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... , the Silver Age Superman, and the Bronze Age Superman of later on are referred to as the Earth- 1 Superman. Two events occurred at DC Comics over this period to lead into the changes. Mort Weisinger received sole control over the character and Jerry Siegel returned to DC Comics and worked with Weisinger. They set out to clearly define the personality of the characters in the Superman legends. Aspects of Superman's adult life were now shown to have ties to his childhood.
In Adventure # 271 it states that the enmity between Superman and Lex Luthor goes back to when they where teenagers. Under Weisinger and Siegel, Luthor began to evolve into a truly three dimensional character. At times proving to be capable of the most self serving cruelty imaginable, and at other times capable of the most noble sacrifice, depending mostly on whether or not Superman is involved. Luthor strives on wanting to prove that he has superiority of Superman. The new era of Superman brought many other changes to the Superman saga as well. These changes delivered a more fan oriented version of the Superman chronicles to newsstands and comic shops everywhere.
The writers added a letters page which invited readers to ask questions demanding of logical explanations for the things that have been taken for granted in the earlier eras. Under this new scrutiny, a new explanation of Superman's powers developed. In this explanation they decided that the gravity of Earth did not prove to be a good enough reason for his Superman's powers, thus they attributed his super-senses to the yellow sun radiation, and his muscular strength, speed, and flight due to the Earth's gravity. Due to the new explanation of his powers, Superman no longer had super powers on a world without a yellow sun. Even though he had never visited such a world in the past, he now began to frequently make trips to these worlds.
And also Lex Luthor and other villains began to create weapons that used "red sun radiation" which made Superman's life miserable, but the writer's much easier. The Silver Age came to an end when Jerry Siegel and Mort Weisinger left DC Comic in 1970. Control of the comic was given to a group of editors, that was headed by Julius Schwartz. New Superman script Denny O'Neil began an eight part story to change the life of the man of steel forever.
By the end of this saga Superman's powers had been reduced to one third their size. O'Neil's reasoning behind this was that Superman had just become to powerful to be interesting. O'Neil left the comic shortly afterwards and Superman's powers increased immediately. This new era was known as the Bronze Age.
This is the period where the Earth- 1 theory is used. During the Bronze Age the entire finalized version of Superman's origin was published. When creation began a piece of primal matter took the shape of a sword, and floated throughout space for eons. It was known for a symbol on it that meant in millions of languages, "Sword of Superman. " The sword was unable to be captured by anyone as it waited for the one being who was destined to hold it. On a planet in the middle of the Milky Way Galaxy lives a race that has been in existence since the beginning of the universe.
This race has assigned itself the duty of guarding the growth of intelligent life on the planets. First through a group of robots known as "Manhunters, " and then later with a galaxy spanning batavian of magic ring bearing warriors known as the "Guardians of the Universe. " The Guardians hope to turn this task over to the Green Lanterns if a warrior of notable proportion could be found to lead them. In another unrelated event a race of gaseous beings known as the "Sun Thrivers" created a red sun from nearby parts of the galaxy. They used this star as a home for themselves as they traveled the universe.
But this sun proved to be an unstable vehicle, therefore the Sun Thrivers created planets to rotate their sun to make up for this unbalance. On of these planets was made up of incredibly dense matter and was unstable as well. But the Sun Thrivers were able to hold the planet together for 10, 000 years, long enough for another race to use it. Soon after the creation of this planet, two space explorers seperately crash landed on this planet, both completely unaware of the others existence. But they managed to find each other on its gigantic continents, and unable to fix their crafts, the two made the best of life on this barren planet.
Coincidentally, the two happened to be a male and a female of the same species, one named Kryp and the other named Tonn. Kryp and Tonn turned a world so unfit for life that early generations slept more than half the day and felt more comfortable crawling than walking, into a bustling super scientific civilized world. This race's physiology was altered, although outside appearance changed very little. But their muscle tissue became denser, motor reflexes became sharper, and their optic capacities widened.
Central to the history of this planet was a family known as "El. " This family of Kings, philosophers, scientists, and explorers all followed one another with bewildering rapidity. It seemed as if someone had been guiding this family to produce an evolutionary masterpiece, a Superman. That someone was the Guardians of the Universe. For 10, 000 years the guardians have led the descendants of Kryp and Tonn until in Jor-El and Lara they had the perfect couple. The two would produce the one who would be heir to the Guardians, Kal-El the greatest Green Lantern of them all.
Unfortunately, the planet they had chosen for this experiment was doomed and would self-destruct. A green lantern named Tomar-Re was dispatched to preserve the planet until Jor-El could build a space ark and escape to a new colony. This plan came to disaster when a villain named Brainiac stole the completed arc when he shrunk the city of Kandor and placed it in a bottle. Krypton now could not be saved, therefore all perished except for Kal-El who was rocketed away desperately into space by Jor-El. The rocket carrying the baby Kal-El landed in Smallville, Kansas where the foundling was adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent. Soon, the Kent's realized this child had spectacular abilities.
Clark learned to read English almost immediately, even though he failed to follow the rules of grammar. The spacecraft which had brought Kal-El to Earth had opened up a space warp, which dragged along debris from inside of Krypton, including a large amount of Kryptonite, and a lost satellite containing his pet dog, Krypton. The presence of Kal-El and the space matter he dragged along with him, seemed to upset the balance of this planet. The planet became a cosmic crisis point, waiting for something of universal importance to take place.
Then one night in a dream, Jonathan Kent saw a symbol that caused him to awake and draw the symbol out onto paper. Mr. Kent knew that his foster son was destined to wear this symbol and bring it to the far ends of the universe. First as Superboy, then as Superman, he fought as a champion of justice, the first in a long line of super-beings to come to the planet Earth.
It was as if Kal-El possessed so much super-energy that he radiated it to others. During the course of the battle for Truth and Justice, man and sword came together at last. Holding the sword, Superman found himself expanding, spreading across the winds of the universe. The entire history of creation flooded his mind, and his consciousness expanded as he became and all-seeing and all knowing protector.
He then released the sword. The sword told him of his greatness, and then headed back into space waiting for him to retrieve it and fulfill his destiny. Superman has gone through many changes in his comic book life. He has gone from being just one of many super-beings from a super-planet, to being the ultimate pinnacle of the human race. Kal-El's legend will grow on till the end of time and will never be surpassed by any other legend of its type. There have been five different versions of the man of steel to grace the pages of comic books.
The first being the Original Superman who came from a race of super-beings and grew up in Metropolis instead of Smallville. The second being the Golden Age Superman who was raised in Smallville, by Jonathan and Martha Kent. He first started to fight crime as Superboy, when he was a teenager. The third version of Superman, the 1960 's Superman, was the Last Son of Krypton. He received his powers from the yellow sun as he carried the responsibility of a world on his shoulders. The fourth version of Superman was the Earth- 2 Superman lived on a parallel world.
The fifth and final version of Superman, was the Bronze Age superman. I can not describe this Superman any better than Bob Hughes who said, "He is the ultimate. No further explanation of his abilities is possible. He is not only Earth's champion, but the Universe's.
He patrols, not just Metropolis or the Earth, but the entire known galaxy!" Bibliography:
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