Superman Timeline
As most of us know, this year marked Superman’s 70th anniversary. And as if that weren’t enough to engender conversation about the Man of Steel, Brad Meltzer’s new novel Book of Lies has prompted quite a bit of discussion concerning Martin Siegel, who died during an armed robbery and whose son Jerome "Jerry" Siegel subsequently wrote the story of a bullet-proof alien who was invulnerable to all frailties.
So with all this talk going around about Superman’s beginnings, we here at ComicMix thought it was time to put together a small Superman time line. Please note, this time line is focused solely on Supermans’ adventures in the comics and not with his stories in other media.
1933 – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster publish their story “Reign of the Super-Man." In the story, the title character is a bald homeless man named Bill Dunn who gains telepathic powers from a mad scientist’s experiment and intends to take over Earth
1938 – Superman/Clark Kent is finally introduced in Action Comics #1. Although Siegel has plotted out the name of Superman’s parents and planet, none of these are actually named in this issue’s origin story. Superman is said to have great strength, resistance to conventional injury, and is able to leap 1/8th of a mile.
1939 – In Superman #1, the planet Krypton is finally named in the comics. It is also mentioned that Clark Kent was raised by a kindly, elderly couple. His adopted mother is named “Mary Kent” and it’s said that she and her husband died soon before Clark moved to Metropolis.
1940 – In Action Comics #23,
1941 – Superman #10 features our hero actually defying gravity for the first time by hovering in the air. Previous to this, it was always stated in the comics that he could only leap over great distances. Superman #11 confirms that Superman can now fly, just like in the cartoons and radio shows.
1942 – Superman #17 reveals that the Man of Tomorrow has a hidden base known as the Secret Citadel, located inside a mountain range nearby Metropolis.
1945 – The character of Superboy (an adolescent version of Superman) and his hometown of Smallville are introduced in More Fun Comics #101. Initially, this is treated as a separate continuity from the mainstream Superman stories.
1948 – Superman #53 names
1949 – Kryptonite makes its first comic book appearance in comics in Superman #61 (originally, it was only used in the radio plays). In this story, Kryponite is colored red but in all subsequent stories it is colored green (other forms of Kryptonite with different colors will appear later on). In this same story, Superman finally learns the name and history of his home planet Krypton, even though readers have known such facts for years already.
1950 – Superman’s father is renamed “Jonathan Kent” in Adventure Comics #149.
1951 – Action Comics #158 establishes that the Superboy stories are now canon and that Superman did indeed initially start his heroic career as the adolescent hero before later moving to Metropolis and changing his name. Superboy #12 renames
1952 – Superman and Batman learn each other’s identities and have their first comic book team-up story in Superman #76.
1953 – Superman meets Halk Kar, who he mistakenly believes to be Kryptonian. Halk Kar will serve as inspiration for the later character Mon-El.
1955 – Krypto the Superdog debuts in Adventure Comics #210.
1957 – Superman’s birth-name “Kal-El” makes its first mention in comic books in Superman #113.
1958 – Superboy #68 introduces Bizarro,
1959 – Action Comics #252 has Superman meet his cousin Kara Zor-El, who will operate under the name Supergirl for many years to come. In Superman #129, we find out that Clark Kent’s college girlfriend was a mermaid named Lori Lemaris. Hot.
1960 – Superman’s enemy Luthor is finally given the first name of “Lex” in Adventure Comics #271. This issue also reveals that he and Superboy knew each other as teenagers in Smallville and were originally friends. Blue Kryptonite, which only affects Bizarros, debuts in Superboy #140. White Kryptonite, which affects plant life, appears in Action Comics #279.
1961 – The Kryptonian villain General Zod and the Phantom Zone are introduced in Adventure Comics #283.
1962 – Action Comics #299 introduces Gold Kryptonite, said to permanently rob Kryptonians of super-powers (though its range is only two-feet). Action Comics #310 introduces Jewely Kryptonite, made from irradiated remains of Krypton’s jeweled mountains, which can amplify the mental powers of Phantom Zone prisoners.
