* Action Comics Number 579, published by DC Comics in 1986, written by Lofficier and Illustrated by Keith Giffen, featured an homage to Asterix where Superman and Jimmy Olsen are drawn back in time to a small village of indomitable Gauls.

The resulting sequence, " Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime !," was a devastating satire of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's notorious exploitation by DC Comics over Superman.

These longer strips include The Bash Street Kids Adventures written and drawn by Kev F Sutherland which since 2004 have featured parodies of famous comic strip images, including Amazing Fantasy's first Spider-Man cover, Action Comics ' first Superman cover, and most recently the cover of X Men # 100.

Appearing regularly in stories published by DC Comics, he debuted in Action Comics # 1 ( June 1938 ) and serves as the civilian and secret identity of the superhero Superman.

This personality is typically described as " mild-mannered ", perhaps most famously by the opening narration of Max Fleischer's Superman animated theatrical shorts.

Adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent from the Kansas town of Smallville, Clark ( and thus Superman ) was raised with the values of a typical rural American town, including attending the local Methodist Church ( though it is debated by comic fans if Superman is a Methodist ).

In the current continuity established by DC's " New 52 " relaunch in 2011, Lois Lane remains unaware that Clark is Superman.

This fact was one of the main inspirations for the 1980s reboot of the Clark Kent half of the Superman character, according to writer and artist John Byrne in the article " Super-Discussions " published by Attic Books in Comics Values Monthly Special # 2 ( 1992 ).

The CBS Saturday morning series The New Adventures of Superman produced by Filmation Studios — as well as The Adventures of Superboy from the same animation house — featured the iconic " shirt rip " to reveal the " S " or Clark Kent removing his unbuttoned white dress shirt in a secluded spot, usually thanks to stock animation which was re-used over dozens of episodes, to reveal his costume underneath while uttering his famed line " This is a job for Superman!

Later in the film, when the need to change is more urgent ( as he believes the city is about to be poisoned by Lex Luthor ), he simply jumps out a window of the Daily Planet offices, changing at super-speed as he falls ( the film merely shows the falling Kent blurring into a falling Superman ) and flies off.

This is made explicit by Clark himself in Superman ( vol.

Although the morals instilled in him by the Kents have motivated Kal-El to use his abilities to help others, he developed the Superman persona to protect his Clark Kent identity.

" It has also been implied, especially in the ' alternate future ' story Kingdom Come, that the Clark Kent persona is symbolic of the values taught to him by his wholesome Midwestern parents, the values he holds most dear: his instinctive knowledge of right and wrong that allows him to adopt his Superman persona, without being consumed by the moral implications of his actions ; Superman is the means through which he can bring this example to the world.

At the very end of the novel, where Superman stands poised to destroy the United Nations, Norman McCay makes him realise that, when he abandoned Clark Kent fifteen years ago after the murder of Lois Lane by the Joker and retreated into his Superman self, he lost this instinctive morality and thus the ability to be the hero Superman.

In contrast to George Reeves ' intellectual Clark Kent, Reeve's version is much more of an awkward fumbler and bungler, although Reeve is also an especially athletic, dashing and debonair Superman.

In Birthright, Luthor remains a wealthy corporate magnate ; in contrast to Byrne's characterization, however, LexCorp is founded upon Luthor's study of extraterrestrial life, thereby providing a link between himself and Superman.

In contrast to the super-strong Superman, he was a crippled and bald genius, and could be seen as one of the first examples of the evil genius archetype, due to his deformed body and baldness.

In contrast, many in-story accounts of League membership fail to include the Stranger ; when Zatanna was admitted as a member, Superman and Hawkman clarified that the twelve-member limit in the League's charter had been rewritten previously to admit Hawkgirl as the thirteenth.

By contrast, his successor George Reeves played the dual roles more alike, as pointed out in Gary Grossman's book, Superman: Serial to Cereal.

In contrast to Superman, Ultraman's power relies on his proximity and exposure to a substance called Anti-Kryptonite ; the longer and farther he is separated from it, the weaker he becomes.

He has recalled great affection for these roles, saying that he enjoyed them because he was ( and continues to be ) such a fan of Superman and because they were in such contrast to his less than sympathetic on screen roles that he is famous for.

Unlike Superman, Super-Squirrel comes off as somewhat pompous and self-aggrandizing, in contrast to the Man of Steel's more amiable personality.

From his first introduction in 1938 to the mid-1980s, " Clark Kent " was seen mostly as a disguise for Superman, enabling him to mix with ordinary people.

