Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Superman: Birthright HC Edition

Well, whether we like it or not, Smallville has influenced Superman's origins.

Lex Luthor now officially went to high school with Clark, losing his hair when an experiment with a Green Kryptonite crystal blew up his house, killed his parents, and made him lose his hair (sounds like the Silver Age Superboy comics where Luthor was in Smallville then, and an experiment he blames on Superboy goes awry, also causing his lose his red locks).

Luthor meets up with Clark 10 years later in Metropolis and denies ever being in Smallville or knowing Clark at all.

And as an aside, Jeph Loeb has officially brought back Kara Zor-el of Krypton in the Superman/Batman title - the 6-issue arc just concludes this month. Superman is not the only survivor of Krypton anymore (John Byrne's revamp lasted 18 years - oh well). He is the last SON and apparently Kara is the last DAUGHTER.

Perhaps Adrienne Palicki who played the bogus Kara in last season's finale of Smallville will return to play Clark's cousin for real?

The book is $19.95 and can be purchased from Amazon.com or any comic retailer. The story stops where Luthor is arrested - and Lois still has a crush on Superman. Clark is not portrayed as a complete bumbling wimp, but rather as a quiet, shy, unassuming type that is constantly told to speak up!

Interesting read, anyway. This is the Superman origin story for the 21st century, we're told in the Prologue.

Actually, it's the other way around. I think the Silver age story influenced Smalliville (or, at least, gave them an opportunity for a villain).

In Pre-Crisis Comics continuity, Clark and Lex did go to high school together. Superboy and Lex were best friends. Lex was working on a "cure for kryptonite" when his lab exploded, and he blamed Superboy for the accident. (I believe the hair loss was later explained as a long-term result of low-level radiation poisoning from wearing a Kryptonite ring.)

After Crisis (the big DC Comics continuity overhaul/reboot), Superboy was wiped out of continuity (which was a big problem for the Legion of Superheroes, but that's another story...) and the story changed.

Now, with "Birthright," they put it back in, more or less.

Personally, I didn't really care for the series. The art was not at all to my taste, the plot didn't make much sense, the characterization was spotty, and, by all rights, Lex should know CK = SM.

The book's explanation of why he doesn't involves some

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so I'll leave a bit of space, just in case.

Basically, the book's take, as I understand it, is that Lex does know, but his time in Smallville was so traumatic and humiliating that he's repressed his memories of it. Just thinking about it causes the triggering of a powerful mental defense mechanism, thus ensuring that he'll never put together CK = SM, and will, in fact, reject any evidence he encounters.

While I can sympathize with his reaction to Smallville ( ), this explanation doesn't really seem to fit at all with the Lex we know.

Unfortunately, Birthright is now Superman's official comics origin.

Luckily, since they tried so hard to give it modern relevence, odds are it'll be replaced again a few years down the road.

At least the ending (based on improbable events in the previous issues) was cool, and Kryptonite is still relatively rare.

Paul

Actually the kryptonite ring is part of post-crisis continuity and the low level radition mentioned eventually gave Luthor cancer.

Also, in the post-crisis world there was never any 'event' that caused Luthor's hair loss. He is older and his hair loss was naturally genetic and he chose (after a comment by Lois) to shave off the 'fringe' that was left.

Tank (who was buying birthright as it came out originally, but remembers very little of it... not very memorable)

Ok. Can you help a rookie out? I'm confused. I need a flow chart or something.

I tend to just pick up whatever graphic novel is cheap and read that, with no idea where it fits in continuity. Just finished GodFall and really liked it.

So, we've started over again? Is this just the story of origin that is redone, or does that undo all of the post-crisis stuff, as well??

Or is this just one series and there are still other parallel ones out there following a different course?

Help!!

I don't get it!

CC

Oh, in the prologue to GodFall, Joe Kelly makes reference to plaid kryptonite. I've been dying to know...is he pulling my leg?

I think Birthright is an official reboot. From now on (or until they come up with something better), Birthright is to be officially considered the story of Superman's origin. It replaces all previous versions until further notice.

There is, officially, only one continuity, which just happens to get rewritten whenever they feel like it (when sales are down, for example, and they want to try to bring in a new audience). While they did reintroduce the concept of parallel universes, the books in general only follow one universe, and the current rules say that you can't stay in another universe for very long. Nature pushes you back where you belong or something. They want the writers to have the freedom to play with other possibilities without having all the mess and confusion of multiple parallel universes and people hopping between them whenever they felt like it.

