Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine. Created by William Moulton Marston, she first appeared in All Star Comics #8 (1941). She was one of the first female superheroes and is still arguably the most famous.

In most adaptations, Wonder Woman is Princess Diana of the Amazon warrior tribe of Greek mythology. The Amazon ambassador to the larger world, she possesses several superhuman abilities and gifts from the Greek Gods, including a magic lasso and bulletproof bracelets. She is also a member of the all-star Justice League.

Marston designed Wonder Woman as a distinctly feminist character and many subsequent writers, especially those of the 1980s and afterwards, have written her as such.

Outside the comic book community, she is known for a popular, although often campy, television adaptation which starred Lynda Carter and aired from 1975 until 1979. She has also been featured on the all-star animated series Super Friends in the 1970s and 80s and Justice League in the 2000s.

Wonder Woman has inspired the creation of several other comic book characters including Glory, Wildcats member Zealot, and Promethea.


William Moulton Marston was an educational consultant in 1940 for Detective Comics, Inc. (now known as DC Comics). Marston saw that the DC line was filled with images of super men such as Green Lantern, Batman, and their flagship character Superman. Seeing all these male heroes, Marston was left wondering why there was not a female hero.

Max Gaines, then head of DC Comics, was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he could create a female comic book hero—a Wonder Woman. Marston did that, using a pen name that combined his own middle name with the middle name of Gaines: Charles Moulton. Marston reportedly based her physical appearance (including her bracelets) on his former student Olive Byrne, who lived with Marston and his wife Elizabeth in a polyamorous relationship.

Marston was the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test, which led to the creation of the polygraph (lie detector). From this work, Marston had been convinced that women were more honest and reliable than men, and could work faster and more accurately. During his lifetime, Marston championed the causes of women of the day.

In a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston said:

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."

The first issue of Wonder Woman, Summer 1942. Art by H.G. Peter.In December 1941, Wonder Woman made her debut in All Star Comics #8. Following this exposure in the second largest selling comic in DC's line, she was featured in Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942), and six months later in her own self-titled book (Summer 1942), making her the first super-heroine to have her own comic book. Until his passing in 1947, Dr. Marston wrote all of Wonder Woman's appearances. Artist H.G. Peter drew the book, giving it a simplistic but identifiable "female" style that contrasted with other super-hero comic books of the day.

Armed with her bulletproof bracelets, magic lasso, and her Amazonian training, Wonder Woman was the archetype of the perfect woman from the mind of her creator, Dr. Marston. She was beautiful, intelligent, strong, but still possessed a soft side. At that time, her powers came from "Amazon concentration", not as a gift from the gods.

Wonder Woman's "magic lasso" was supposedly forged from the Magic Girdle of Aphrodite, which Queen Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother) was bequeathed by the Goddess. To make the lasso, the god Hephaestus had borrowed the Olympian belt, removed links from it, and forged the magic lasso from it. It was unbreakable, infinitely stretchable, and could make all who are encircled obey the commands of the wielder, most notably to tell the truth.

Wonder Woman was aided by the Holliday Girls (led by the Rubenesque, sweets-addicted Etta Candy), who were a sorority that would help Wonder Woman in a time of emergency, or vice versa. Etta was the only member of the Holliday Girls who stood out, with her distinctive figure and propensity for saying "Woo-woo" all the time, and was - after Steve Trevor and Diana herself - the most lasting character in the series.

Images of men putting women into bondage commonly appeared on the covers of Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman from 1942 to 1947. In Wonder Woman issue #3, it is Wonder Woman herself who takes the dominant side, tying other women up, and, in one memorable scene, dressing them up in deer outfits and chasing them through the forest, only to tie them up later and display them on a platter. This subtle, yet identifiable, sexual subtext to the book has been noted by comic book historians, who have debated whether it was an outlet for Dr. Marston's own sexual fantasies (recent biographies indicate that he was an avid practitioner of bondage); or whether it was meant (unconsciously or otherwise) to appeal to the developing sexuality of young readers.

During this same early period, Wonder Woman joined the Justice Society of America as its first female member. The Justice Society was the first super-team, featured in All Star Comics, and times being what they were, Wonder Woman, despite being one of the most powerful members, was the group's secretary.

From her inception, Wonder Woman was not out to just stop criminals, but to reform them. On a small island off Paradise Island was Transformation Island, a rehabilitation complex created by the Amazons to house and reform criminals. A large concept in his concept of Wonder Woman was one of "loving submission", in which one would be kind to others and be willing to surrender to them out of agape. This has often being parodied as male criminals being so enamored with her beauty that they surrender to enjoy her company however briefly in some fashion.


In 1947, William Moulton Marston died, leaving Wonder Woman to be written by Robert Kanigher. While H.G. Peter still illustrated the stories, Wonder Woman became less of a feminist and more of a traditional American heroine. Peter remained on the title through #97, when the elderly artist was fired. Peter died soon afterward.

In later stories, her abilities expanded. Her earrings gave her air to breathe in outer space, her "invisible plane" (originally a propeller driven fighter that looked like either a P-40 Warhawk or P-51 Mustang, but soon upgraded to a jet aircraft, given that era's level of aviation technology level of progress) was given an origin, her tiara was found to be an unbreakable boomerang, and her bracelets allowed her to communicate with Paradise Island.

In 1954, Dr. Frederic Wertham wrote his controversial book Seduction of the Innocent, which expounded on his anti-comic book views, and is seen by many comic book historians as the death of the Golden Age. Facing likely government censorship, the comic book industry established the Comics Code Authority. In the era of the Code, Wonder Woman no longer spoke out as a feminist, and was left to moon over Steve Trevor, and as time wore into the Silver Age, she also fell for Merman and Birdman.

Wonder Woman experienced many changes through the mid-1950s and throughout the 1960s. Wonder Woman's origin was revamped, with her powers instead being derived from a combination of the Greek and Roman deities.

In the 1960s, regular scripter Robert Kanigher adapted gimmicks which had worked for Superman under the editorship of Mort Weisinger. As with Superboy, Wonder Woman's "untold" career as the teenage Wonder Girl was chronicled. Then followed Wonder Tot, in which the infant Amazon princess in her star-spangled jumper cavorted with one Mr. Genie. The next step for Kanigher was to team all three ages of Wonder Woman in what were labeled "Impossible Tales," with her mother, Hippolyta joining in the adventures as "Wonder Queen."

Writer Bob Haney - apparently unaware that Wonder Girl was not a separate character - included her in his new team the Teen Titans, consisting of sidekicks Robin, Kid Flash, and Speedy. Some years later, an origin was provided in which Wonder Girl was revealed to be Donna Troy, an orphan that Wonder Woman saved and given super powers by the Amazons' healing Purple Ray.



By the late 1960s, Wonder Woman had more in common with Emma Peel than superheroes.At the end of the 1960s, Wonder Woman surrendered her powers to remain in "Man's World" rather than accompany her fellow Amazons into another dimension so they could "restore their magick."

Now a mod boutique owner, the powerless Diana Prince soon came under the wing of a Chinese mentor known as I Ching. Under I Ching's guidance, Diana was trained to use her body as a weapon, learning martial arts and weapons skills, and proceeded to undertake secret agent-style adventures.

The new format of the comic book was strongly influenced by the Emma Peel era of the then-popular British spy series The Avengers. It also bore some similarities to the later TV series Kung Fu, with Diana being an inexperienced student to I Ching's master. Soon after the "new" Wonder Woman began, the editors removed one-by-one her connections to the superhero world, most notably killing off Steve Trevor (though the character would later be revived). One exception was a one-on-one confrontation with Catwoman.

This period of the comic book has its supporters and its detractors. Some critics welcomed the change from campy super-heroics to more serious, "topical" storytelling in the wake of the Batman TV series. Others felt that the comic had abandoned its history. Storylines included secret agent-style plots, as well as some occult tales. One controversial cover showed Diana Prince brandishing a machine gun and firing at an airplane; contrary to the traditional depiction of Wonder Woman, the updated version of Diana Prince was not against killing in order to defend herself or others.

The revised series attracted some writers not normally associated with comic books, most notably science fiction author Samuel R. Delany, who wrote two issues.

This storyline lasted for two years, with Wonder Woman finally being restored to her powers and costume in the early '70s. Part of the credit for the revival of Wonder Woman as a superhero was due to a campaign in which feminist Gloria Steinem - who was offended to see the most famous female superhero depowered - had a hand. The 1972 first issue of Steinem's Ms. Magazine featured Wonder Woman in her 1940s costume on the cover, and contained an essay in appreciation of the character. Ironically, the change in format was originally an acknowledgement of the Women's liberation movement. The I Ching era, despite the controversy, would continue to resonate for some years to come, both in the comic book and in live action adaptations of Wonder Woman a few years later. The 1974 Cathy Lee Crosby telefilm, and the second and third seasons of Lynda Carter's popular series (see below), would borrow heavily from the characterization of Diana Prince in the early 1970s.

Following the return of the "original" Wonder Woman to the comic books, a major two-year story arc consisted of the heroine's attempt to be readmitted to the Justice League of America, the organization she quit after giving up her powers. To prove her worthiness to rejoin the JLA, Wonder Woman voluntarily underwent 12 "trials" (analagous to the 12 labors of Hercules), each of which was monitored in secret by a different member of the JLA.

Wonder Woman had barely won readmittance to the JLA when DC Comics ordered another format change. The popularity of the Wonder Woman TV series, which was initially set during World War II, resulted in DC setting the comic book in this era as well (this was made possible due to DC Comics' multiverse concept, which established that the 1970s Wonder Woman and the 1940s original version lived on two separate, yet parallel, worlds: The 1970s version on "Earth-One", and the 1940s version on "Earth-Two"). When the TV series later changed its setting to the 1970s, the comic book followed suit.

Wonder Woman fought a series of "epic" battles through the 1970s and 1980s, until the character was killed during Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986. But the character wouldn't stay dead for long.


Post-Crisis
Post-Crisis, Wonder Woman was rebooted in 1987. Writer Greg Potter, who previously created the Jemm, Son of Saturn series for DC, was hired to rework the character. He spent several months behind the scenes working with editor Janice Race on new concepts before being joined by writer/artist George Pérez. Potter dropped out of writing the series after issue #2, and Perez became the sole plotter with help from writer Len Wein, who wrote the series' finished dialogue.

Comic book fans and critics consider Perez's 60-issue run one of the highlights of Wonder Woman's history. Pérez and Potter gave her a pro-woman personality, and Perez's extensive research into Greek mythology gave more depth and verisimilitude to Wonder Woman's world than in her previous incarnation.

In her new incarnation, Wonder Woman was Diana, a princess and an emissary from Paradise Island to man's world. She did not keep her identity a secret, and she was not at first a "superheroine". Indeed, her character was in many ways that of a babe in the woods, innocent and without guile. Diana spoke only classical Greek and had to learn English when she arrived in America, rather than knowing the language intuitively. Nonetheless, Diana was trained as a warrior and had no compunction against using deadly force when called for. Through Pérez's tenure on the book, Diana dealt with war, injustice, inequality, death, and conflicts involving the Olympian Gods.

The supporting characters of the comic were altered as well. For instance, Steve Trevor was changed into an Air Force officer considerably older than Diana's apparent age, thus sidestepping the traditional romance between the two. Instead, Trevor became involved with Etta Candy, who herself became a mature military officer of good standing and a large, but realistic physique. Diana's enemy The Cheetah became a woman who could become a powerful and ferocious feline-humanoid creature who could believably challenge Diana in combat.

After Pérez left the series, other writers and artists tried to follow in his footsteps, with varying degrees of success. William Messner-Loebs wrote the character respectfully and the series sold well, but the artwork portrayed the Amazon in skimpy outfits and sexualized poses, which drew criticism from feminists. John Byrne later tried a "back to basics" approach with mixed reviews, including a period with Diana's mother Hippolyta as Wonder Woman. Phil Jimenez produced a run which was likened in some ways to Pérez's, particularly since Jimenez' art bears a striking resemblance to his.