In 1986, during John Byrne's revamping of the character, the emphasis was on Superman being the manufactured persona of Clark Kent, the side of the character he most identifies with.

In the earliest Superman comics, Clark Kent's primary purpose was to fulfill the perceived dramatic requirement that a costumed superhero cannot remain on full duty all the time.

Traditionally, Lois Lane ( and sometimes others ) would often suspect Superman of truly being Clark Kent ; this was particularly prominent in Silver Age stories, including those in the series Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane.

** Christopher Reeve in the Superman film series, who was praised for making the disguise's effectiveness credible to audiences, portrayed Clark Kent as massively clumsy, paranoid, and, of course, mild mannered.

Tom Mankiewicz described his performance on the commentary track for Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut as always playing Superman, but, when he was Clark, playing Superman who was playing Clark Kent.

* Another reason given in the 1987 story " The Secret Revealed " was the public simply does not know that Superman has a secret identity, considering he does not wear a mask, which implies to most that he has nothing to hide.

Since the shorts were produced during the rise of film noir in cinema, the change was usually represented as a stylized sequence: Clark Kent's silhouette is clearly seen behind a closed door's pebble glass window ( or a shadow thrown across a wall ) as he strips to his Superman costume.

* Superman is real, Clark Kent the mask: Pre-Crisis interpretations of Superman assumed that Clark Kent was the " mask " and Kal-El the person ( in the classic story Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow ?, when Superman's dual life is revealed, he completely abandons his Clark Kent persona ).

2, with the character of Bill noting that Superman was not born into his alter ego ( Spider-Man was " Peter Parker " first, Batman was born " Bruce Wayne "), using the blanket he was wrapped in as his costume, and Clark Kent is a collage of mankind's less impressive traits meant to blend in with other humans ( as well as a device to pursue Lois Lane's affections ).

Although Kent is described in the show introduction as " mild-mannered ", he can be very assertive, often giving orders to people and taking authoritative command of situations, though, as in the Pre-Crisis Superman stories at that time, Clark is still considered the secret identity.

This was followed nearly two decades later by a fifth film called Superman Returns with Brandon Routh giving a performance very similar to Reeve's.

* Krypton was very briefly depicted in the first Fleischer Studios-produced Superman cartoon in the early 1940s as " a planet that burned like a green star in the distant heavens where civilization was far advanced and it brought forth a race of Supermen whose mental and physical powers were developed to the absolute peak of human perfection ," implying that all Kryptonians had Superman's abilities even on their own planet.

The first story arc of the relaunched series, titled Superman and the Men of Steel for the collected edition, begins very early in Superman's career as he starts making a name for himself as a champion of the oppressed in Metropolis.

As continued in Justice League Unlimited, she and Superman grow very close, almost like siblings, but she departs when she falls in love with Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future, feeling that she had never really fitted in on Earth in the present.

Oppenheimer has all the typical Superman powers, including X-ray vision (" see-through vision "), super strength, invulnerability, flight, heat-vision (" very hot vision "), and super hearing.

* Superman Lives, a scrapped reboot of the Superman film series, very loosely based on the comic book storyline " The Death of Superman ".

The Fleischer studio's most effective use of rotoscoping was in their series of action-oriented Superman cartoons, in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realistic movement.

While hidden, he created even more delusions, causing Superman to question his very sanity before realizing who was really at fault.

Brainiac 5 gives Superman a transfusion of Conner's blood and exposes him to a very large dose of concentrated synthesized yellow sun rays.

These latter were called “ Imaginary Stories ” and the very first was “ Superman, Cartoon Hero !”

In his in-continuity novel Superman: Last Son of Krypton Luthor is revealed to secretly own the Thunder Corporation, a very large and powerful company that he uses as a front to finance his criminal organization.

Now very popular with viewers, Jimmy was now being played as the show's comic foil to Superman.

Finally, a short story in Superman / Batman # 26 ( June 2006 ) titled " Sam's Story ", Superman recounts his friend from high school who died of cancer when he was very young.

During the Legion's battle with Mordru in Adventure Comics # 370 (" The Devil's Jury "), it was stated that Pete Ross's knowledge of Superboy's secret identity would one day end up saving Superman's life ( explaining why the Legion allowed Pete to retain that knowledge ); however, no Superman story ever followed up on this detail until the very end of this continuity.

Of the four, the reader very quickly learns that neither the cloned Metropolis Kid nor the armored Man of Steel are the real Superman.

Superman's creator, Jerry Siegel himself, who in 1961 had predicted the Man of Steel's death in an " imaginary story ," met with then Superman editor Mike Carlin to tell him that he was very impressed by his version of it.