Unofficially, odds are Birthright will pretty much be ignored. The writers may allude to it or not as whim takes them, but mostly they'll just carry on in their own way. <shrug>

As for Plaid Kryptonite, I have never heard of such a thing and HotBot hasn't, either. While my own knowledge is admittedly limited, I would have expected HotBot to be able to find it if it existed. Context would help, but I have a feeling it was hyperbole.

Wikipedia lists 13 varieties on thier Kryptonite page , and Plaid is not among them. Admittedly, the one-shot Krimson Kryptonite isn't listed, either...

TV Acres's Kryptonite page does list Krimson, but, again, makes no mention of Plaid.

I think it was a joke.

Paul

By all rights, Lex Luthor, and all of Clark's Smallville friends should recognize him as Superman when he reveals himself in Metropolis. In Birthright, Lana hasn't been seen since high school and they didn't include her in the origin story except to allude to her being a cheerleader and unavailable to Clark.

I stopped reading comics in 1992 due to a job loss (had to cut something out, unfortunately, that was it), and now I've been picking up hardcover and graphic novel collections to fill in the blanks.

I didn't especially like the artwork in Birthright either, but as someone who needed to catch up with Superman's comic life since the John Byrne revamp, I found it interesting reading.

I read somewhere that Chloe from Smallville will be added to the comics, does the re-vamping of the story mean that she will be offically added?

IMO I like Kara so I'm glad to see my fave. supergirl rather then the current one(Matrix? I think that was her name)

I only ever read my brothers comic books, I'm tempted to buy this one, are there any hints on what I should look for in the future?

I have not heard of Chloe being added in the comics. I don't recall her being in Birthright. Personally, I don't read Superman comics. I tried them, but the writing wasn't really to my taste.

I do read a lot of Batman, but they're currently making a big mess with yet another giant gotham-wide crossover. This one makes even less sense than usual.

Personally, I highly reccomend Astro City. The newer stuff isn't as good as the old (the writer got sick and took some time off, and just hasn't been the same since...), but the current 4 collected volumes are some of the best comics out there, IMHO. "Life in the Big City," "Confession," "Family Album," and "Tarnished Angel."

If you're just looking for Superman, DC is putting out some interesting volumes covering one decade at a time. They show a selection of comics from the chosen decade.

Oh, and "Superman: Secret Identity" is by the guy who does Astro City. It's not strictly about Superman, but it's a pretty cool read.

That's all I've got offhand.

Oh... Supergirl. Yeah. There have been a few. Kara Zor-El is Superman's cousin from Argo City. She's my favorite, too. She was wiped out of continuity with Crisis, but brought back more recently, which made a lot of fans happy.

Matrix was another Supergirl. She was an alien from a different planet with the ability to shapeshift. She was interesting, but not really the classic that Kara was. I'm not sure of her current status. I know Matrix and Kara were both alive at the same time for a while. I forget if she's still around.

More recently, there was an odd little bit with an angel who had a crisis of faith. The angel inhabited the body of a depressed human girl and ended up hanging around with a demon named Buzz who was not *entirely* evil. She followed mystic "chaos streams" and tried to do good deeds. I forget her name. She wasn't very popular. The whole book was pretty weird, IMHO.

There's more info about the various Supergirls [url=http://supergirl.astraldream.net/synopsis.html]here, but I'm currently too tired to really go through it all. Besides, it's not really on topic here.

Hope some of this makes sense and helps and stuff.

Paul

I had read that about Chloe, as well. That she had been bought by DC, and I wondered how they were going to factor her in.

Thanks for searching out plaid Kryptonite, Paul. Since GodFall was about the long-neglected Kandor, Joe Kelly had a small list in the prologue of other, even more obscure, elements of Superman's past. All of which I had a passing familiarity with- save the plaid!

Also, while we're here, I'd love more recommendations for good Supes reading.

And I'm kind of bummed, btw, that they've rebooted just as I was getting a tentative handle on things!

CC

CC, if you go to Superman HomePage Web Site and click on "comic", there is a wealth of information there, a virtual who's who of everyone in the Superman legend from pre-John Bryne thru the present day.

You probably know that Lex Luthor was President, but this year he took a fall from grace: here's the link to their Lex Luthor page: Lex Luthor\'s bio
from Superman Homepage

Lana Lang is now divorced from Pete Ross and trying to convince Clark that Lois is not for him, that's she too in love with her work to be devoted to him.

Exploring their website, as I have, will bring you up to speed and also there are links to actually purchase back issues that you might enjoy!

I just found this (11/15) in the Q & A section of the Superman Homepage, Ask Eddie:

I guess that means: STAYED TUNED!