Bitter Rivals coverRecently, the writing on the series was turned over to Greg Rucka, whose initial story arc involved a book Wonder Woman had written which caused controversy. The initial arc was full of political subtexts, but more recent storylines have involved the mythology aspect.


In other media
The first attempt to translate Wonder Woman to the small screen was in 1967, when the success of the Batman television show led to a flurry of copycat series. Greenway Productions, the company behind the Batman show, produced a four-and-a-half-minute Wonder Woman test reel starring Ellie Wood Walker as Diana Prince, Linda Harrison as Diana's Wonder Woman alter ego and Hope Summers as her mother. As with Batman, the reel took a comic slant on the character. This pilot episode was never broadcast.


DVD release of the first season of the 1970s TV series. Pictured: Lynda Carter.Wonder Woman's first broadcast appearance is as a guest in a Brady Kids cartoon in 1972, entitled "Beware of Gifts Bearing Greeks". (Wonder Girl had already appeared on television in a series of Teen Titans cartoon shorts, part of the Batman/Superman Hour cartoon show.) This was quickly followed by the heroine's inclusion in the long running Superfriends cartoon series.

Her second live-action outing was a TV movie made in 1974, starring Cathy Lee Crosby as a blonde non-superpowered Amazon. This version owed little to the Wonder Woman comic book character current at the time of screening, being closer indeed to the "I Ching period" abandoned by the comic book some years before.

Though not successful at the first attempt, network interest was such that within a year another pilot was in production. Scripting duties were given to Stanley Ralph Ross, who'd worked on the original pilot reel, but this time he was instructed to be more faithful to the comic book and create a subtle "high comedy". The new TV series ran from (1976-1979), and starred Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince and Lyle Waggoner as Steve Trevor, and is probably the best known version of the character. See Wonder Woman (television series) for details.

Wonder Woman was also a team character in the various incarnations of the Super Friends animated series that aired on Saturday mornings throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and in the animated Justice League series on the Cartoon Network in the 2000s. The Justice League cartoons portray her as a female Superman and hints she is attracted to Batman (most likely avoiding a Superman attraction due to his relationship to Lois Lane).

During the 1990s, there were many rumors of a possible Wonder Woman feature film at that time, but nothing came of it. There are many who feel Lynda Carter's portrayal has made it impossible for anyone suitable to be found to inherit the role (much as studios until recently had spent several years without success searching for a new actor to succeed Christopher Reeve as Superman).

In 2005, a new Wonder Woman movie was announced with Joss Whedon, who has considerable experience with female action heroes with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, writing and directing. Whedon has been quoted as saying his interpretation of the hero will not wear "star-spangled panties", raising concern that he may be planning to redesign the character in some way.

Currently Wonder Woman is a character for an upcoming DC and Marvel M.U.G.E.N project related to the Marvel vs Capcom fighting games.

The comic book character Batman (originally referred to as The Batman, and occasionally as The Bat-Man), is a fictional character and superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. Although the character was co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, only Kane receives official credit for the character. Batman was at first just one of several characters featured in Detective Comics, but has since become the lead or co-lead character of a number of comic book series, in addition to a "family" of titles featuring related characters (e.g. Robin, Batgirl). Batman and Superman are DC Comics' two most popular and recognizable characters.


Creation and publication
In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at the comic book division of National Publications (later DC Comics, now a subsidiary of Time Warner) to request more superheroes for their titles. In response, Bob Kane created a character called "Birdman". His collaborator Bill Finger offered such suggestions as renaming the character "Batman", giving the character a cowl instead of a simple domino mask, giving him a cape instead of wings, giving him gloves, and removing bright red sections of the original costume. Finger wrote the first Batman story, while Kane provided art. Because Kane had already submitted the proposal for a Batman character to his editors at DC Comics, Kane was the only person given official credit at the time for the creation of Batman.

A number of other sources have been cited as inspirations for Batman's personality, character history, and visual design and equipment, including Zorro, Doc Savage, The Shadow, 1926's The Bat, The Phantom, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Fairbanks, Superman, Dick Tracy, and even the technical drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Initially, the "Bat-Man" was a violent avenger who carried a pistol and left his foes dead more often than not (similar to The Punisher). Nonetheless, the character was a breakout hit, with sales on Detective soaring to the point that National's comic book division was renamed "Detective Comics, Inc." Soon after, National suggested that the violence be toned down, and that the character receive a youthful sidekick who the readers could use as an audience surrogate. Kane initially suggested an impish character like Puck, while Finger suggested a more down-to-earth character, Robin. The Batman and Robin team was a hit, and the character soon gelled into the hero that generations of readers and pop culture fans would come to recognize.

Kane, the more business-savvy of the Kane-Finger creative team, negotiated a contract with National, signing away any ownership that he might have in the character in exchange for, among other compensations, a mandatory byline on all Batman comics stating "Batman created by Bob Kane", regardless of whether or not Kane had been involved with that story. At the time, no comic books and few company-owned comic strips were explicitly credited to their creative teams. Bill Finger's contract, by comparison, left him with a monetary pittance and no credit even on the stories that he wrote without Kane. Finger, like Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and many other creators during and after the Golden Age of Comic Books, would resent National for "cheating" him of the money and dignity that he felt that he was owed for his creation. By the time Finger died in 1974, he had never once been officially credited for his work. In comparison, Kane parlayed his official sole creator status into a low level of celebrity, enjoying a post-comic book career as a painter. Ironically, much of Kane's later comics work, and even some of his non-comics art, was written or illustrated by other, uncredited writers or artists, ghosting under Kane's name.


Character overview and history
In the Batman mythos, Batman is the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne, a billionaire industrialist and philanthropist who was driven to fight crime after his parents were murdered before his eyes at the age of eight. The identity of the mugger traditionally is known as the small-time criminal Joe Chill, though recent comics have been somewhat vague on the identity of the killer of Wayne's parents (the 1989 Tim Burton movie Batman presented the Joker as the killer of Wayne's parents). In the comics and animated series, physician and social worker Leslie Thompkins was there to give loving comfort to the traumatized Bruce. Depending on the adaptation, he was then raised on the Wayne Manor estate by uncle Philip Wayne and/or wise and loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth.

To avenge his parents' death, Wayne spent his youth traveling the world, training himself to intellectual and physical perfection and learning a variety of crime-fighting skills, including criminology, forensics, martial arts, gymnastics, and disguise. He had entered such prestigious European universities as the Sorbonne and Oxford by the age of 14, and, in the film Batman Begins, attended Princeton University in New Jersey as a young adult. He studied hunting techniques from Australian Aborigines, subterfuge and shadowy tactics from ninjas, and even ventriloquism from practitioners of the art. After returning to Gotham in his early twenties, Wayne made several harrowing and near-fatal forays into the world of crime-fighting before donning his now familiar costume. The costume may have been inspired by a Halloween "bat-suit" worn by his father before his death, and was also certainly influenced by both Wayne's conviction that criminals are a "superstitious, cowardly lot" and his own fear of bats — at the age of six, he fell down a cavern, located beneath Wayne Manor (later to become the Batcave), that was swarming with the nocturnal creatures, wherein he was forever haunted by the event.

An important part of the mythos is that Batman – unlike Superman and most other costumed heroes – is a normal human being who does not possess any superhuman abilities. However, he has elevated himself to near-superhuman status through years of rigorous training. Batman is typically portrayed as a brilliant tactician and peerless martial-artist, possessed with a stoic personality and a strong desire for justice. In recent comics, Batman has often been presented as having an obsessive, humorless personality. Like Superman, the prominent persona of his dual identities has varied with time. Present comics seem to favor portraying the decadent playboy aspect of his character as the facade, while the masked and particularly dark, grim vigilante is marked as the "true" man. Usually, Batman is further separated from Bruce Wayne by the raspy voice he assumes while costumed.


Detective Comics #27, May 1939. The first appearance of Batman. Art by Bob Kane.To the world at large, Bruce Wayne is an irresponsible, superficial playboy who lives off his family's personal fortune and the profits of Wayne Enterprises, a major private technological firm that he has inherited. However, Wayne is also known for his contributions to charity, notably through the Wayne Foundation, a foundation devoted to helping the victims of crime and preventing people from turning to it. In recent comics, the idea was introduced of Batman being an urban legend and not believed by the denizens of Gotham City to actually exist; however, this notion is contradicted by various previous stories that indicate otherwise.

Wayne guards his secret identity well, as only a handful of individuals know of his superhero alter-ego, including Superman (Clark Kent), Wonder Woman (Diana), The Flash III (Wally West), Green Lanterns John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, and Alan Scott, Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brien), Aquaman (Orin/Arthur Curry), Green Arrow (Oliver "Ollie" Queen), Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Robin III (Tim Drake), Oracle (Barbara Gordon), and his butler Alfred. However, several villains have discovered his true identity over the years, most notably eco-terrorist Ra's Al Ghul, Hugo Strange, Riddler, and Bane. Fortunately, most of Batman's enemies have dismissed the notion of Bruce Wayne as Batman because of Wayne's apparent dim-wittedness and self-absorption. The Joker has had opportunities to learn himself, but refused them since it would personally rob the mystique of his enemy.

Batman's base of operations is Gotham City, a fictional city modeled after New York City – specifically altered to emphasize a "dark side," in contrast to the modern, futuristic feel of Metropolis. In keeping with the "dark" theme and the nature of bats, Batman is usually presented as operating only at night. Whenever he is needed, the police activate a "Bat-Signal" (a searchlight with a bat-shaped insignia over the lens) that shines into the sky. He operates out of the Batcave, which contains all of his gadgets, weapons, and other paraphernalia.


The 1966 television Batmobile was built by George Barris from a Lincoln Futura concept car.Bruce designs the costumes, equipment, and vehicles he uses as Batman, which are produced by a secret military division of Wayne Industries. Over the years he has accumulated a large arsenal of specialized gadgets (compare with the later James Bond). The designs of most of Batman's equipment share a common theme of dark coloration with a bat motif. A prime example is Batman's car, the Batmobile, often depicted as an imposing black car with large tail fins that suggest a bat's wings; another is his chief throwing weapon, the batarang, a bat-shaped boomerang. In proper practice, the "bat" prefix (as in batmobile or batarang) is no longer used by Batman himself when referring to his equipment, especially as this has been stretched to camp in some portrayals (namely the 1960s Batman live-action television show and the Super Friends animated series). The 1960s live-action television show arsenal included such ridiculous, satirical "bat-" names as a bat-computer, bat-rope, bat-scanner, bat-radar, bat-handcuffs, bat-phone, bat-bat, bat-pontoons, bat-drinking water dispenser, bat-camera with polarized bat-filter, shark repellent bat-spray, bat-funnel, alphabet soup bat-container, and emergency bat-turn lever.

The details of the Batman costume have changed repeatedly through the character's evolution, but the most distinctive elements have remained consistent: a dark scalloped hem cape, with a cowl covering most of his face, with a pair of pointed ears suggesting those of a bat, and a stylized bat emblem on his chest. The most noticeable costume variations include a "yellow elliptical" bat-emblem vs. no ellipse, lighter colors (medium blue and light gray) vs. darker (black and dark gray), a bulky utility belt vs. a streamlined belt, and a long-eared cowl vs. short-eared. The development of Kevlar, Spectra and other types of body armor has prompted some modern creators to make Batman's costume or parts of the costume bullet-proof. In Frank Miller's seminal work The Dark Knight Returns, Miller explains that the yellow ellipse is used to attract gunfire to Batman's chest, where his armor is heaviest.

