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Superman is of course one of DC Comics' most popular characters and he is a character with
a great origin story. The thing is, Superman has been around for a long time and many writers
have rewritten his origin story many times. Partially because his original origin story
was somewhat vague. So I am going to share the one that I like and that makes sense to
me. I am also going to talk about the origin story in the upcoming June 2013 Man of Steel
movie.
It all starts on the planet of Krypton where the technologically advance Kryptonians live.
On the planet you have Jor-El, his wife and their baby boy Kal-El (Superman). Jor-El is
a leading scientist on the planet and he figures out that the planet is atomically unstable
and about to explode. He feeds his data into their planetary supercomputer Braniac, who
looks at it but says that everything is fine. Regardless Jor-El takes his findings to the
planet's rulers, who believe Braniac not Jor-El and refuse to evacuate the planet. Jor-El
builds a rocket to save his baby son and shoots him off to Earth.
Unbeknownst to Jor-El Braniac does know that the planet is going to explode. He doesn't
tell the Kryptonians about it because he wants to save himself and the planet's data, which
he couldn't do if he was trying to save as many Kryptonians as possible. Braniac does
save himself and later becomes one of Superman's major villains.
The atomic explosion of the planet turns the debris radioactive. The Kryptonite is dangerous
to Kryptonians, but short term exposure does nothing to humans.
Krypton had a red sun, while Earth has a yellow one. This yellow sun gives Kryptonians on
Earth super powers.
On Earth Kal-El is found by the Kents and raised to be a good man.
The origin story in Man of Steel is quite a bit different. In it krypton is consumed
by war. Jor-El is surrounded by the forces of his enemy General Zod. To save his son's
life he puts him in a rocket to Earth. Zod eventually tracks down the now adult Superman
and invades Earth to kill him.
In the comics Zod was defeated by Jor-El and imprisoned in the phantom zone. He escapes
from the phantom zone and fights Superman.
I am hoping that the movie will be a lot of fun to watch. The one problem I have with
this new origin story is that Krypton wasn't destroyed, so there is no Kryptonite. Also
there is no Braniac. In subsequent movies they can't have Superman fighting human villains
like Lex Luthor, because without Kryptonite what chance does he have against Superman?
Will they make Superman somehow weaker, will Braniac have a new origin story? I hope not.