The Man of Steel (comics) - Background

Background

Further information: DC Comics#History and Origin of Superman

The character of Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They originally intended for the character to star in a daily newspaper comic strip. He first appeared in the comic book, Action Comics #1, published in April 1938 by National Allied Publications (later renamed DC Comics). This book gave his origin, however it was cut down to one page. Soon after his introduction, the character became very popular, and by summer of 1939 he was starring in not only Action Comics, but also his own self-titled comic Superman, becoming the first character successful enough to support two comic titles.

In the next few decades, Superman's story was expanded to include new characters and storylines. After Siegel and Shuster left, new writers and artists added their own ideas to the Superman mythos. In 1945, Superman's adventures as a boy in Smallville were introduced in More Fun Comics #101 with the concept of Superboy, while his status as the only survivor of Krypton's destruction changed in 1959 with the introduction of his cousin, Supergirl in Action Comics #252. Eventually, these new details began to conflict with earlier stories, especially with the transition of comics from the Golden Age of Comic Books to the Silver Age of Comic Books. New heroes were introduced and Superman joined with them as a full member of the Justice League of America, however his work with the previous generation of heroes in the Justice Society of America gave conflicting details of his story. These conflicts were resolved in an issue of The Flash #123, Flash of Two Worlds. The story introduced the idea of the DC Multiverse, which presented the idea that these original heroes from the Golden Age were from Earth-2, while the current generation of heroes were from Earth-1. This created an infinite number of worlds on which any number of conflicting stories could occur, which resolved many of these conflicts in the Superman mythos.

The multiverse, however, turned out to be too complicated for casual readers of comic books. DC Comics wanted more readers for their comics and decided that they would ease the confusion of new readers by getting rid of the multiverse. They would accomplish this in the 1985 limited series, Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC decided that with the series they could reboot the history of many of its characters, including Superman, leading to The Man of Steel.