Batman keeps most of his personal field equipment in a signature piece of apparel, a yellow utility belt. Over the years it has contained items such as plastic explosives, nerve toxins, batarangs, smoke bombs, a fingerprint kit, a cutting tool, a grappling hook gun, and a "re-breather" breathing device. In some of his early appearances, Batman used sidearms (see especially Detective Comics #32, September 1939), but since that time, he has eschewed their use because his parents were murdered by a gunman. Some stories have relaxed this rule to allow Batman to arm his vehicles for purposes of disabling other vehicles or removing inanimate obstacles.

Nicknames for Batman include the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the Masked Manhunter, and the World's Greatest Detective; when teamed with his sidekick Robin, the two are nicknamed the Dynamic Duo. Batman is indeed a brilliant detective, criminal scientist, tactician, and commander; he is widely regarded as the keenest analytical mind on the planet and possesses an eidetic memory. His most lasting and popular stories have almost without exception been ones where he has displayed intelligence, cunning, and planning to outwit his foes, rather than merely out-fighting them. His deductive skills put him on par with Sherlock Holmes, and in several stories he has even met the "Great Detective" himself, proving himself to be a worthy successor to Holmes. Batman is the mastermind behind the Justice League of America, offering brains and tactical skills to guide the raw power of the other members of the team. In this capacity, he is often seen as the antithesis of Superman; in older comics, the two were close friends, while in current comics, the two share an uneasy friendship. He has also been briefly affiliated with other superhero teams, including a short-lived team he founded in the 1980s called "The Outsiders".


Evolution of the concept
In Batman's earliest comics, Batman stories were often presented in a tone closer to that of pulp fiction stories of the day, with a particularly grim emphasis; a few stories even present Batman making use of firearms.

In 1940, the introduction of Robin changed this tone, with Batman becoming a less grim character. During the 1940s, Batman continued to go on various cases, meeting foes such as the Penguin, Scarecrow and Riddler for the first time. Batman also went on a few cases as a member of the Justice Society of America. Noteworthy stories of this era include 1940's Batman #1 (with the simultaneous debuts of Batman foes Catwoman and the Joker) and Batman #47 (1948), where Batman finally encountered Joe Chill, the man who shot his parents.

In 1952's Superman (volume 1) #76, Batman first teamed up with Superman and learned his secret identity; following the success of this story, the separate Batman and Superman features that had been running in World's Finest Comics were combined into one feature featuring both Superman and Batman together; this series of stories ran until the book's cancellation in 1986. The stories featured Superman and Batman as close friends and allies, tackling threats that required both of their talents.

Starting in the mid-1950s, Batman's stories gradually became more and more outlandish and science fiction oriented in tone, an apparent attempt at mimicking the success of the top-selling Superman comics of the time. Batman received all manner of new characters such as Batwoman, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Bat-Mite (the latter two paralleling Krypto the Superdog and Mr. Mxyzptlk of the Superman titles). Batman also began having various adventures involving either odd transformations or dealing with bizarre space aliens. Batman was a highly public figure during the stories of the 1950s as well, regularly appearing at such events as charity functions, and also frequently appearing in broad daylight. In 1960, Batman also became a member of the Justice League of America as shown in its debut issue in The Brave and the Bold #28.

The Silver Age of comic books is generally marked by comic book historians to have begun when DC comics re-created a number of its superhero titles during the late 1950s. Editor Julius Schwartz presided over the drastic changes made to a number of DC's comic book characters, including Batman in 1964's Detective Comics #327. Schwartz introduced a myriad of changes designed to make Batman more contemporary and return him to his detective roots, including a redesign of Batman's equipment, the Batmobile, and his costume (introducing the yellow oval behind the costume's bat-insignia), as well as bringing in artist Carmine Infantino to help in this makeover. The previous decade's worth of space aliens and characters such as Batwoman, Ace, and Bat-Mite were also retired in this makeover. This makeover soon became known as the "New Look" Batman, with Batman being returned to his dark and mysterious roots, giving rise to the version of the character that most modern fans are familiar with.

For the next twenty-five years, Batman was the mysterious, dark avenger of the night, though the popularity of the Batman TV series of the 1960s overshadowed the comic books considerably. A plethora of writers and artists took the Caped Crusader on a number of interesting adventures; high points of the comic book series include the Ra's Al Ghul storyline, written by Dennis O'Neil and drawn by Neal Adams who established the modern look of the character, and a late 1970s brief eight-issue run of Detective Comics written by Steve Englehart that many fans considered to be the definitive Batman. The classic Joker story "The Laughing Fish" was written by Englehart. In 1969, Batman's longtime partner Dick Grayson (Robin) was sent off to college, making Batman a largely solo character again for the first time since Robin's 1940 debut.

Batman continued through the 1970s and early 1980s to make appearances with Superman in World's Finest, the Justice League in Justice League of America, and with various other DC characters in his own teamup title, The Brave and the Bold.


The first issue of The Dark Knight Returns, the series that redefined Batman.Writer Frank Miller ground Batman firmly in his grim and gritty roots with the comic book miniseries The Dark Knight Returns (1986), which takes place in an alternate future, and 1987's storyline Batman: Year One, the latter designed to rewrite Batman's origin in a similar manner to the rewritten origins Superman and Wonder Woman received at that time. Unlike those two characters, however, much, though not all, of Batman's previously written stories remained canonical.

In both Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, Batman's story runs parallel to that of Jim Gordon. In Year One, Gordon has not yet become the police commissioner, and is instead a middle-aged cop with a shady past working to redeem himself amidst Gotham's corrupt police force, while Bruce Wayne learns the ropes as a costumed avenger. In The Dark Knight Returns, Gordon is seventy, and is forced into mandatory retirement from his post as police commissioner while Wayne returns from retirement as Batman. These stories gave Gordon's character a depth he had seldom achieved before. The Dark Knight Returns served to boost sales and interest for mainstream comic books, particularly superhero comics, as its popularity was nothing short of phenomenal. It allowed Batman finally to shed the image of a campy, clownish character for which he was still known, and it also helped to raise the image of comic books so that they were no longer known solely as a form of children's entertainment. The Dark Knight Returns and stories following it (such as John Byrne's Superman origin rewrite) also severed the friendly relationship of Batman and Superman, replacing it with a more antagonistic one (the title World's Finest Comics, with its series of Superman-Batman teamups, was cancelled around this same time).

Miller's stories have set the tone for the franchise, including Tim Burton's Batman movies, Warner Bros' 1990s animated series (created by Bruce Timm), and the ongoing comic book series, and have served to inspire imitators both on the Batman franchise and on numerous other superhero comic books.

Batman: Year One was also significant in that it cemented the concept of Year One, an early period during which Bruce Wayne was still a relatively inexperienced crimefighter and Batman had yet to become an established figure in Gotham. Since the original publication of Year One, many creators - notably Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale in their miniseries Batman: The Long Halloween (a follow-up to Year One) and Batman: Dark Victory - have set their stories in this era, and is the most popular sequels by fans. Others included "Batman: Year Two" in which Batman encounters Gotham's First Vigilantie, "The Reaper" and forms an uneasy allience with his parent's killer, Joe Chill. The most recent sequel to Year One is "Batman: The Man Who Laughs", in which follows Batman's first encounter with the Joker. The Batman title Legends of the Dark Knight in particular often features stories that take place during Year One.

The Year One Batman is characterized by his ongoing learning process, somewhat more down-to-earth approach to challenges, underdeveloped relationship with Gotham's government, lack of connections to the rest of the superhero community, and less developed technological equipment, as well as a somewhat different costume, which notably lacks the yellow oval around the bat emblem on his chest. This version of Batman is the basis for the 2005 film Batman Begins (2005).

Many people consider the most controversial Batman story to be Alan Moore's late 1980s story Batman: The Killing Joke, in which the Joker crippled Barbara Gordon by shooting her in the stomach, which injured her spine and paralyzed her from the waist down. Immediately afterwards he kidnapped Commissioner Gordon with the intent of torturing him to death or into insanity. The story led to Barbara Gordon having to give up her career as Batgirl and eventually taking the identity and role of Oracle.

Batman's stories continued to take a similar tone to Miller's stories through the rest of the decade and into the 1990s, with Batman portrayed with an increasingly humorless personality as the 1990s wore on. After 1994's Zero Hour storyline, the ideas of Batman as not having caught his parent's killer and of being an urban legend were introduced, both meant to make Batman into an even darker and more driven character (though such changes have met with criticism from some fans). Noteworthy stories of this period also include the death of Batman's second sidekick to bear the name of Robin, Jason Todd; a new Robin, Tim Drake, soon took over the role of Robin several years later.


Batman's love interests
Batman has had many romantic relationships with various female characters throughout his years fighting crime. The following characters do not include the various female hangers-on that Bruce has employed to maintain his image as a playboy.

In several 1950s stories, Vicki Vale, a reporter for the Gotham Gazette newspaper, was shown as an occasional romantic interest of Batman. Vale appeared as a character in Tim Burton's first Batman feature film, portrayed by Kim Basinger.

The most well known is with Selina Kyle, alias Catwoman. Catwoman has fought Batman on various occasions, yet various hints have been dropped in the comics over the years of the two sharing a mutual attraction to each other. Formerly a jewel thief, Catwoman is now a hero who defends Gotham City with the help of Dr. Leslie Tompkins. In pre-Crisis continuity, the Earth-Two versions of Batman and Catwoman were shown to have finally married in the 1950s, and later Selina gave birth to a daughter, Helena Wayne (alias The Huntress) in 1957. Batman and Catwoman became romantically involved during the Hush story arc. Batman ends the relationship because he was unsure if Catwoman had been a willing participant in Hush's plot.

A storyline in the late 1970s featured Silver St. Cloud, who managed to deduce the secret of Bruce Wayne's alter ego, but she couldn't handle being involved with someone in such a dangerous line of work. The two parted ways; a 2005 miniseries features a return appearance of Silver St. Cloud.

Another major woman in Batman's life is Talia al Ghul, the daughter of the supervillain, Ra's al Ghul. The villain has encouraged the relationship in hopes of recruiting Batman as his successor, and in the out-of-continuity graphic novel, Batman: Son of the Demon, the romance progressed to the bed and Talia bore his son (later named Ibn al Xu'ffasch in another out-of-continuity 4-part series "Kingdom Come").

Wonder Woman and Batman briefly dated within the pages of the recent Justice League of America comics, but nothing came of the relationship and the two remain friends. This is echoed in the Justice League animated series (see below).

In other media, Batman was shown in Batman: The Animated Series as having had a relationship of some sort with magician Zatanna, the daughter of Zatara, the man who had taught Bruce Wayne everything he knew about escape artistry. While this relationship didn't last, the two have remained friends, with Bruce contacting her from time to time for help. Wonder Woman has been hinted as a romantic interest of Batman in the series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, though the relationship in the series does not go as far as that of the JLA comics.

Homosexual Theories, Frederic Wertham and "The Code"

Batman #1, Spring 1940. Art by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson.Since his introduction, Batman has become one of the most famous comic book characters, known even to people who do not read the comics. In addition to DC's comic books, he has appeared in movies, television shows, and novels.

In 1953, the book Seduction of the Innocent by psychologist Frederic Wertham used Batman and Robin, among several examples, as evidence that the comic book medium corrupted the morals of the young. He suggested that Batman and Robin had a homosexual relationship, hinted at, among other things, by the bare legs in Robin's costume and their happy domesticity as single men in a posh mansion. He also criticized the dark and violent portrayals of crime in comic books as promoting juvenile delinquency.

The original inspiration for Wertham's interpretation came from fans of Batman in the fifties, who brought the comic book to his attention as an example of the idealisation of a "homosexual lifestyle." Their interpretation is seconded by Burt Ward, who, in his autobiographical Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights agrees that the characters could be interpreted as lovers, while the show's double entendres and lavish camp help make the case persuasive. [1] This is despite the fact that the TV series was an attempt at a tamer, more family friendly version of Batman which tried to be less violent than the comic series — one of Wertham's arguments against comics. Wertham wrote another book in 1958 called Circle of Guilt, whose main claim was that Americans were starting to feel that they were less responsible for themselves and their actions, resulting in higher crime rates across the country. The culprit behind this crime, he claimed, was comic books and the cinema.

