THE MAN OF STEEL #1 – 6

”FROM OUT OF THE GREEN DAWN” | “THE STORY OF THE CENTURY!”
“ONE NIGHT IN GOTHAM CITY”
“ENEMY MINE…” | “THE MIRROR, CRACK’D” | “THE HAUNTING”
Writer/Penciler: John Byrne | Inker: Dick Giordano
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: Tom Ziuko | Editor: Andrew Helfer

The Plot: As the planet Krypton self-destructs, a scientist named Jor-El sends his embryonic son, Kal-El, to Earth in a rocket. Eighteen years later, Kal-El is Clark Kent, all-star quarterback for Smallville High School’s football team endowed with secret superhuman abilities. When his parents, Jonathan and Martha, reveal to Clark that they found him in the rocket, crashed in their corn field, Clark decides to use his powers for the good of mankind. He spends seven years secretly stopping natural disasters and saving people when he can, but when an experimental space plane nearly crashes in the city of Metropolis, Clark is forced into action in public. Soon after, at the suggestion of his parents, he adopts the costumed identity of Superman in order to act in the public eye.

Subsequently, Superman meets Lois Lane while Clark gets a job at the Daily Planet newspaper. Eight months later, he responds to reports of a dangerous vigilante in Gotham City and has his first encounter with the Batman as the pair teams up to take down an eccentric villainess named Magpie. Batman and Superman part not as friends, but with a grudging respect for one another.

Ten months pass and Superman meets Lex Luthor when he thwarts a hijacking of the billionaire’s yacht during a massive party. But when Luthor is implicated in the terror attack, the mayor of Metropolis deputizes Superman and Luthor is arrested. Two years pass and, following numerous unsuccessful attempts on Superman’s life, Luthor creates a bizarre clone of him which proves the Man of Steel’s toughest challenge yet — but in the end, Superman prevails.

Later, while visiting his parents in Smallville, Clark receives a holographic visit from Jor-El, who reveals to Clark that he is not, as he had long believed, a human launched into space as an infant, but an alien being. By way of this revelation, Jor-El instills in Clark's brain the full history and culture of Krypton.