retirement coincided with DC Comics' decision to reboot the DC Universe with the companywide-crossover storyline "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

In 1966 Superman had a Tony-nominated musical play produced on Broadway.

The majority of Superman merchandise is targeted at children, but since the 1970s, adults have been increasingly targeted because the comic book readership has gotten older.

Action Comics and Superman carried messages urging readers to buy war bonds and participate in scrap drives.

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The judge ruled that Superman belonged to DC Comics, but that Superboy was a separate entity that belonged to Siegel.

In 1965, Siegel and Shuster attempted to regain rights to Superman using the renewal option in the Copyright Act of 1909, but the court ruled Siegel and Shuster had transferred the renewal rights to DC Comics in 1938.

Superman's heirs attempted to take the rights to Superman using the termination provision of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The 1978 Superman movie placed it in Kansas, as have most Superman stories since.

From 1986 on, Superman's powers emerged more slowly and he began his superhero career as an adult.

Superman was later revived by the Eradicator using Kryptonian technology.

Superman maintains a secret hideout called the "Fortress of Solitude", which is located somewhere in the Arctic.

Superman sees his job as a journalist as an extension of his Superman responsibilities—bringing truth to the forefront and fighting for the little guy.

Superman believes that everybody has the right to know what is going on in the world, regardless of who is involved.

Superman often uses excessive force and terror against criminals, on some occasions even killing them.

Today, Superman is commonly seen as a brave and kind-hearted hero with a strong sense of justice, morality, and righteousness.

Superman can be rather rigid in this trait, causing tensions in the superhero community.

Superman traveled by running and leaping thanks to his superhuman speed, which he could do to a prodigious degree thanks to his strength.

Superman gained the ability to fly in the second episode of the radio serial in 1940.

Superman has a significant focus of his breath's intensity to the point of freezing targets by blowing on them.

Villains Superman faced in the earliest stories were ordinary humans, such as gangsters, corrupt politicians, and violent husbands; but they soon grew more colorful and outlandish so as to avoid offending censors or scaring children.

In 1944, the magical imp Mister Mxyzptlk, Superman's first recurring super-powered adversary, was introduced.

DC Comics has on some occasions published crossover stories where different versions of Superman interact with each other using the plot device of parallel universes.

Nevertheless, Superman popularized this kind of character and established the conventions: a costume, a codename, extraordinary abilities, and an altruistic mission.

The Golden Age ended when American superhero book sales declined, leading to the cancellation of many characters; but Superman was one of the few superhero franchises that survived this decline, and his sustained popularity into the late 1950s led to a revival in the Silver Age of Comic Books, when characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The X-Men were created.

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Superman has been interpreted and discussed in many forms in the years since his debut, with Umberto Eco noting that "he can be seen as the representative of all his similars".

Superman took on the role of social activist, fighting crooked businessmen and politicians and demolishing run-down tenements.

Superman defines this ideology as a means of associating individualism, consumerism, and democracy and as something that took shape around WWII and underpinned the war effort.

Superman's immigrant status is a key aspect of his appeal.

Gary Engle saw the "myth of Superman [asserting] with total confidence and a childlike innocence the value of the immigrant in American culture".

Superman argues that Superman allowed the superhero genre to take over from the Western as the expression of immigrant sensibilities.

Clark Kent represents the assimilated individual, allowing Superman to express the immigrants' cultural heritage for the greater good.

Superman argues that Superman's early stories portray a threat: "the possibility that the exile would overwhelm the country".

The Nazis thought Superman was a Jew and in 1940 Joseph Goebbels publicly denounced Superman and his creator Jerry Siegel.