Wertham succeeded in raising a public outcry, eventually leading to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. The outcry particularly affected Batman comics; the characters of Bat-Girl and Batwoman were introduced to "prove" that Batman and Robin were not gay, and the stories took on a campier, lighter feel. Characters such as the Joker, who had previously been murderers, became characterized by themed crime sprees, such as committing robbery while dressed as famous jester characters from literature.

Despite Wertham and "The Code," the theme of ambiguous sexuality continued to be played upon by both the studios and the readers until the late sixties, when changing public morality necessitated an official split between Batman and any suggestion of sexuality with his young friend. Denny O'Neill separated the two heroes in 1969 by sending Dick Grayson to college, and female characters were eventually brought in as more proper foils to the main hero. After that time, Batman's alleged pederasty (now fiercely repudiated by him) became the domain of unsympathetic antagonists, such as the Joker in the 1989 Arkham Asylum.

Batman and Robin continue to be fairly popular figures in gay culture, and a well-known pornographic parody, titled Batdude and Throbbin plays on the association. Likewise, a series of skits on the US TV show Saturday Night Live titled The Ambiguously Gay Duo is generally seen as a parody of Batman's and Robin's relationship.


Supporting characters
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Robin: Perhaps Batman's most important allies have been several teenage sidekicks, all of whom had the title Robin (some of them advertised with the nickname "The Boy Wonder" or "The Teen Wonder").
Dick Grayson (1940): The original Robin, Dick Grayson has since grown up and become "Nightwing," continuing as an assistant and ally to Batman. Many writers have portrayed his current relationship with Batman as strained. Nightwing is also the original leader of the Teen Titans (also known as the New Teen Titans, the New Titans and simply The Titans) and is the current leader of the Outsiders.
Jason Todd (1983): Originally a virtual copy of Dick Grayson (orphaned circus acrobat trained by the Batman), Todd's origin was later retconned so that he was a juvenile delinquent Batman took into his care. In 1989, Todd was murdered by the Joker in the controversial A Death in the Family storyline. Recently discovered alive after brutally beating the Joker with a crowbar as revenge.
Tim Drake (1990): After Jason Todd's death, Drake tracked down Grayson and urged him to become Robin once again, because Batman was growing unstable. When Grayson refused, Drake volunteered for the job - arguing that "Batman needs a Robin". Although Drake retired, he has since returned.
Stephanie Brown (2004): Formerly the Spoiler; became the fourth Robin and the only female Robin in current DC continuity. Stephanie was captured and fatally tortured by Black Mask, becoming the second Robin to perish.
Carrie Kelly (1986): Although not technically part of current DC continuity, Carrie Kelly became the first female Robin (in real world chronology) in 1986's The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler, as seen in Justice League.Alfred Pennyworth: Bruce Wayne's loyal butler (in effect, Batman's batman), who knows his secret identity. Alfred is a trained combat medic in addition to an accomplished former thespian, and has used both skills in Batman's service on many occassions.
Batgirl: Several female crime-fighters have taken the name "Batgirl". Unlike Robin, Batgirl has rarely debuted as a sanctioned member of the "Batman Family," although they have all come to be accepted by the Batman to some extent (depending on continuity).
In 1961, the original Bat-Girl was introduced as the sidekick to Batwoman (Kathy Kane).
In 1967, the Silver Age Batgirl was introduced: Barbara Gordon, the daughter of James Gordon. She continued the role until an attack by the Joker left her a paraplegic. She later reinvented herself as Oracle, a research assistant for superheroes and the leader of the Birds of Prey female superhero team.
In 1999, a third Batgirl was introduced: Cassandra Cain, the daughter of the assassin David Cain.
James ("Jim") Gordon: the police commissioner of Gotham City, with whom Batman has a strong (though secret and unofficial) working relationship. In the current DC Universe, James Gordon has retired and been replaced by Michael Akins, a hand-picked successor.
In addition, other members of the Gotham City Police Department have played prominent roles, such as Harvey Bullock who was introduced as a subordinate secretly assigned to spy on and discredit Gordon. However, Bullock soon changed his mind and became loyal to the commissioner while having a deep suspicion of Batman. The 1990s comics added Detective Renee Montoya as a character adapted from the animated series. The GCPD are currently featured in their own series, Gotham Central, in which they investigate the unusual crimes that plague the city, in a personal effort to minimize Batman's involvement.
Huntress: Originally the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-Two, Helena Wayne followed in her late father's footsteps. In current DC continuity, Helena Bertinelli, a daughter of the Bertinelli Mafia family, has become a crime-fighter. She has a difficult relationship with Batman, who feels that she is too rash and violent, and she works closely with Oracle/Barbara Gordon.
Lucius Fox: Although far less privy to his personal life, Lucius Fox is a trusted close associate of Wayne as his business manager responsible for both Wayne Enterprises and The Wayne Foundation.
The Justice League of America: Batman is a member of the superhero group, although is sometimes skeptical of the League's more powerful and idealistic members. In some versions, Superman (often the team's leader) is portrayed as having a strained relationship with Batman. In earlier versions, however, they are shown as "best friends" or the "World's Finest" team. The "World's Finest" nickname derives from the long-running Superman/Batman teamups in World's Finest Comics. In current continutity, the pair are shown as friends with nonetheless different, and sometimes conflicting, crime-fighting philosophies. In the 1980s, when Superman had waning involvement in the team, Batman was portrayed as the leader of the Justice League.
Ace the Bat-Hound: In 1955, a few months after the Superman mythos saw the introduction of Krypto, the Batman mythos saw the introduction and short duration of Ace, the Bat-hound, a German shepherd with a black mask covering most of his head. Ace later reappeared as Bruce's guard dog and companion in the television series Batman Beyond, and is currently seen as a character in the 2005 animated series Krypto the Superdog.
Batwoman: In 1958, Kathy Kane was introduced as Batwoman, but the character was mostly dropped from the series by the appearance of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 1967. A different Batwoman appeared in the direct-to-video animated movie Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman in 2003.
Azrael: Trained from birth to be the assassin and enforcer of a sinister secret society, Jean-Paul Valley was trying to forge a new destiny for himself with Bruce Wayne's help when Wayne was crippled by Bane. Valley took up the Bat-mantle until Wayne recovered, but his Azrael conditioning began to take over, and he became violent and dangerous, and Bruce Wayne was forced to fight him to reclaim his identity as Batman. Valley went his own way, returning for the occasional guest appearance until his death.

Enemies of Batman


Batman's foes form one of the most distinctive rogues galleries in comics. In the 1930s and 1940s the most familiar Batman villains evolved: the Joker, Catwoman, the Penguin, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Mad Hatter, the Scarecrow, and Clayface. Other well known villains emerged in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s including Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Ra's Al Ghul; Killer Croc and the Ventriloquist emerged in the 1980s, and Bane and Harley Quinn in the 1990s.


Comics that feature Batman
Current comics starring Batman


On-going titles
Batman
Detective Comics
Legends of the Dark Knight
Batman: Gotham Knights
Superman/Batman
All Star Batman and Robin
Current comics where Batman does not star, but appears regularly or from time to time as a guest character:

Batgirl
Birds of Prey
Catwoman
Gotham Central
JLA
JLA Classified
Justice League Unlimited
Nightwing
Robin
[edit]
Finished series
Previous comics with long runs featuring Batman:

Batman Family
Batman and The Outsiders
The Brave and the Bold
Shadow of the Bat
World's Finest Comics
Batman has also been featured in numerous miniseries and guest starred in many other comics.


Newspaper
From 1943 to 1946, Batman and Robin appeared in a syndicated daily and Sunday newspaper comic strip distributed by the McClure Syndicate. Other newspaper comic versions appeared in 1953, 1966, and 1989.


Books
In 2005 The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual, written by Scott Beatty was published by Quirk Books (ISBN 1-59-474023-2). Written in the same style as The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series, the book explained the basics on how to be Batman. Amongst the skills included in the book are "How to Train a Sidekick", "How to Execute a Backflip", "How to Throw a Grappling Hook" and "How to Survive a Poison Gas Attack".


Radio
Beginning in March 1945, Batman and Robin made regular appearances on the Superman radio drama on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Efforts were made to launch a Batman radio series in 1943 and again in 1950, but neither came to fruition.


Television

Burt Ward as Robin and Adam West as Batman from the 1960s television seriesIn the late 1960s, the ABC Network aired a Batman television series with Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. The series aired for 120 episodes from January 12, 1966 to March 14, 1968 and was marked for its high camp. It continues to be the version many associate with the Batman character, despite its being perhaps the least representative of his depiction in comics; although some comic book stories were adapted to the TV series. Although it has been disliked and denounced by some serious Batman fans ever since, the live-action TV show was extraordinarily popular; at the height of its popularity, it was the only prime-time TV show besides Peyton Place to be broadcast twice each week as part of its regular schedule. (This was, however, inherent in its format, typically splitting full-hour stories into two half-hour episodes to be aired different nights of the same week).

There have also been several TV animated series starring Batman, produced by at least three different TV animation studios. The treatment of the character has varied with the decade; the 1990s and later series have had a darker, more sincere tone which has appealed to adult viewers, while still being accessible and entertaining to children. These cartoons include:

1960s - Batman/Superman Adventure Hour by Filmation
1970s - Super Friends by Hanna-Barbera Productions
1970s - The New Adventures Of Batman by Filmation
1980s - Super Powers: Galactic Guardians by Hanna-Barbera
1990s - Batman: The Animated Series by Warner Bros.
1990s - Batman: Gotham Knights by Warner Bros.
2000s - Batman Beyond (a.k.a. Batman of the Future in Europe and Latin America) by Warner Bros.
2000s - Justice League animated series by Warner Bros.
2004 - The Batman by Warner Bros.
[edit]
Movies
A number of Batman theatrical films have also been made.


Michael Keaton in 1992's Batman ReturnsColumbia Pictures released two 15-chapter, live-action movie serials, Batman (1943) and Batman and Robin (1949).
Batman (1966), the first feature-length adaptation, based on the TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward.
Batman (1989), directed by Tim Burton, and starring Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. This movie introduces Batman as a brooding vigilante and dispenses with the campy tone. It relied heavily on the dark atmosphere set by the Frank Miller graphic novel: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and the comic run, Batman: Year One.
Batman Returns (1992), also directed by Burton and starring Keaton, with Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as the Penguin.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) feature length spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series
Batman Forever (1995), produced by Burton, directed by Joel Schumacher, and starring Val Kilmer as Batman, Chris O'Donnell as Robin, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, and Jim Carrey as the Riddler. The decision to continue the franchise without Burton or Keaton was controversial and opinions of the movie's quality were mixed.
Batman and Robin (1997),directed by Joel Schumacher, starring George Clooney as Batman, Chris O'Donnell as Robin, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl, and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. A huge critical and box office embarassment, with nipples on the batsuits, many believe it all but destroyed the Batman franchise and superhero films in general.
Batman Begins (2005), directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale as Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Detective Sergeant James Gordon, Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard, Ken Watanabe as Ra's al Ghul and Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow. An origin story that reboots the film franchise and is independent from the previous Burton/Schumacher films.
Batman 2 (2007/2008), will be helmed by director Christopher Nolan yet again and will be written by David S. Goyer. Starring is Christian Bale as Batman, Gary Oldman as Lt. (Commisioner) Gordon, Mark Boone Jr. as Detective Arnold Flass, and Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth. Casting for The Joker has begun as early as 2005 following its release. The contenders to play the part are: Crispin Glover, Mark Hamill, Lachy Hulme, Sean Penn, Tim Roth, and Paul Bettany.
Several low-budget, unauthorized Batman movies have also been made, including Batman Dracula (1964) by Andy Warhol; Batman Fights Dracula (1967), made in the Philippines; and a second Filipino movie called Alyas Batman en Robin (1993). (Critics who have seen this movie say it is very poor quality.) Additionally, an independently funded self-promo film titled "Batman: Dead End" was produced by Sandy Collora in 2003, starring Clark Bartram as Batman. The film featured not only Batman but also Aliens and Predators from the popular 20th Century Fox film franchises, and generated considerable buzz. Another self-promo by Collora, a trailer for a World's Finest film and also featuring Superman, followed in 2004.

