The Wellington Comic Lover's Guide to... Superman

By Gus

Look, up on the site! It’s a blog! It’s explained! It’s the Wellington Comic Lover’s Guide to Superman!

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Comic covers arranged in a grid on a black background

[Video via the DC Kids Youtube channel]

Who is Superman?

Sent away in a rocket from the doomed planet Krypton as an infant, Kal-El arrived on Earth and was raised by a kindly couple, who taught him the values of truth and justice. Gaining incredible superpowers under Earth’s yellow sun, he protects his adopted home as Superman, while working for the newspaper 'The Daily Planet' as the reporter Clark Kent.

Note: DC Comics are divided by publishing eras, determined by a point where they set the issue number (and sometimes, continuity) of a series back to #1. 'Post-Crisis' is everything from 1986-2011, the New 52 from 2011-2016, DC Rebirth from 2016-2021, Infinite Frontier from 2021 to 2023, and Dawn of DC from 2023 to present.

Superman Classics -

If you find the 80-year publishing history of Superman a bit daunting, here are some of his classic stories to get you up to speed faster than a speeding bullet!

Superman’s Early Years

Classic Superman Stories

Possible Endings

There have been many stories exploring how Superman may die, retire or otherwise cease to be; These are some of the best.

The Man of Steel

The Post-Crisis Superman reboot The Man of Steel would redefine the character for the next few decades, stripping him of his more outlandish sci-fi trappings and limiting the scope of his superpowers, while also re-establishing his status quo for a new generation of readers.

The New 52

In the New 52, which rebooted the history of the DC Universe in 2011, Superman is a younger and more inexperienced hero, still respected by the superhero community but somewhat distant from humanity.

New 52 Superman reading order

The Superman status quo resets in the ‘Truth’ arc, which sees Superman losing his powers for periods of time, while his secret identity as Clark Kent is revealed to the public.

Action Comics

Action Comics is the comic magazine where Superman first appeared in 1938 and is still being published today as a secondary series to the main Superman title. The New 52 set the publication date back to #1, using the opportunity to explore Superman’s early years as a young upstart vigilante in Metropolis.

New 52 Action Comics reading order

Superman/Wonder Woman

In the New 52 continuity, Superman never married Lois Lane; instead, he struck up a romance with Wonder Woman. The pair eventually got their own series, where they helped each other fight their respective foes, like rogue Greek gods and criminal Kryptonians.

Superman Reborn -

DC Rebirth undid a lot of the New 52 status quo, returning Superman to being an older, established hero married to Lois Lane. A significant change in this era is that Clark and Lois now have a son, Jon Kent, who inherits his father’s superpowers. In this series, Superman, Lois, and Jon move to a quiet farm in Hamilton County and try to live out a normal life in between alien invasions and reality alterations.

Action Comics Reborn

During DC Rebirth, Lex Luthor tries to establish himself as Metropolis’ hero, Doomsday returns once more, a ‘Superman Revenge Squad’ is formed from Superman’s greatest enemies, and Action Comics reaches its 1000th issue.

The Unity Saga and Event Leviathan

After Action Comics' 1000th issue, long-time Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis jumped ship to DC Comics and began to write the Superman and Action Comics series simultaneously, beginning with the miniseries The Man of Steel. The Superman title follows the Man of Tomorrow establishing an "intergalactic UN" called the United Planets, while Action Comics brings Clark and Lois into the world of international espionage as they face the mysterious organisation Leviathan.

Brian Michael Bendis Superman reading order

Brian Michael Bendis Action Comics reading order

The Warworld Saga

During Infinite Frontier, Superman encounters a long-lost refugee colony of Kryptonians fleeing from Warworld, an artificial planet powered by slave labour and ruled by the despotic alien Mongul. Despite his powers waning, Superman gathers up a team of rebel heroes called The Authority to help him free Warworld's prisoners.

The Warworld Saga reading order

Dawn of the Super-Family

In the ongoing Dawn of DC era, Superman enlists all his extended Kryptonian family and allies to join him as protectors of Metropolis. In the main Superman series, the Man of Steel forms a tenuous alliance with Lex Luthor against a legion of mad scientists, while in Action Comics, the Super-Family face an anti-alien movement and the return of Kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo.

