Tag: Dean Cain

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Welcome back superhero enthusiasts, 1980s culture enthusiasts and comic book collectors! Today we go back to the late 1980s to explore a part of the DC Comics shared universe through a tale of the iconic Superman.

After DC Comics published the maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths, the publisher rebooted their entire comic book universe and that meant reintroducing their superheroes, villains and supporting characters with a touch of 1980s modernization. To reboot and modernize Superman, John Byrne was hired and he was granted a lot of creative freedom for production.

With those details laid down, here is a look back at The Man of Steel #1, published in 1986 by DC Comics with a story written and illustrated by John Byrne with ink work by Dick Giordano.

Early story

The story begins sometime in the past in Krypton (Superman’s home world), a world about to meet its doom. Jor-El (Superman’s father) arrives home feeling deeply troubled and he wastes no time to execute an important plan he prepared. He examines his unborn Kal-El inside the birthing matrix which turned to have been removed by one of the servants from the gestation chambers of the planet. Lara confronts her husband over what was committed and asked him why he endangers the life of their unborn child.

Jor-El tells her that he plans for their son to be spared from the pending doom of Krypton (a chain reaction from the planet’s core caused vast pressures to build within the crust, fusing native elements into a new metal – Kryptonite) by sending him far away deep into space with planet Earth as the final destination. Jor-El has done extensive research of Earth and is convinced that their son will not only survive there but also become a supreme being among the inhabitants…

Quality

There is no doubt that this John Byrne-led comic book remains great to read and highly significant with anything about Superman. Instead of telling one single extensive story, Byrne created a series of connected short tales that dramatized the icon’s post-Crisis origin and how the Krypton-born American Clark Kent became Superman for the first time ever.

While the prologue set in Krypton was quite heavy with expository dialogue, each subsequent short story was carefully structured and moved at a medium pace gradually emphasizing Clark Kent’s transformation into the Man of Steel. Along the way, there were lots of story details not only about the titular character but also about the Kent couple (Clark’s adoptive parents), what they went through, what secrets had to be kept and more. Very symbolically, this is a tale about an alien human being from space who grew up with traditional American culture and US heartland values while being raised by very loving American parents who previously could not produce children of their own. Through Clark, you will see that he is a blessing for Jonathan and Martha Kent and it is up to the couple to sow good values in him which are essential to his becoming not only a super being among mortals but also his emergence as a hero.

Conclusion

The Man of Steel #1 (1986) is indeed a great, character-focused comic book that emphasized the origin and debut of the post-Crisis Superman. John Byrne modernized Superman while still maintaining the classic superhero elements from the icon’s past versions as well as the American identity and ways (none of those woke and internationalist nonsense). This is also the optimistic Superman that is very inspirational which the recent DC cinematic universe (referred to as “DCEU”) of Warner Bros. terribly lacked. This illustrated literature work is also a major cornerstone of the post-Crisis era of DC Comics and John Byrne’s take on Superman is very defining and iconic.

If you are the kind of reader who views Superman widely through pop culture, you will notice specific elements from this comic book that made it into other forms of entertainment media such as Man of Steel (2013), the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, the animated movies, the Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman TV series (starring Dean Cain as the Man of Steel) and more. Those multimedia productions showed how influential this comic book became as a major reference for other creators.

Overall, The Man of Steel #1 (1986) is highly recommended!

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