Since 1997 Warner Bros. has released a number of episodes of Batman: The Animated Series on video (both VHS and DVD), including a volume one set of DVDs in July 2004 and volume two set in January 2005. One three-part episode involving a team-up with Superman ("World's Finest") is available on video as The Batman/Superman Movie. In addition to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a number of movies based on the animated series have been released direct-to-video: Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.

Green Lantern is a DC Comics superhero. Created by Martin Nodell and Bill Finger, the original Green Lantern debuted in All-American Comics #16 (1940).

Several individuals have assumed the identity of Green Lantern over the years. Each of them possessed a special ring called a power ring which gives them great control over the physical world as long as the wielder has sufficient willpower. While the ring of the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) was magically powered, the rings worn by all subsequent Green Lanterns were the creations of the Guardians of the Universe who granted such rings to worthy candidates across the universe. These individuals made up the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.

The character was a relatively generic superhero until 1970, when DC paired the Silver Age Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) with the archer Green Arrow in a ground-breaking, socially conscious comic book series. This era helped make Green Lantern popular, although subsequent series took on a more cosmic theme. In the last twenty years, DC has placed different individuals in the role (most permanently Kyle Rayner and John Stewart), sometimes irking longtime fans.

Green Lantern is part of the all-star group the Justice League and is currently featured in the Justice League Unlimited animated series.


Publication history
Green Lantern (sometimes called The Green Lantern in the early days) was created by Martin Nodell and Bill Finger and first appeared in All-American Comics #16 (1940). This Green Lantern was Alan Scott, an engineer who had come into possession of a magic lantern. From this he crafted a power ring which gave him a wide variety of powers, and which had to be charged every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern for a time.

Scott was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, and starred in his own title, Green Lantern, during the 1940s. His adventures during the Golden Age of comic books came to an end when superheroes fell into disfavor in the industry in the early 1950s, when the JSA's adventures ended with All-Star Comics #57 (1951).

A few years later, DC Comics had successfully revived The Flash in a new incarnation, with the name and powers being used by an entirely new character, and it was decided that Green Lantern would be similarly revived. This Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, a test pilot who was given the ring by a dying alien, Abin Sur, and who became a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar organization of police overseen by the Guardians of the Universe. The Corps' rings were powerless against anything colored yellow. Jordan's creation was motivated by a desire to make him more of a science fiction hero (editor Julius Schwartz being a longtime SF fan and literary agent) to boost sales.

The Green Lantern Corps bears many similarities to the Lensmen from the stories of E.E. Doc Smith. The Lensmen, who hail from various alien races, bear a device known as the Lens which gives them enhanced physical and mental abilities, bequeathed to them by the advanced and benevolent Arisians. The Lensmen are the vanguard of the Galactic Patrol, an interstellar police force. However, both John Broome, writer of the early Hal Jordan tales, and Schwartz denied any connection. Broome, in particular, denied all knowledge of Smith's stories. Schwartz also denied reading them, although he admitted that, as an SF fan, he had of course heard of them.

This Green Lantern was a member of the Justice League of America and starred in his own title, and eventually met his predecessor, who was established to live on the parallel world of Earth-Two, separate from Jordan's Earth-One. The two Lanterns struck up a close friendship and periodically come to each other's aid in various adventures.

By the late 1960s, however, Green Lantern's popularity was flagging. Green Lantern writers Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams attempted to spark new interest in the book by adding the character Green Arrow to the series, and having them travel through America encountering various "real world" issues, to which they reacted in different ways, Green Lantern being fundamentally a lawman while Green Arrow was a liberal iconoclast. The experiment was years ahead of its time, on the strength of Adams' stunning photorealistic artwork and O'Neil's intelligent and thought provoking (but often heavy-handed) stories; and was not a commercial success. DC editor Julius Schwartz dubbed it "relevance" and the Adams/O'Neil era was one of the earliest efforts of comic books to become more than light fantasy.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the focus of the series (which was cancelled and restarted several times) gradually shifted from Jordan to the Green Lantern Corps as a whole. Jordan gave up the role for a time, surrendering his role to fellow Earthman John Stewart. After he took up the ring again, Jordan was joined by a legion of other Green Lanterns, both human and alien.

Few storylines in comics history provoked as much outrage and controversy as when writer Ron Marz wrote Emerald Twilight, detailing the end of Jordan's career. Sales had slumped again by the 1990's and an editorial decision was made to restart Green Lantern as a younger different character. In the story Jordan went insane following the destruction of his old home, Coast City, by the villainous alien Mongul. Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians, absorbing their power and taking the name Parallax. One Guardian survived, however, and passed one remaining ring on to a randomly-chosen human named Kyle Rayner. This ring lacked the flaws of the earlier rings, and Rayner joined a new incarnation of the Justice League. Hal Jordan eventually returned as Green Lantern, and was cleared of the crimes committed as Parallax in a 2005 miniseries called Green Lantern: Rebirth that revealed that it was the work of a demonic entity that possessed Jordan (See below).


Biographies of the Major Green Lanterns

Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott)
Thousands of years ago, a mystical "green flame" fell to Earth. The voice of the flame prophesied that it would act three times: Once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. By 1940, the flame had been fashioned into a metal lantern, which fell into the hands of Alan Scott, a young engineer. Following a railroad bridge collapse, the flame instructed Scott how to fashion a ring from its metal, to give him fantastic powers as the superhero Green Lantern. He adopted a colorful costume and became a crimefighter.

(Years later, the green flame would be retconned as the expunged magical characteristics of the Guardians of the Universe from the Earth-1 universe. This collective force was hidden in the heart of a star and became sentient, leading to its name of Starheart. A later story, placed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, implied a connection to an ancient member of the Green Lantern Corps. A still-later story brought back the Starheart, although kept it in the single post-Crisis universe.)

Scott used his ring to fly, to walk through solid objects (by "moving through the fourth dimension"), to paralyze or blind people temporarily, to create rays of energy, sometimes solid objects, and force fields, to melt metal as with a blowtorch, to cause dangerous objects to glow, and even occasionally to read minds. His ring could protect him against any object made of metal (presumably because of the magical properties of the green meteorite metal), but would not protect him against wood, rubber (in the second story he is laid low by a rubber sap), or any other substance. After a time, however, his vulnerabilities were limited merely to wood.

Scott was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, beginning in All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940). He served as the team's second chairman, in #7, but departed following that issue, only to return a few years later. He has been a key member of the group ever since.

During the 1940s, Green Lantern seemed to alternate between serious adventure - particularly when his arch-nemesis, Solomon Grundy, appeared - and light comedy, such as his sidekick Doiby Dickles. Toward the end of his Golden Age adventures, he was even reduced to the role of a sidekick to Streak the Wonder Dog, a heroic canine cut from the mold of Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie.

Scott was a member of the JSA in 1951 when the team was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for possible Communist sympathies and asked to reveal their identities. The JSA declined, and most of the membership retired for the 1950s.

(One piece of retroactive continuity fills out early Scott history. All-Star Squadron Annual #3 states that the JSA fought a being who imbued them with energy that retarded their aging, allowing Scott and many others (as well as their spouses) to remain active into the late 20th century without infirmity. The events of that incident also lead to his taking a leave of absence from the JSA, explaining why the character vanished from the roster for a time.)

The team re-formed in the 1960s with Scott as a member, though little is known of their adventures during this time save for their team-ups with the Justice League of America of the parallel world Earth-1, and a few cross-universe adventures Scott shared with Earth-1's Green Lantern, Hal Jordan.

It was eventually revealed that in the late 1950s or early 1960s, Scott had married the woman with the dual identity Rose and Thorn, and the two had a pair of children who would grow up to become the superheroes Jade and Obsidian, of the team Infinity Inc..

In the late 1970s, Scott ran a broadcasting corporation, which was ruined by creditors. Scott was temporarily driven mad by the Psycho Pirate, but the rest of the JSA helped him back from the brink. His friend Jay Garrick helped him start a new career as a scientist.

In the 1980s, Scott married his longtime nemesis (now reformed), The Harlequin, and reconciled with his son and daughter. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which merged all parallel realities into one, the source of Scott's power was revealed to be the mystical "Starheart", which additionally helped retard Scott's aging process. For a time, the Starheart was part of Scott's body and he adopted the name Sentinel, becoming a founding member of a new JSA.

Thanks to the rejuvenative properties of the Starheart, Scott is physically a man in his 30s or early 40s, and continues to fight crime in his costumed identity.


Silver Age Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
The second Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, who in 1959 was a second-generation test pilot (having followed in the footsteps of his father, Martin Jordan) who was given the power ring and battery (lantern) by a dying alien named Abin Sur. When Abin Sur's spaceship crashed on Earth, the alien used his ring to seek out an individual to take his place as Green Lantern: someone who was "utterly honest and born without fear."

Though treated on Earth like a superhero, Jordan soon learned that Abin Sur was a member of an elite force of intergalactic police called the Green Lantern Corps, who worked for the Guardians of the Universe. Instead of one Green Lantern wielding a magic ring, there were 3600 Green Lanterns patrolling the entire universe. Their rings were powered by the central power battery at the planet Oa, where the Guardians lived. Oan power rings had to be recharged every 24 hours, and were ineffective against direct contact with the color yellow, due to a "necessary impurity" in the design of the rings. Jordan was assigned to patrol Sector 2814, in which Earth was located.

Jordan had a longtime on-again off-again love affair with his boss, Carol Ferris. He fought colorful 1960s villains such as Star Sapphire (a mind-altered Ferris), Hector Hammond, and the rogue Green Lantern, Sinestro. He was also a founding member of the Justice League of America in The Brave and the Bold #28 (1959).


Cover to Green Lantern #76 (April 1970), the first issue of the acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up series. Art by Neal Adams.In 1970, feeling the tension between dealing with the intergalactic problems of the Guardians and the individual, personal miseries on Earth, Jordan left his test pilot career behind and travelled across the United States with fellow hero Green Arrow in a "search for America", highlighted by tensions between the pair due to their different outlooks on life. The Guardians assigned one of their own to accompany the pair for a time, while temorarily reducing the power of their insubordinate Lantern's ring. One memorable scene from this period saw Green Lantern confronted by an elderly black man, who noted that the Green Lantern had done much for aliens with fantastic skin colors, but asked what he had done for the "black skins".

In the early 1980s, Jordan was exiled into space for a year by the Guardians in order to prove his loyalty to the Green Lantern Corps, having been accused of paying too much attention to Earth when he had an entire "sector" of the cosmos to patrol. When he returned to Earth, he found himself embroiled in a dispute with Carol Ferris. Faced with a choice between love and the power ring, Jordan chose to resign from the Green Lantern Corps. The Guardians called Jordan's backup, John Stewart, to regular duty as his replacement.

In 1985, the Crisis on Infinite Earths saw Jordan once again take up the mantle of Green Lantern, even as the Guardians withdrew from our dimension for a while. Jordan helped organize the new Corps, with seven members residing on Earth, including several aliens, John Stewart, and Jordan's slightly-unbalanced "other backup", Guy Gardner. For a while Jordan was romantically involved with a younger, alien Lantern named Arisia. The alien Lanterns took a more direct hand in human affairs, a fact not appreciated by human governments (Kilowog helped create the Rocket Reds for the Soviet Union). Eventually, the Earth corps broke up, several members returning to their home sectors.