1963 – Jimmy Olsen #70 introduces Silver Kryptonite, which turns out to be a fake created by Jimmy Olsen as a way of celebrating Superman’s silver 25th anniversary. Superman and Jimmy Olsen go to Kandor and become the original crime-fighting duo Nightwing and Flamebird in Superman #158. Years later, Dick Grayson gives up his Robin identity and is inspired by Superman to take the name Nightwing for himself.
1969 – The modern day Superman (Kal-El) meets his Earth-2 counterpart (Kal-L) in Justice League of America #73.
1971 – Superman #233 features all Kryptonite samples on Earth being transformed so that they no longer affect Superman. In the same story,
1972 – Superman #257, in the story “The Greatest Green Lantern of All”, reveals that Superman’s birth name "Kal-El" is actually old Kryptonese for “star-child.”
1976 – Superman finally meets Marvel’s flagship character in the special crossover story Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man.
1985 – Supergirl dies while protecting Superman in Crisis On Infinite Earths #7. Because of the nature of The Crisis, her death and entire existence are erased from history. Superboy-Prime, a version of Superman from a parallel universe, makes his first appearance when he discovers his powers in DC Comics Presents #87. His universe is destroyed almost immediately afterward and he joins the battle against the Anti-Monitor in Crisis On Infinite Earths.
1986 – After the Anti-Monitor is defeated in Crisis On Infinite Earths #12, Alexander Luthor of Earth-3, Superboy-Prime, and Superman and
Superman’s history and continuity are re-introduced in The Man of Steel mini-series by John Byrne. Under Byrne’s direction, significant changes include the removal of the Fortress of Solitude, Ma and Pa Kent surviving into the modern day rather than both dying before Clark moves to Metropolis, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent not meeting until they are both adults, Clark having no connection to Mon-El, and the Legion of Super-Heroes never visiting Clark when he was a teenager. Superman is also noticeably less powerful now.
1988 – In John Byrne’s last story as regular writer, a new Supergirl (named Matrix) is introduced and Superman deliberately executes three Kryptonian criminals from a parallel dimension.
1989 – Superman encounters the Eradicator, a Kryptonian artificial intelligence, in Action Comics Annual #2. The Post-Crisis Fortress of Solitude is finally created in Adventures of Superman #461. Action Comics #642 reveals to readers that when the Green Lantern named Abin Sur was dying, his ring’s first choice for a replacement was Clark Kent, but Abin dismissed him on the basis of not being native to Earth and then selected Hal Jordan instead.
1990 – In case he ever goes bad or loses control, Superman entrusts Batman with Lex Luthor’s kryptonite ring in Action Comics #654. Superman #50 has
1992 – November 18th sees the release of Superman #75 where the hero is seemingly killed by the new villain Doomsday.
1993 – The new hero Steel II (John Henry Irons), a new Superboy (a clone who later takes on the name Kon-El/Connor Kent), and the villanous Cyborg Superman (Hank Henshaw) are introduced in the wake of Superman’s “death.” Superman himself later returns, now with longer hair.
1996 –
1997 – Superman is changed into an energy being and given a new cape-less electric look. He later divides into two separate beings (Superman Red and Superman Blue).
1998 – To celebrate Superman’s 60th anniversary, he is re-merged into a single being and his original powers and appearance are restored in the one-shot Superman Forever. In DC 1 Million #1, Superman learns that in one possible future, he will father a dynasty of super-heroes over the generations and that he will survive into the 853rd century, by which time he will have evolved into a god-like being.
2000 – Lex Luthor becomes President of the United States in Superman: Lex 2000.
2003 – A new version of Superman’s origin, Birthright, is written by Mark Waid, incorporating elements from various previous versions and adaptations and making it once again canon that Luthor and Clark Kent knew each other when they were young. This story also marks the first time it’s said that Superman’s shield is not only the crest of the House of El but is also a Kryptonian symbol meaning “hope.”
2004 – Kara Zor-El of Krypton is reintroduced into modern continuity and becomes the new Supergirl in Superman/Batman #8.
