With Man of Steel Byrne successfully scraped off the barnacles from Kal-el's space shuttle. There would be no more Krypto, Fortress of Solitude, Superboy, Supergirl, Superhorse etc. At least for a while.
Byrne reintroduced Ma and Pa Kent back into the mythos. This to me was a great move. It made Superman more human having two parents who he worried about and asked for guidance etc.
It also provided added avenues for plot development as Ma and Pa Kent had lives of their own wihich based the series in reality and added many subplots over the years, such as Pa's heart attack during the Funeral for a Fiend storyline, for example.
They were down-to-earth, hard-working country folk who provided Clark Kent with a rock solid moral grounding. They served to ground many of the more fantastical plot elements often providing comic relief.
Lana Lang was no longer the glamorous newscaster in Metropolis but the pretty, lovelorn girl who got left behind.
All these elements added much needed depth and realism to the Superman mythos. Lex Luthor became a currupt, manipulative business man often staying out of jail by legal manipulation, while remaining a philanthropist in the eyes of most Metropolitans.
Man of Steel #1 sets the stage perfectly for the reboot. We see an updated Krypton which looks incredibly sterile and bereft of warmth. It looks suitably 'alien' moreso than the previous incarnation of Kryton. This planet looked interesting and is one of the depictions that people most remember about the first issue.
From the first page you realise that this is very much a stylistic diversion from the original origin, while actually not altering anything.
Jor-el and his missus are presented as cold unemotional, but highly rational beings, unlike their previous incarnation.
After the space shuttle is sent to Earth we see Clark being a glory hog for the Smallville High football team, basking in the adulation of his classmates.
Pa Kent decides to take him for a drive and reprimands him telling him, that he should never make other people feel small by using his great abilities.
It becomes clear from these exchanges that the Kent's were largely responsible for moulding Clark's humanity and this provides a decent and plausible reason why Superman never became a fascist, self serving overlord.
It is this moral compass which Byrne expertly conveys through this and the following issues.
Pa Kent tells Clark about his origins as he shows him the craft that brought him to earth. Clark suddenly feels weak and Pa thinks it's because of the shock of learning his origins. The weakness stems from some kryptonite that was attached to the shuttle. We then see a sinister shilouette who stands intriguingly in the background. We would not learn for many issues who this is
Clark stops a plane from crashing in Metropolis and meets Lois Lane for the first time and is immediately smitten. We are then treated to the most plausible explanation of Clark Kent's disguise yet as Pa explains that if he stoops a little and slicks his hair back he looks like a different person, plus Pa's old hand-me-down glasses change the shape of his face. Byrne is masterful at this stuff.
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| Clark meets Lois for the first time. |
Byrne's Clark/Superman is most certainly modeled after Christopher Reeve as you can probably tell from the profile from the left and clearly deviates from the Jose Luis Garcia Lopez version used on merchandise and Curt Swan's classic version. I think this is a good move, only because the the first two Superman films were pretty similar in tone to this mini-series.
This series marked the end of the Silver Age hangover for Superman which had relegated the book to being fodder for 10-12 year olds for many years and made it a book more relevant to the era it was published in.
The last page of #1 features one of my favourite Superman images as Clark leaves the farmhouse resplendent in his new costume to fly out into the world. It is an image that captures the optimism and wholesomeness of the Superman legend.