Cover to Green Lantern #50 (March 1994). Hal Jordan becomes Parallax. Art by M.D. Bright.The Guardians soon returned to this dimension, and Jordan worked with them to rebuild the fractured Corps. Then the villainous alien Mongul came to Earth in a plot to take advantage of the death of Superman. Jordan defeated Mongul, but not before Coast City (Jordan's former home) was destroyed. He tried to use his ring to recreate the city, but the Guardians condemned this use of the ring for personal gain and demanded that Jordan come to Oa for trial. Angered at what he saw as the Guardians' ungrateful and callous behavior, Jordan went insane and attacked Oa to seize the full power of the central battery. The Green Lantern Corps attempted to defend Oa, but the enraged Jordan overwhelmed them, destroying his fellow Lanterns and the Guardians. He then renounced his life as Green Lantern, adopting the name Parallax.

As Parallax, he initiated the Zero Hour crisis, attempting to rewrite history to his own liking, but he was eventually defeated by a gathering of heroes. Ultimately, in the Final Night crossover, Jordan returned to his heroic roots, and reignited the Sun (which had been extinguished by the Sun-Eater), but died in the process.

A few years later, Jordan was resurrected as a new incarnation of The Spectre. Soon after assuming this mantle, Jordan chose to bend his mission from a spirit of vengeance to one of redemption. The new Spectre series based on this premise, however, only lasted 27 issues before being cancelled due to poor sales.

In 2005, DC finally brought back Hal Jordan as the "star" Green Lantern of Earth, and redeemed his image with the miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns, and pencilled by Ethan Van Sciver, in which it was revealed that Parallax was actually an ancient demonic parasitic entity dating back to the dawn time, that actually was the sentient embodiment of fear, and which traveled from world to world, feeding off the fear of sentient beings, and causing entire civilizations to destroy themselves out of paranoia.

It was this creature, yellow in color, which the Guardians of the Universe imprisoned within the central Power Battery on Oa using fear's opposite energy, willpower. Parallax had lain dormant for billions of years, his true nature covered up by the Guardians to prevent anyone from trying to free it, and thus, it had eventually come to be referred to as simply "the yellow impurity." This was the reason why the rings were useless against the color yellow: Parallax weakened its power over the corresponding spectrum, and hence only someone capable of overcoming great fear could master the power ring. When the renegade Sinestro was later imprisoned in the Power Battery himself, his Qwardian yellow power ring tapped into Parallax's power and awakened it, allowing it to reach out to Hal Jordan through Jordan's own ring when Jordan was at his weakest, spending years influencing him, causing him increasing self-doubt, and even causing his hair to turn white at the temples. Parallax's control over Jordan exploded with Jordan's grief over the destruction of Coast City, and it was Parallax who was responsible for Jordan's subsequent murderous activity, his apparent killing of Sinestro (which was later revealed to be an illusion on Sinestro's part, created as the final stage of Jordan's susceptibility to the impurity in order to break his will), and Jordan's destruction of the Central Battery, which allowed Parallax to graft itself onto Jordan's soul.

It was because Parallax was now free that Kyle Rayner's own ring did not have any weakness against yellow, and the Spectre explained to Jordan that it drew in Jordan's soul in hopes of eradicating the parasitic Parallax from Jordan's soul. The Spirit of Vengeance eventually removed Parallax from Jordan's soul, and itself from Jordan, departing in order to move onto the next recipient of the Spirit, while Ganthet guided Jordan's soul back to his own body, which Ganthet had preserved after Jordan reignited the Sun during Final Night. His soul and thoughts finally clear for the first time in a long time, Jordan was resurrected as a mortal human again, once again taking his place as a Green Lantern, the white portions of his hair even restored to their original brown. He fought Sinestro, who revealed himself as alive for the first time since his faked death, forcing the renegade to retreat back into the antimatter universe. Together, Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kilowog freed Ganthet, whom Parallax had possessed after his expulsion from Jordan's soul, and imprisoned the parasite back in the Central Power Battery on Oa.

DC Comics subsequently began a new Green Lantern starting with issue #1 (July 2005), with Hal Jordan once again the focal Green Lantern of the book. Trying to rebuild his life, Hal Jordan has moved to the almost deserted Coast City, which is slowly being reconstructed. He is now attempting to get a job flying once again with the United States Air Force.


Modern Age Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)
Kyle Rayner was a struggling freelance artist when he was approached by the last Guardian of the Universe, Ganthet, to become a new Green Lantern with the last power ring. Ganthet did not choose Rayner for any particular reason; he simply needed to find someone to fill the role. Despite not being cut from the same cloth of bravery and fearlessness as Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner proved to have his fans.

Kyle was a gifted artist and a fan of Japanese manga. To him, the Green Lantern ring was the ultimate expression of his imagination. While in battle, he often used rings to create constructs of other superheroes, anime characters, mystical characters, mechas, futuristic weapons and original characters from his comic books. While some questioned the practicality of those constructs, they often made Kyle an unpredictable opponent.

Rayner also joined the Justice League. He became friends with Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, and his daughter Jade (also a Green Lantern previously). Kyle and Jade's relationship was a complicated but ever growing one. Their relationship went as far as Kyle proposing and Jade believing she was pregnant. His adventures have mostly been confined to Earth, with a brief period of godhood as the imposing Ion. Kyle's godlike powers had drawbacks: Ion was one with everything, but Kyle Rayner could no longer sleep or separate himself from the overwhelming responsibilities. Rather than sacrifice his humanity, Kyle abandoned omnipotence, bleeding off the vast power (recharging the Central Power Battery on the planet Oa and helping to create a new group of Guardians in the process). Once again limited only by his willpower and imagination, Rayner's ring can affect yellow and does not have a set time limit on its power, though prolonged use can leave it depleted and in need of recharging. After the brutal beating of his young assistant and friend Terry, Kyle went on a lengthy self-imposed exile into space. On his return he discovered that Jade had begun seeing someone new, and John Stewart had replaced him in the Justice League.

After being tricked, as part of a plot to steal his ring, into believing his mother had been murdered by Major Force, Kyle fought with the villain. Knowing Major Force was essentially immortal, Kyle decapitated him and shot his head off into space. Feeling that he was a danger to those he cared for, once again left for the far reaches of space.


Controversy

Cover to Green Lantern #64. Art by Darryl Banks.The editorial decision to turn Jordan into an homicidal maniac and replace him with Rayner was very controversial in comic book fandom, sparking a debate that has lasted for years in forums such as Usenet. Many fans consider the treatment of Jordan to be a betrayal of the character (some fans created a Jordan defense organization called H.E.A.T., "Hal's Emerald Advancement Team"), while other fans feel that Jordan's fate should not reflect badly on Rayner. Caught in the middle has been writer Ron Marz, who executed the editorial decision to replace Jordan with Rayner, and who has been defended as having done the best he could with a decision which was out of his hands.

The controversy is somewhat similar to that of replacing Barry Allen as The Flash with Wally West, except that Allen was, fans feel, given a heroic send-off while Jordan was not. Moreover, writer Mark Waid addressed the Allen/West controversy head-on and developed West into a fully-rounded character, while despite several attempts it is widely felt that no similar catharsis has been provided in the case of Green Lantern.

Another Jordan/Rayner controversy stemmed from the Green Lantern: Rebirth miniseries, which cleared Hal Jordan of the crimes he apparently committed as Parallax, and returned him to active duty as a Green Lantern, followed by a new Green Lantern series beginning with issue #1. With Jordan's return, Kyle Rayner's place in the pecking order is seen as uncertain, which some fans having preemptively protested the apparent retro move. However, it should be pointed out that Jordan's return means that Rayner will no longer be the "star" Green Lantern of the DC Universe, this does not necessarily mean that Rayner will disappear; Guy Gardner and John Stewart, for example, continued to be active presences throughout the decade of Jordan's absence as Green Lantern, and Gardner has now again become a GL himself. In addition, Rayner will be appearing in the Rann/Thanagar War miniseries. Following that, Rayner will co-star in a limited series called Green Lantern: Recharge with Kilowog and Guy Gardner. This has sparked further controversy due to writer (also of Rann/Thanagar War) Dave Gibbon's statements which claim that Rayner "doesn't have the soul of a Green Lantern."


Other Green Lanterns
The Green Lantern Corps had 3600 members at its peak. Some of the more notable ones:

Abin Sur was an alien (whose planet, like Earth, is also located in Sector 2814), who incongruously travelled using a spaceship, rather than the power of his ring. The Post-Crisis explanation for this was that a psychological attack by a group of exiled demons caused him to lose faith in his ring and sometimes use a ship instead. His ship crash-landed on Earth; as he lay dying, he passed his ring on to Hal Jordan.
Kilowog of Bolovax Vik (Sector 647) was an alien who recruited and trained new members of the Green Lantern Corps. His most illustrious student was Hal Jordan. When Jordan went insane, Kilowog was one of the last Green Lanterns to try stop Jordan from destroying the central battery. He was killed by Jordan, but his spirit was summoned by a group of ex-Green Lanterns bent on avenging the destruction of the Corps at Jordan's hands. He has subsequently been restored to life by Kyle Rayner. His is the only ring that makes a sound, as revealed in Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 (May 2005).
Guy Gardner is a former schoolteacher whom Abin Sur's ring selected as an alternative to Hal Jordan, but Jordan was closer so Sur chose him instead. Gardner later suffered brain damage, and was unbalanced when he recovered enough to function. He was awarded a ring by a rogue faction of Guardians during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Eventually, forced to abandon his Green Lantern Ring, Guy acquired the yellow power ring of Sinestro and his own comic series began with him using that ring. The yellow ring did not use a battery to recharge but actually needed to be used against Green Lanterns to restore power. Gardner found this out by accident when a member of the GLC fought him while he had absolutely no power. As the yellow ring of Sinestro spoke Sinestro's native language, Guy was entirely unable to communicate with the ring, although it seemed to understand him to a degree. He was to become Warrior. He served in Maxwell Lord's JLI until all Green Lantern rings lost their power when Hal Jordan (as Parallax) destroyed Oa. Finding himself powerless, he went on a quest for a mythical source of power deep in the jungle. This power source activated dormant extraterrestrial DNA in him, providing him with the ability to morph his body into various different forms -- mainly in the form of weapons. He then adopted the identity of Warrior. Gardner has since been purged of his extraterrestrial DNA and is currently a Green Lantern once more.
John Stewart is an architect who was Hal Jordan's backup after Gardner was seriously injured and served with the JLA on occasion. After Jordan gave up being Green Lantern in the 1980s, the Guardians called Stewart to full time duty as the sector's main Lantern. Stewart filled that role for some years, during which time he married Katma Tui, the Green Lantern of the planet Korugar. After Tui's murder, Stewart became the administrator of the "Mosaic World", a patchwork of communities from multiple planets that had been brought to Oa by an insane Guardian. From this position, Stewart eventually ascended to Guardianhood, which he later relinquished. During the collapse of the Corps he was a member of the Darkstars. After a brief period of paraplegia, he became Green Lantern once again and is currently a member of the latest incarnation of the JLA.
Sinestro was the Green Lantern from the planet Korugar (in Sector 1417); however, he believed that the best way to maintain order on Korugar was by using his ring to become the planet's dictator. The Guardians convicted him of criminal actions and banished him to the antimatter universe of Qward, where he was given a yellow power ring, and returned to our universe to become Hal Jordan's greatest enemy. He was apparently killed in action, helping defend the central power battery on Oa from the insane Jordan. However, he was recently seen during Green Lantern: Rebirth, where he revealed that he had somehow faked his death as part of a ploy to drive Hal Jordan mad. In a battle against Jordan, he fled to the Anti-Matter Universe.
Katma Tui led the Korugarian rebellion against Sinestro, and became his successor after the Guardians arrested him. She eventually married John Stewart and served with him in the Darkstars, but was later murdered by Star Sapphire.
Mogo is not only a Green Lantern, but is also an entire planet. Most notably featured in the Alan Moore story "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" from Green Lantern (2nd series) #188. Mogo itself is powered by Green Lantern energy and has control over its own surface and natural defenses. Mogo was also the site of the DC/Dark Horse Comics crossover miniseries Green Lantern Versus Aliens - the Green Lantern Corps during Jordan's time encountered the predatory creatures, and felt that Mogo was the best chance for containment.