2005 – Supergirl (vol.5) #2 features Lex Luthor in possession of a new “Black Kryptonite” rock given to him by Darkseid, who may have created it himself.
2006 – Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime return to remake all reality in Infinite Crisis. Superboy (Connor Kent) dies in Infinite Crisis #6. In the same issue, reality is altered slightly so that more Pre-Crisis elements return into Superman’s continuity. Superman of Earth-2 dies fighting Superboy-Prime in Infinite Crisis #7 and Superman loses his power for a year. 52: Week Two reveals that inverting the S-shield makes the Kryptonian symbol mean "resurrection."
In "Up, Up and Away!" (Action Comics #837-840, Superman #650-653), one year after the events of Infinite Crisis, Superman’s powers return and their levels are noticeably increased. He also creates a new Fortress of Solitude that looks just like the one in the Christopher Reeve films. General Zod’s son Lor-Zod is sent to Earth Action Comics #844 and Clark and Lois decide to raise him as their foster son, naming him “Christopher Kent.”
2007 – Action Comics Annual #10 re-establishes Mon-El as having met
2008 – Brave and the Bold #10 reveals that the medieval hero Brian Kent AKA the Silent Knight is an ancestor of the Kent family of Kansas. Action Comics Annual #11 has Christopher Kent/Lor-Zod sent back into the Phantom Zone. Superman/Batman #46 introduces genuine Silver Kryptonite into the comics. Seemingly magical, one piece of Silver-K gets Superman high whereas a secondary piece restores his mind. Superman/Batman #50 establishes that Thomas Wayne and Jor-El actually met via hologram transmission months before the births of Bruce Wayne and Kal-El.
Alan Kistler is frightened that he was able to put this time line together in a day and asks that you not judge him. He has been recognized by mainstream media outlets such as the New York Daily News as a comic book historian, and can be seen in the "Special Features" sections of the Adventures of Aquaman and Justice League: New Frontier DVDs. His personal website can be found at: KistlerUniverse.com. He has written several essays concerning the history, influence and physical weaknesses of Superman, which can be found in his Superman Files. One of these days he’d love to write for DC, Marvel or Doctor Who.
Just a minor quibble. Martha and Jonathan Kent, from the pre-crisis time line, did not die of old age, they contracted a disease while on vacation with their super-son from opening a pirate's treasure chest. And why do I know this – I have no life. LOL!
The disease came in a later story i believe. Originally, I think it was simply stated that they died. I'll double check.
Alan – Thanks for the time line. I really needed some bringing up to speed about the last decade.I especially like the part about the Waid mini-series that told us the S-symbol means 'hope' in Kryptonian.
Yeah, i really liked that too. As Waid put it, he didn't want it to JUST be a family crest because Kal is not just the last son of El but "the last son of Krypton."And if you invert the symbol, you change it's meaning to "resurrection" in Kryptonian.
Same here. I knew much of the older stuff, but I haven't kept up with it all since the third to the last Final Never Say Crisis Again mini-series. So cool to see it all in one big smart list.Great work!
Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Huh. I thought i remembered Red K being introduced a few years earlier. In its first appearance, Rde K was rather different from what it later became. Also, didn't that first Red K story a;lso introduce the Superman Revenge Squad?
I'm pretty sure my date on the Red K is accurate. As for the Revenge Squad, nope, the first Red K story was a Superboy tale in which he encountered the Red K and started acting weird and no one understood why.
What i recall as the first – i'm pretty sure it must have come out about 1955 or so – involves a bunch of time-travelling lawmen who show up in Metropolis and explain that Superman is actually a time-travelling master criminal passing himself off as a Good Guy in the 20th Century and they're here to take him back.But how, say the Metropolis cops – he's too powerful to arrest.Simple say the other guys – we have this red kryptonite that will take away his super powers. Of course, the "future cops" are actually an organised gang (i seem to recall it as the first appearance of the Revenge Squad, but i could be wrong – i was baout six or seven at the time), and, while the Red K will, indeed, render Superman powerless, it will first cause his powers to go haywite, so that he will appear to be ruthlessly resisting arrest…It could be i'm remembering it all wrong, of course.
