The Origin of Superman is a 1979 Superman story, appearing in Action Comics #500. It retold Superman's origin, incorporating some of the mythology that had been added since the last telling.
Plot[]
Jor-El, a scientist on the planet Krypton, has discovered that the planet will explode in a short time. He tries to persuade the Kryptonian Council to evacuate the population, but they ridicule him. In desperation, he sends his infant son away from the planet just as it explodes in a model rocket ship. The ship lands in Smallville, where the baby is adopted by the Kents. He soon begins to display superhuman powers.
Changes to the Origin Story[]
This version of Superman's origin is mostly faithful to the previous versions, while incorporating elements of newer stories, such as the Superboy comic book series. However, this story did ret-con some details.
- Kal-El's rocket ship is not destroyed, but rather the Kents hide it after finding it.
- Unlike previous definitive Earth-1 origin Superman 146 this story incorporated origin of Lex Luthor from someone who was friend of Superboy into a man that swore to destroy him (and later on Superman as they both grow up) due to him losing his hair after lab accident, for which ,now Superman, takes a blame for. It is worth mentioning that in 60's (Superman 146 era) Lex Luthor and Superman were more of rivalries and often times Lex didn't intend to outright kill Superman, while in the 70's following planet Lexor destruction along with Luthor's wife and child (which was Luthor's fault) his intentions completely lethal towards Superman and his friends.
- By this time the suns spectrums and their relatiosn with Superman as well with anything from Krypton became fully developed and definitive, everything from yellow to red made Superman to lose his powers and for any Kryptonian material to be less and less durable, while everything from yellow to purple spectrum boosted Superman's super powers. Unlike some stories in 60's (including those written by Mort Weisinger one of originators behind yellow sun explanation behind Kryptonians' powers) where Superman could lose powers under Blue Sun light.
- By this time it was established that Superman has innate latent hypnotic abilities which makes people see Superman and Clark Kent as completely different people with barely any semblance at all. Clark Kent's glasses which are made from baby Kal's rocket fragments dampen those hypnotic abilities.
- This is last thorough and definitive origin of Earth-1 Superman, before John Byrne's reboot in The Man of Steel and New Earth debut which will lose many things stated in this one, such as Superman's costume being made from Kryptonian materials, Lex Luthor meeting Clark Kent and/or Superboy and being friends with either, Lex Luthor losing hair due to lab accident, multi colored Kryptonite, Kal-El being naturally born on Krypton, Clark meeting Legion of Super-Heroes as a young boy, Superboy phase in Superman's life (this and mentioned before this one were later reintroduced into the canon with Birthright and Secret Origins and comics that followed those 2nd and 3rd versions of New Earth origin), , Pete Ross discovering Clark Kent's secret without Clark ever knowing about it, Super-robots constructed by teenager Clark, ability to time-travel on his own as well as many other super powers beyond strenght, durability , speed, super senses senses, ability to defy gravity, heat vision and freeze breath.