Powers and abilities
All Green Lanterns wield a power ring that can generate a variety of effects and energy constructs, sustained purely by the ring wearer's strength of will. The greater the user's willpower, the more effective the ring is.

Power rings allow the user to fly and to cover themselves and others with a protective force field, suitable for travelling through outer space. They can also generate beams and solid structures of energy that can be moved simply by thinking about doing so, enabling the user to create cages, transportation platforms, walls, and battering rams. The ring can also be used to search for energy signatures or particular objects. It can serve as a universal translator. The ring can manipulate sub-atomic particles (effectively producing new elements) and split atoms, but those powers are rarely used by Green Lanterns.

The rings of the Green Lantern Corps appear to be semi-sentient computers, able to talk to and advise the user as to various courses of action.

Rings typically hold a limited charge. Alan Scott's ring and the Green Lantern Corps rings must be recharged every 24 hours. Kyle Rayner's ring also has limited energy, but no set time limit; the energy is expended by Rayner's use of the ring, so the duration of each charge is determined by his actions.

Alan Scott's ring cannot directly affect objects made of wood, and Green Lantern Corps rings cannot directly affect objects colored yellow. Originally it was believed that the Guardians wanted the rings to have a weakness to prevent a Green Lantern from becoming all powerful, although recent events have revealed that the yellow "impurity" was in fact a yellow-energy being of pure fear, trapped in the Central Power Battery. Lanterns have typically found ways to get around these limitations by affecting objects indirectly. For example, if the Lantern is faced with a yellow gas approaching him, a fan can be created to blow it away since the fan only directly affects the normal air around it, not the gas. Kyle Rayner's ring can affect both wooden and yellow objects, but his mind has proven to be susceptible to forms of external control (such as hallucinogens, psychic attacks, and other phenomena that disrupt his thought processes). Nowadays, a holder of a Corps ring can overcome the yellow weakness by recognizing the fear behind it, and facing that fear (Green Lantern (4th series) #1, July, 2005).

In addition, the effectiveness of a wielder's power ring can be adversely affected by a weakening of resolve and will. For example during the Millennium affair, Hal Jordan fought a Manhunter who psychologically attacked him in the battle to make him doubt that the people he was protecting valued the principles he was fighting for. Jordan's resolve began to weaken and his ring lost effectiveness until he was nearly defeated. However, one of his charges then struck the Manhunter declaring in so many words that she did deeply value Jordan's principles as well. With this dramatic affirmation, Jordan's faith in his cause was restored and the ring instantly returned to full power to defeat the Manhunter.

Green Lantern Corps rings typically reserve a small portion of their power for a passive force field that "protects the wielder from mortal harm". In dire emergency, that energy reserve can be tapped, at the expense of said protection, until it too is exhausted. Kyle Rayner's reconfigured ring can "run low", but never completely loses its charge; however, it doesn't shield him from harm if he's caught off-guard.

The GLC rings do not necessarily have to be worn to be wielded in some functions. For instance, Ch'p once faced a hostage situation where the villain demanded he take off his ring or the hostage would be harmed. Ch'p complied, but not before ordering the ring to fire a restraining beam on the villain seconds after being removed from physical contact (which was done, and the villain was captured). Rayner can will his ring to return to him if it is ever removed or lost.

Standard Green Lantern Corps and Alan Scott's rings can be used by anyone who wears them. Rayner's ring is keyed to his genetic pattern and is useless to anyone else (except for Hal Jordan, as shown in Green Lantern (3rd series) #99).


Television
Several Green Lanterns have appeared in animated TV shows, both as regular characters and as guest stars.


Regular roles

Green Lantern John Stewart in Justice LeagueHal Jordan was the featured character in a solo series which was part of The Aquaman/Superman Hour as well as part of the Justice League segment. In addition, the character was an occasional supporting character in the various Super Friends incarnations.

John Stewart is a member of the Justice League in the Justice League animated series. In this series, Stewart's ring was initially constrained to permitting him to fly, generating a protective force field, creating walls, and firing energy blasts; this limitation was established as being due to Stewart's mindset, not a inherent limitation of the ring itself. (The series' version of John Stewart is an ex-Marine, not an architect.) After being berated by Katma Tui for his unimaginative use of the ring, Stewart has increasingly generated complex tools (to defuse a bomb in one instance) and weapons. In a development not seen in any other version of the Green Lantern mythos, Stewart's eyes glow green as a side effect of the Ring's radiation (the glow fades when the ring runs out of power). In addition, the ring is effective against yellow; Stewart is seen fighting Sinestro in one episode and the yellow energy does not prove to be a significant problem for the Lantern.


Guest appearances
Kyle Rayner appeared as Green Lantern in one episode of Superman: The Animated Series. This incarnation appeared to be a hybrid of Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan, since he was recruited by Abin Sur, fought Jordan's old enemy Sinestro, and looked more like Jordan than Rayner. This character was later inducted into the Green Lantern Corps. (In one scene, the name of test pilot Hal Jordan is clearly visible, painted on the nose of an airplane on the tarmac at a military base.)
Rayner was briefly mentioned in one episode of Justice League and reappeared after the series became Justice League Unlimited, bearing a far greater resemblance to his comics counterpart. Kilowog, Katma Tui, and Sinestro have also appeared in the series.
A character known as Green Guardsman (real name Scott Mason) appeared in a Justice League episode in which John Stewart and several other members traveled to a parallel universe. This other universe had its own superhero group, the Justice Guild, whose members were modeled on Golden Age versions of the Justice League characters. Green Guardsman was an homage to the Golden Age Green Lantern.
The Justice League version of John Stewart has appeared in a few episodes of Static Shock, both as a member of the League and in a solo appearance.
A two-part episode of Batman Beyond featured a future Justice League Unlimited that included a Green Lantern who was an eight-year old Asian child; he later reappeared as a young adult in the Justice League Unlimited episode Epilogue. (The character was created for this appearance, and has not appeared elsewhere.) His name was Kai-ro, a tribute to Green Lantern's alien sidekick on the SuperFriends, Cairo.
The John Stewart version from Justice League is also a fad on YTMND along with his quote "Transistors? They weren't invented until after the war!"
Hal Jordan appeared briefly in a two-part episode of Justice League Unlimited in which a time-traveling villain caused the timeline to become unstable, with characters changing or disappearing as their history was altered. At one point, John Stewart morphed into Jordan, who aided the other characters for several minutes before changing back into Stewart.

Trivia
The unsuccessful pilot for a live-action Justice League of America television series in 1997 included Matthew Settle as Guy Gardner, although the pilot's Green Lantern used only the name and costume of the comic-book Gardner. In personality and appearance, he more closely resembled Hal Jordan. He wore a mask similar to the one Kyle Rayner wore as a part of his original costume. His ring closely resembled that of Alan Scott. However, this ring didn't bestow the power of flight upon its wearer -- instead, Gardner flew by using the ring to generate a helicopter rotor.
The animated series Duck Dodgers has an episode in which a mixup at the dry cleaners results in Dodgers (AKA Daffy Duck) getting Hal Jordan's outfit -- and ring. The episode includes appearances by many well-known members of the Green Lantern Corps. Hal Jordan himself shows up at the episode's finale, voiced by film director Kevin Smith, a friend of producer Paul Dini, who co-wrote the episode.
The television series The Greatest American Hero has a premise that closely resembles the Silver Age Green Lantern in many respects.
Other DC Superheroes who have wielded the GL Ring and/or powers temporarily include Superman (Action 642), Nightwing (Action 642), Green Arrow (GL:Rebirth 4) and Zatanna (Green Lantern (v2) 42).
DC Superheroes who have filled the role in DC's Elseworlds include Clark Kent (Superman: Last Son of Earth), Bruce Wayne (In Darkest Knight), and Barbara Gordon (JLA: Created Equal)

Green Lantern oath
Green Lantern is famous for the oath he recites when he charges his ring. Originally, the oath was simple:

...and I shall shed my light over dark evil.
For the dark things cannot stand the light,
The light of the Green Lantern!
In the mid-1940s, this was revised by science fiction writer Alfred Bester into the form that became famous during the Hal Jordan era:

In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!
The word "blackest" is often replaced with "darkest" to avoid racist connotations.

It has since been established that each Green Lantern has his, her, or its own oath. Notable oaths include that of Jack T. Chance:

You who are wicked and evil and mean
I'm the nastiest bastard you EVER have seen!
Come one, come all, put up a fight
I'll whup your asses with Green Lantern's light!
and that of Rot Lop Fan, a Green Lantern whose species lacks sight, and thus has no concepts of brightness, day, darkness, night, color, light, or lanterns:

In loudest din or hush profound
My ears hear evil's slightest sound
Let those who toll out evil's knell
Beware my power, the F-Sharp Bell!

Hawkman is a comic book superhero in the DC Comics universe. He is characterized by a costume with large, usually-artificial wings on a harness, and a belt with a special metal which allows him to fly, and often by his use of archaic weaponry. The name "Hawkman" has been applied to multiple fictional characters.

Hawkman is also the name of several comic book series starring the various men who have used the name.

Hawkman is also the name of a rapper who collaborated with trip-hop artist Tricky.


Publication history

The Golden Age Hawkman, from Flash Comics #71 (May 1946). Art by Joe Kubert.Hawkman first appeared in Flash Comics #1 (1940), and was a featured character in that title throughout the 1940s. This Hawkman was Carter Hall, a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian prince, who had in the modern day discovered that the mysterious "Nth Metal" ("nth" rhymes with "plinth") could negate the effects of gravity and allow him to fly. He donned a costume with large wings to allow him to control his flight and became the crimefighter, Hawkman. An archaeologist by trade, Hall uses ancient weapons from the museum of which he was curator in his efforts.

Hawkman was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, beginning with All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940). In issue #8 he became the JSA's chairman, a position he would hold until the end of the JSA's run in All Star Comics. He was the only member of the JSA to appear in every adventure in All Star Comics during the Golden Age of comic books. He romanced his reincarnated bride, Shiera Saunders, who also became the crimefighter Hawkgirl. His adventures were memorably drawn first by Sheldon Moldoff and later by Joe Kubert.

Along with most other superheroes, Hawkman's Golden Age adventures came to an end when the industry turned away from the genre in the early 1950s. His last appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951).

Later in the decade, DC Comics under editor Julius Schwartz decided to revive a number of heroes in new incarnations, but with the same names and powers. Following the success of The Flash, Hawkman was revived, this time as an alien policeman from the planet Thanagar, though his powers were largely the same. Created by Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert, this Hawkman, Katar Hol, came to Earth with his wife Shayera - Hawkgirl (later Hawkwoman) - in pursuit of a criminal, and remained to fight crime on Earth. They adopted the named Carter and Shiera Hall and became curators of a museum.

This Hawkman became a member of the Justice League of America, where he often verbally sparred with the iconoclastic liberal hero Green Arrow. In the 1960s it was revealed that the original Hawkman lived on the parallel world Earth-Two, and that Katar Hol lived on Earth-One. The JLA and JSA had an annual meeting throughout the 1960s and 1970s during which the two heroes often met.

The Silver Age Hawkman had his own series for a few years, but with declining sales it was merged with that of The Atom. Hawkman and The Atom lasted only another year or so before cancellation.

In the late 1970s in Showcase and World's Finest Comics, Thanagar went to war with the planet Rann (adopted home of Adam Strange). This led to Hawkman and Hawkgirl severing ties with their homeworld, and later fighting The Shadow War of Hawkman (written by Tony Isabella) as Thanagar tried secretly to conquer the Earth.