Something i failed to mention in all that was that, in that story, Superman had never seen Red K before.
You know what, I will look into this.
My favorite Red K story was when Superboy became SuperGIRL! They couldn't do that story today…Unles Chaykin retold it!
Dude, I think you just gave us the plot for the next movie. I guarantee you it'll sell.
From what I've been hearing, we may be seeing the Sandman Superman ("The Quarrmer" for those with a bottomless memory like me) again in the Super-books. One thing I liked about Luthor and Clark knowing each other as kids was watching all the young fans complaining that they obviously just did it to be more like Smallville. And I had the fun of reminding or informing them that in fact they were merely going BACK to the old story.Much like the assorted Confidential titles, Superman/Batman seems to operate in the same "Not quite in continuty" position. Stories that work well on their own but would play hell with mainline continuity can be conveniently ignored, while great stories can be shot from the canon. There's been a lot of bristling about that story in #50. I enjoyed it a great deal, but I agree it does seem to connect Superman and batman more than they really need to be.
I haven't seen any indications that Batman/Superman takes place in separate continuity. Their stories all fit in fine with the rest of the DCU.As for the story itself, yeah, it connects them a bit more maybe, but it's comic books so I enjoy a touch of silly stuff that's put there just to make you go "aw."
A minor correction – Krypto first appeared in Adventure 210 – you listed it as Action 210.
I've given up on continuity. Who knows what's going on with Superman? At the moment, in Action Comics he's up against the latest incarnation of Brainiac, which is supposed to set up the "New Krypton" story. In Superman he's getting beaten up by Atlas, which I think is setting up "New Krypton" events as well, and/or something involving Jimmy Olsen. There are the events in "Final Crisis" and "FC: Superman Beyond" and "FC: Legion of Three Worlds" and maybe other "FC" tie-ins as well, for all I know. There's some silly story in Superman/Batman involving kid versions of everyone, and then there's whatever's going on in Justice League of America.As part of all of this, in "FC" Lois is near death while in other books she's fine and doing her usual thing. She was even seen in Trinity, yet another big story prominently featuring Superman. Trinity also has Wonder Woman and Batman…oh, except Batman has been also taken captive in "FC" and is going out of his mind or whatever in "Batman R.I.P."Who can possibly keep track of all of this? What order is all of this happening in? Who knows? Who cares? The only way I can enjoy the individual stories (if they're any good, of course) is by not worrying about continuity ever again.
I actually don't think it's that hard to keep track of. It's actually been stated a few times in different interviews that Final Crisis takes place after all the current storylines happening in DC comics. So of course Lois is fine in the other books. Those are all before FC.Likewise, Legion of Three Worlds is definitely taking place soon before FC and SUPERMAN: BEYOND is very clearly explained in its own pages to be taking place during FC #3 (they even tell you that time has temporarily been put on pause so that Superman has time to be sidetracked on this adventure).Since the Atlas story, Brainiac story and lil' Superman/Batman stories aren't finished yet, there's no point in worrying which one came first until AFTER they are each done. Personally, I think it's logical to assume that Atlas and the Superman/Batman two-parter take place before the Brainiac storyline since that story will no-doubt lead directly into the Kandor on Earth story.Trinity is a loooong series. So again, no point in worrying exactly where it fits until it's wrapping up.
Interesting list; However the Siegal Keaton unpublished strip from 1933 http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/08/20/russell-keat… with the alternative time travel origin from a future dying earth is missing; also worth mentioning is the unpublished Siegal Shuster K-Metal from Krypton story from 1940 which would have introduced a early version of Kyrptonite, and would have seen Lois discovering Clark was Superman and becoming partners. http://superman.nu/k-metal/splash.php
As stated at the very beginning of this article, it was decided that this article would focus solely on what was published in the comics. I was well aware of the K-metal script and have a copy of it, but it was not published and therefore not on this list. The same went for newspaper strips adventures, radio plays, etc.
