RETRO REVIEW: “Superman: Birthright” – A New Take On Kal-El’s Origin Story

Recently, I had my former cohost of “The Captioned Life Show,” Kevin Stahlecker, join me to celebrate Superman Day. I asked him what Superman series he wanted to review for the episode and he suggested that we read and discuss the 2003-2004 series, Superman: Birthright. This is one of his favorite Superman series, so we discussed our thoughts about the series in episode #104 of the show. You can listen to it on your pod player of choice or watch the YouTube video of the episode.

After reading the 12-issue series and discussing it with Kevin on the show, here are my thoughts about the series.

Writing

Mark Waid is one of my favorite authors in comics. I really enjoy his work, and Superman: Birthright is no different. The series covers the early days of Kal-El, covering what was happening and the history of Krypton before his biological parents, Jor-El and Lara-El, sent him to Earth in the hopes that he would survive. In the remaining issues, we see Kal-El become both Clark Kent and Superman, struggling with those dual identities and trying to determine how to do the best he can in both identities without feeling so isolated from the world he grew up in. The story also entails Clark’s relationship with his adoptive parents, Jon and Martha, his budding relationship with Lois Lane, and the brief history he had with Lex Luthor when they were both teenagers in Smallville. The story ends with Superman saving Metropolis from Lex Luthor, who used Kryptonite to create a wormhole and its projected images of Krypton to make it appear that Superman was a war scout from his home planet and that he was leading the charge for the alien planet to invade Earth.

Waid touches on a number of topics that were well-written and emotionally moving. He created a moment where Jon and Martha shared some of their deepest fears and regrets as Clark’s adoptive parents, and how at the end of the day he’ll be their son no matter what happens. Issue #4 introduces us to an anti-terrorism initiative in Metropolis, which served as a reflection and social commentary during the time the issue was released about the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq He also wrote a scene where Superman confronts a gun shop owner who sold guns to minors that used them in a school shooting. Superman told the gun owner that a 9-year-old had a gun pointed at their face and they would never be able to look at the world the same way again. He then proceeds to pick up a gun, shoot it at the gun shop owner, and stopped the bullet before it hit his face in order to scare him. This is the first time I’ve seen Superman fire a gun, and this moment was nothing short of intense.

There were a couple of other interesting pieces of writing that deserve mentioning. This is the first time in my recollection that we see Lex Luthor spending time in Smallville as a teenager in the comics, which makes one wonder if this was something that was borrowed from the CW show Smallville. This was an interesting story detail and plot development for the story that worked well, but it also makes one wonder if everything always needs to have a deeper connection like this and if it runs the risk of being too cliche because of it.

The other piece of writing that caught my attention was early in the series, Jon and Martha Kent mentioned how Lana Lang (Clark Kent’s high school sweetheart), has been missing from Smallville, and the series never really made mention of this again. It was unclear if this was a nod to something else that happened in a previous Superman series or if there were plans to explore this that never came to fruition. Either way, I’m still left wondering what happened to her.

Artwork

Where the writing was the highlight of the entire series, the artwork, unfortunately, was the most distracting and least appealing part of the series. Knowing that this was created in the early 2000s, I tried to keep an open mind about the art style. Overall, the colors and lettering were done well and I did enjoy those aspects of the series.

The illustrations, however, were probably the weakest part of the series. First of all, the first issue used the classic Superman “S” haircurl on Clark and Lara-El, and I’ve never been a fan of that style. I didn’t hold it against Yu as I’m sure that is a trademark element of the character that needed to be incorporated into it, but even in the early days it never really made sense to me. Kal-El has an S on his chest and an S on his cape. I think we get that the “S” is Significant.

There were a few panels in the series where there were bullets being shot at Superman and the reader was seeing it from the point of view of the shooter. The issue, though, was that it looked like the bullet casings were also part of the bullet that were shot, giving it an inauthentic feel to the story since the casings are not what’s shot in real life.

The biggest issue for me, however, is that Yu’s artwork, specifically when he drew characters and people. There were times where Superman had either no eyes or completely white eyes, which were distracting. There were some anatomical distortions, such as Clark Kent having an unusually, inhumanly long neck, and there were many times when peoples’ mouths and teeth looked really odd, almost like they belonged on a horse. I’ve heard people say that this is some of their favorite artwork that they’ve enjoyed and I am happy to hear that. I’m sad that it didn’t connect for me here.

That said, I did love the homage they paid to Action Comics #1, which was the first appearance of Superman in the comics. It worked well with the story and it’s a nice Easter egg for those who are familiar with Superman’s comic book origin. I thought this was probably one of the highlights in terms of artwork for the series.

Cover Art

If I am being honest here, the cover art was not that memorable. It didn’t really stand out in a way that I would be able to describe it to you, and most of it was plain in my opinion. There were two that did stand out for me, however, and not in a great way.

In issue #4, we see that the cover depicts Lois falling from the top of what’s supposedly The Daily Planet. As she’s falling, there’s no expression on her face, which may be depicting her being a fearless woman. If that’s the case, then they did a great job of that. But the other visual of this cover is how much of her legs are showing and how high her skirt was. Had it gone up any further, you would have seen more than what Lois probably would have liked you to see. Again, this was the early 2000s so it may have been socially “okay” at the time, but I did find it a little uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, the cover art for issue #7 was the same experience here. We see Superman confronting, who I assume is, a mugger with a gun. In the bottom right corner is a female victim. For some reason, it looks like her top was popped open and you see her bra and chest on display. What makes this even stranger is that this scene on the cover art isn’t in the issue (or the series) at all.