Dawn of DC Superman

Dawn of DC Action Comics

Superman Allies

Lois Lane

A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at the Daily Planet, Lois Lane will stop at nothing to get to the truth and hold the powerful accountable. Lois is also married to Clark Kent, having learned his super-secret years ago, and occasionally joins him on his adventures. Recently, Lois joined the spy organization Checkmate.

Jimmy Olsen

James Bartholomew Olsen is Superman's best friend and the Daily Planet's star photographer, famous for documenting his crazy high-concept adventures that are the only thing that still generates clicks and views for the ailing newspaper.

Supergirl

We wrote a reading guide for Supergirl which we will reupload soon; watch this space!

Conner Kent, Superboy

When Superman ‘died’ at the hands of Doomsday, the top-secret Project Cadmus had the Man of Steel cloned so that Metropolis would still have a protector. The result was Superboy, a brash young superhuman with unique telekinetic powers and technology that mimicked Superman’s abilities. Later named ‘Conner Kent’, this headstrong young hero has been a member of both Young Justice and the Teen Titans.

Steel

Named for the hammer-wielding American folk hero, John Henry Irons is an engineer who built a superpowered exoskeleton giving him strength equal to Superman. Going by ‘Steel’, Irons is one of Superman’s most trusted allies, and currently aids Metropolis as the CEO of the engineering firm Steelworks.

Kong Kenan, the New Super-Man

DC Rebirth saw the introduction of another Superman, an arrogant student from China named Kong Kenan. Gifted with the powers of Superman by the Ministry of Self-Reliance, Kenan must learn to master his Kryptonian abilities to become a suitable superhuman representative of his nation.

Superwoman

DC Rebirth also introduced Superwoman, an electrical engineer named Lana Lang, who is also Clark’s ex-girlfriend from his hometown of Smallville. Using her new energy-manipulation powers, Lana tries to make lasting changes to Metropolis’ infrastructure and justice system.

Jon Kent, the Son of Superman

Jon Kent is the son of Superman and Lois Lane, occasionally fighting alongside his dad as Superboy. He becomes fast friends with Damian Wayne (Batman's son and the current Robin), regularly adventuring together as The Super Sons.

Jon Kent, Superboy

Jon Kent, Superman

After going missing on an adventure in space, Jon returns to Earth as a teenager, then in the 'Son of Kal-El' series, he takes on the mantle of Superman while his father journeys off-planet to Warworld.

Superman Villains

Lex Luthor

Superman’s archnemesis is the criminal scientist and wealthy industrialist Lex Luthor, who believes Superman is a dangerous alien and unworthy of mankind’s admiration.

Notable Lex Luthor stories

Bizarro

Bizarro is an ‘imperfect duplicate’ of the Man of Steel who does everything in opposites; he thinks in backwards logic, has reversed powers like heat breath and cold-vision, and even has his own cube-shaped Earth (or Htrae) to call home. A clone of Bizarro recently joined the Red Hood's anti-hero team, The Outlaws.

Notable Bizarro stories

Brainiac

Vril Dox of the planet Colu is the ruthlessly intelligent cyborg scientist known as Brainiac, who travels the universe harvesting the cities of alien planets in his insatiable quest for knowledge. He famously captured one of Krypton's cities, Kandor, before the planet's destruction, which Superman rescued and now tries to restore.

Notable Brainiac stories

General Zod

General Dru-Zod is a disgraced Kryptonian military leader who was sentenced to Krypton’s prison dimension, The Phantom Zone, for treason. Returning in the modern day, he continues to menace the son of the man who sentenced him, Superman.

Notable General Zod stories

More Superman series

Superman Adventures

Superman: The Animated Series aired from 1996 to 2000, modernising the Man of Steel for the nineties while paying homage to his classic adventures. The series also got its own comic series, Superman Adventures, written by the show’s writers.

Adventures of Superman

Adventures of Superman is an anthology series of short stories about Superman by different writers and artists.

Superman ‘78

A comic continuation of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, which sets the Man of Steel against foes the movies never covered, like Brainiac and Metallo.

My Adventures with Superman

A comic continuation of the recent anime-inspired Superman cartoon on Adult Swim, which follows Clark, Lois and Jimmy as young journalists in Metropolis.

Superman Across the Multiverse

Many writers have explored how Superman could be reinterpreted or reimagined throughout the DC Comics Multiverse.