True, but you mention as the reason for giving us the time line – Siegal's father death and the stories surrounding the origins of the character that have been in the news recently. Given that you begin before Action Comics no1, in 33 with the evil superman, I feel that mentioning the recent release of the Siegal Keaton strip online is relevant, especially given the smallville-esque back story Seigal had considered, and interesting origin angle.Granted the K-metal story was unpublished, but that wasn't Siegal's intention – it was to be in the comics as part of the continuity. I feel iit's worth mentioning in this context because both these pieces show far from being just a sketchy character tha Siegal had strong ideas of how to develop Superman, indeed the partnership with Lois wasn't implemented until some 60 years after Siegal intended.
Great timeline, Alan. And it is a little scary that you could do it so quickly–I certainly couldn't have.Okay, here's the scoop on Red Kryptonite.You are correct, Adventure #252 ("The Super-Sentinel of Smallville"), was the first appearance of the stuff. But it didn't do anything remarkable. It was just a "refined and concentrated" form of regular kryptonite, (created by bad guys from another dimension), which for unexplained reasons turned red. All it did was weaken Superboy, just like ordinary green K.The second appearance was three issues later, in which a Martian (who looked nothing at all like J'onn J'onzz), used what he called Red Kryptonite (he explained that it was red because it was from the red planet Mars), to split Superboy into himself and an evil, non-superpowered Clark Kent.Shortly after THAT, in Superman #128 (April 1959), Superman encountered the time-traveling villains from the distant future year of 2000 A.D. Mike got everything right except that the baddies, Vard and Boka, were NOT members of the Revenge Squad, but simply a pair of crooks who planned to force Superman to help them in their scheme to blackmail future Earth for billions.Since all of these stories appeared within months of each other, and each version of Red Kryptonite was different, readers wrote in demanding, "Make up your minds, just what DOES Red K do to Superman?" So the editors replied, "Uh, well, it, uh…it has DIFFERENT EFFECTS! Yeah, that's the ticket. Each piece of Red K has a different, unpredictable effect on Superman!"So, that was the story from then on. Soon the "rules" had been formalized: each piece of Red K had a different effect, lasting 48 hours, and after that Superman would be forever immune to that particular piece.They did, however, leave themselves a convenient out: Red K is very unpredictable, so even though the rules held true MOST of the time, there could occasionally be EXCEPTIONS. Sometimes the effects wore off sooner than 48 hours, sometimes they lasted longer. Some pieces COULD affect Superman more than once. And some, very rarely, could even affect Earth people.Of course, now that the various forms of colored kryptonite have once again been introduced into the DCU, all bet are off.
Excellent. Thanks for weighing in on that and clearing up our confusion.And thanks for the kind words about the time line, I appreciate it.
The evil Superman story was the one exception because it was published in magazine form. As for the K-Metal story being intended to be published, I'd dare say that every story a person writes and submits is with the intention of having it published. But it wasn't. This was the criteria Bob and I agreed on and it's what we delivered. I'm sorry it wasn't to your satisfaction.
Alan, thanks so much for the timeline. It is terrific. I am so glad to see you posting on the website and hope you will continue to do so. You have some much knowledge to share and it's great to see some of it here.
Let me second that emotion. Thanks Alan!
Awwww. People LIKE me! :-DSeriously though, thanks to you both, it's very appreciated it. And I plan to have quite a few posts in the next few weeks.
Glad to hear it.
Just a minor correction – Krypto first appeared in Adventure 210, not Action 210. Otherwise, a very enjoyable and informative list!
Nice to have this all-encompassing timeline. For anyone interested in preserving the legacy of Siegel and Shuster, here's a link to a story about saving the boyhood home of Jerry Siegel, where Superman was born.
Nice to have this all-encompassing timeline. For anyone interested in preserving the legacy of Siegel and Shuster, here's a link to a story about saving the boyhood home of Jerry Siegel, where Superman was born.http://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/artic…
A little collection of 18 superman's shields.http://www.dailyplanet.cl/un-momento-de-logura/Geetings.