25 years later, the star-drive crashed on Earth where it was found by Jonathan and Martha Kent. When Jonathan touched the life-matrix attached to the star-drive, it triggered the matrix which then completed the birthing process and opened to reveal the newly born Kal-El. Believing him to be the victim of cruel experiments, rather than an extra-terrestial, the Kents took the boy with them back to their farm, just outside of Smallville.

After the Kents rescued the boy from the crashed ship, the ship destroyed itself. The Kents took young Kal-L to a local orphanage, declaring him an abandoned child. Young Kal-L soon proved too much for the nurses there to handle, and when the Kents returned to retrieve the boy, he was gladly released (Action Comics #1, Secret Origins vol. 2 #1).They named the boy Clark and took him home to raise on their farm near Smallville.

Clark grew up a bright lad and farm hand to his parents in the 1920s and 1930s, with little suspicion of his fledgling super-powers. When Clark was a teenager, a freak mishap in the time stream caused the Superboy of Earth-1 to appear on 1930s Earth-2. Superboy secretly trained Clark in the use of his powers, but Clark chose not to adopt a heroic identity of his own (New Adventures of Superboy #15-16). Eventually Mary Kent passed on, and John Kent joined her soon after. Before he died, John warned Clark that his powers might frighten people and exhorted him to use those powers to champion the cause of justice and the common good. Clark took his adopted father's advice to heart and decided to create a new identity for himself that would pursue justice while allowing him a human identity. He created a costume similar to one he had seen on his teenage mentor and adopted the identity of Superman.

Some people believe that the story of Superman, originally

POWERS AND WEAPONS

Under Earth's yellow sun, as opposed to Krypton´s red, Superman´s Kryptonian cells act as living solar batteries, absorbing solar energy and giving him superhuman powers. As a result of his continued exposure to the sun these powers steadily developed and increases as he grows older.

Superman possesses vast superhuman strenght, the exact limits of which have never been measured. His body is virtually indestructable. Although he can be knocked over by cannon fire, no conventional artilery can harm him, but he can nonetheless be injured by a sufficiently great force. He is even able to survive a nuclear blast, and he can withstand going through the core of the sun at superhuman speed due to the additional power his exposure to the solar energies would give him. However, prolonged exposure of this kind would kill him as his cells would eventually burn out, by not being able to handle that much energy at one time.

SOME SUPERMAN FUN FACTS:

Alter Ego: (Earth name) Clark Kent; (Kryptonian Name) Kal-El

Occupation: Adventurer, reporter, columnist, novelist, former editor

Marital Status: Married

Known Relatives: Jor-El (father; deceased); Lara (mother; deceased); Jonathan Kent (adoptive father), Martha Clark Kent (adoptive mother); Lois Lane (wife); Harry
Kent (adoptive uncle); Sarah Kent (adoptive aunt)

Group Affiliation: Justice League of America

Height: 6'3"

Weight: 225 lbs.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

ABOUT THE WRITERS OF SUPERMAN

In 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe and at a low point in the American Depression, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were working for D.C. Comics in New York. There, an editor finally agreed to let Superman appear in thefirst issue of Action Comics (volume #1, June,1938).

Despite his superhuman powers, Superman shared some characteristic traits with a majority of American Jews in the 1940s. Like them, he had arrived in America from a foreign world. His entire family -- in fact his entire race -- had been wiped out in a holocaust-like disaster on his home planet, Krypton. Like German Jewish parents who sent their children away in hopes that they could safely escape the Germans, Superman's parents launched him to Earth in hopes that he would survive. And while the mild-mannered Clark Kent held a white collar job as a reporter by day, the "real" man behind Kent's meek exterior was a virile, indestructible crusader for justice. This fantasy must have resonated among American Jews, who felt powerless to help their brethren in the death camps of Europe.

Superman obeys the Talmudic injunction to do good for its own sake and heal the world where he can. Siegel and Shuster had created a mythic character who reflected their own Jewish values.

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