The landmark 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in a massive revision of much DC continuity and led to many characters being substantially rewritten. Hawkman was to suffer some of the greatest confusion as successive writers sought to explain his various appearances. In the revised timeline there was a single Earth which had witnessed the JSA in the 1940s and the JLA decades later. Successive revisions sought to establish exactly who had been Hawkman and Hawkwoman at different stages. For the first few years the pre-Crisis incarnations were still used, during which time they were prominent across the DC Universe and joined the latest incarnation of the Justice League. Then DC decided to reboot Hawkman, in a pair of series entitled Hawkworld, originally by Tim Truman, and later John Ostrander and Grant Miehm. In this series, Thanagar was a class society which conquered other worlds to enrich itself. Katar Hol was the son of a prominent official who rebelled against the status quo. He and his partner Shayera were sent to Earth and remained there for some years until Hol was apparently killed.


The reborn Carter Hall in the new Hawkman series. Art by Rags Morales.This created a host of continuity errors as the new Katar Hol was established as having only just arrived on Earth, raising the question as to who had been around previously. As an attempt to resolve the problem it was established through retcons that the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman had also operated during the 1940s, and that ninth metal came from Thanagar. They had remained active and then joined the original incarnation of the JLA. Moreover, yet another Hawkman - Fel Andar, a Thanagarian agent - had been the one who joined the Justice League during the 1980s, pretending to be a hero but secretly seeking to infiltrate it.

The series Zero Hour muddied the waters further by merging the different Hawkmen into a "hawk god", who had his own series briefly during the mid-1990s, and who had a small role in the alternate-future series Kingdom Come.

In the later 1990s, the series JSA untangled Hawkman's continuity, establishing him as Carter Hall, a man who - along with Shiera - had been reincarnated dozens of times since his life in ancient Egypt, and whose powers were derived from Thanagarian ninth metal. The Katar Hol of Hawkworld had also come to Earth during the 1990s, as established. The 1980s imposter spy went back to Thanagar. The status of the hawk god is unclear.

With this new continuity, Hawkman was again reincarnated and given a new series entitled Hawkman, written by James Robinson and Geoff Johns, with art by Rags Morales.


The Golden Age Hawkman (Carter Hall)

The Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl, from Flash Comics #37 (January 1943). Art by Sheldon Moldoff.In the days of ancient Egypt, Prince Khufu was engaged in a feud with his rival Hath-Set. Hath-Set eventually captured both Khufu and his consort Shiera, and killed them. Millennia later, in 1940, Khufu was reincarnated as American archaeologist Carter Hall, and Shiera as Shiera Saunders. Hath-Set himself was reincarnated as a scientist named Hastur. Hastur turned to evil, while Hall regained his memories of his past life and recognized Hastur.

Using the properties of "ninth metal" to craft a gravity-defying belt, Hall created wings and a costume and confronted Hastur as Hawkman. He also encountered and remembered Shiera during this time, and following Hastur's defeat the two began a romance.

Hawkman was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, and became their permanent chairman, following The Flash and Green Lantern. Shiera, meanwhile, adopted the identity of Hawkgirl and fought beside Hall throughout the 1940s.

Hawkman was JSA chair in 1951 when the JSA was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for possible Communist sympathies and asked to reveal their identities. The JSA declined, and Hawkman and most of the JSA retired for the bulk of the 1950s.

(One piece of retroactive continuity fills out early Hall history. All-Star Squadron Annual #3 states that the JSA fought a being who imbued them with energy which retarded their aging, allowing Hall and many others - as well as their spouses - to remain active into the late 20th century without infirmity.)

The JSA and Hawkman reactivated in the early 1960s following The Flash's meeting with his counterpart on the parallel world Earth-1, the JSA being active on Earth-2. Around this time, the Halls, having married, had a son, Hector, who would later become the Silver Scarab and after that an incarnation of Doctor Fate. Little is known of Hawkman's activities during the 1960s, other than the JSA's annual meeting with Earth-1's Justice League of America.

In the early 1980s, Hawkman was instrumental in denying his son and other JSA children membership in the JSA, leading directly to the formation of Infinity Inc.

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, some of Hall's history was retconned, when the parallel worlds were combined into one. It was established that he joined the Justice League shortly after its formation to be a liaison between the two teams. He remained active until the early 1990s, before being killed in the Zero Hour crisis. He was later reincarnated as the Modern Age Hawkman (see below).


The Silver Age Hawkman (Katar Hol)

The Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl, from Hawkman (First Series) #3 (August-September 1964). Art by Murphy Anderson.Katar Hol is an honored police officer on his homeworld of Thanagar. Along his wife Shayera, they use the antigravity Nth metal and their wings to fight criminals. These were the tools of an elite police unit tasked to track and apprehend the most dangerous criminals. The pair were sent to earth in 1959 to capture the shape-shifting criminal Byth. Following this mission, they elected to remain on Earth to work with authorities in the United States and learn human police methods. The two adopted covers as a pair of museum curators, Carter and Shiera Hall, and acted publicly as the heroes Hawkman II and Hawkgirl II.

Hawkman II joined the Justice League of America in the early 1960s, where he befriended The Atom and frequently sparred with Green Arrow with whose "question authority" outlook the lawman frequently disagreed. Like his contemporary heroes, Hawkman II gained a variety of unique villainous opponents, including Shadow-Thief, and the Gentleman Ghost.

Hawkman II left the JLA for a time when Thanagar was hit by the Equalizer Plague, which caused all Thanagarians to change so that their physical and mental talents, and even their heights, became the same. With the help of the JLA, Hawkman II was eventually able to reverse the effects of the plague.

However, in the wake of the plague, Thanagar adopted an expansionist outlook, and went to war with the planet Rann, which orbits Alpha Centauri. This forced Hawkman II and Hawkgirl II to choose to fight for or against their own planet, and they elected to oppose Thanagar, becoming exiles on Earth. Around this time, Hawkgirl II herself joined the JLA, and took the name Hawkwoman.

Following the truce between Thanagar and Rann, Thanagar began to secretly try to take over the Earth. Hawkman II opposed their efforts in a furtive "secret war" for several years.

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hawkman II (and Hawkgirl II/Hawkwoman) was wiped out of DC Comics continuity. (However this elimination did not take place immediately, causing the many continuity uncertainties mentioned above.)


Hawkworld and the Hawk God
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hawkman II was rebooted in a series named Hawkworld. Katar Hol is a young police officer on the planet Thanagar, and a child of a privileged family. But Thanagar is a planet which conquers and mines other worlds for their resources to maintain its high standard of living, and Hol realizes that this is wrong. He rebels against the system, and is sent into exile. However, he manages to escape and uncover and defeat the renegade police captain Byth, who had gained shape-shifting abilities. As a result, he is reinstated in the force and given a new partner, Shayera Thal - Hawkwoman - a young woman from a lower class of society.

The two are eventually sent to Earth, where they remain for some time fighting both human and alien criminals. The two have a tempestuous working relationship, and eventually Shayera breaks away from Hawkman II, who continues on alone.

This Hawkman was killed in the Zero Hour, event, merged with a number of alternate Hawkmen into a "hawk god", who adventured for a brief time under the name Hawkman before disappearing.


The Modern Age Hawkmen (Carter Hall / Fel Andar / Katar Hol)

The Modern Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl, from Hawkman (Fourth Series) #33, December 2004. Art by Kevin Nowlan.In the days of ancient Egypt, Prince Khufu and his consort Chay-Ara were travelling in the desert in the company of the wizard Nabu and the hero Teth-Adam, when they came across the wreck of a Thanagarian space ship. The vessel was styled with a hawk-like motif, and powered by Nth Metal, a mysterious substance with many marvelous attributes. Most obviously, it negated gravity, but its energy also strengthened the souls of Khufu and Shayera, binding them together in their love. Nabu used the Nth metal to create several remarkable devices, which persisted through the ages.

When the pair were murdered by the villainous Hath-Set, their souls lived on and were reincarnated over many lifetimes, always finding each other and often dying violently together, usually at the hands of the reincarnated Hath-Set. Finally, in the late 1930s, Khufu and Shayera were reborn as Carter Hall and Shiera Saunders, who went on to become the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl (see above). The pair retired in the early 1950s, but became active again in the early 1980s when Hall briefly joined the Justice League of America. Then the pair retired again.

Late in the 1980s a Thanagarian spy called Fel Andar arrived in Earth to infiltrate the Justice League as Hawkman II. Then he took on an unwitting earthwoman, Sharon Hall, as his Hawkwoman. This impostor, intending to gain his teammates confidence, claimed to be Carter and Shiera Hall's son Carter Hall, Jr. He was actually working for the future alien-alliance Invasion. When Hawkwoman learnt about the masquerade she exposed the truth to J'onn J'onzz and Maxwell Lord. Confronted by both, Hawkman II escaped back to Thanagar but not before murdering Hawkwoman for her betrayal.

Soon thereafter, Hawkman III arrived on Earth. Katar Hol was a policeman from Thanagar, part of a force which used the hawk as their symbol, and also had a winged, gravity-defying harness. He and his partner Shayera Thal fought crime on Earth as Hawkman III and Hawkwoman II until he was killed in the events of Zero Hour, then merged with Carter and Shiera Hall in a new Hawkman version, which briefly created the "hawk god" creature.

In the late 1990s a new hawk appeared, Hawkgirl II: This was Kendra Saunders, the great-niece of the original Hawkgirl (Shiera Saunders). It turned out that Kendra, a troubled youth, had committed suicide as a teenager. The wandering soul of Shiera had taken up inhabitance of the body, possessing all of Kendra's memories, and believed herself to be Kendra.

A few years later, in a mystical ceremony on Thanagar where the Justice Society had travelled to learn the truth of the Thanagarian ship which had crashed in ancient Egypt, Carter Hall was reborn as his youthful self from the 1940s, except with black hair instead of blond. Following this unorthodox resurrection, Hall has all the memories of his past lives, as well as those of Katar Hol, and find this a great burden to bear. Moreover, he has had trouble accepting that Kendra is not his beloved Shiera, a source of friction between them despite their working partnership as Hawkman and Hawkgirl II.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl II became members of the Justice Society, and operated out of the fictional city of St. Roch, Louisiana (clearly based on New Orleans).

In recent comics, a cabal of Silver Age Hawkman villains came to St. Roch and treated Hawkman with a hallucinogen called Delirium. While under the effects of the drug, he beat Hawkgirl unconscious. Wracked with grief, he and Golden Eagle (who had recently returned to the city) tracked them down and defeated them, at the cost of Carter Hall's life. Golden Eagle has since taken on the Hawkman mantle, vowing revenge and claiming to be Carter Hall's son.

The entire event is assumed to be connected to the Infinite Crisis.

Powers & abilities
All incarnations of Hawkman use a metal (called either "ninth metal" or "Nth metal") to defy gravity and allow them to fly. The metal is in their costume's belt, and its abilities are controlled mentally. Their wings allow them to control their flight, though they can be "flapped" through use of shoulder motions.

The Silver Age Hawkman also had enhanced eyesight comparable (it was said) to a hawk's. He (and, sometimes, the Golden Age Hawkman) was also able to converse with birds, though he couldn't command them as Aquaman could sea creatures.

The Silver Age Hawkman also possessed a Thanagarian police space ship and a variety of science fictional weapons.

All versions of Hawkman preferred to use archaic weaponry - particularly maces, nets, spears and shields - rather than modern or futuristic weapons. The current incarnation prefers this in part because, having the memories of living through many past lives, he is more proficient in their use than with contemporary weapons.

Superman, nicknamed The Man of Steel, is a fictional character and superhero who first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938 and eventually became one of the most popular and well-known comic book icons of all time.

The character, who was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for National Comics (today DC Comics), subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, and films. Superman was born Kal-El on the planet Krypton. He was sent to Earth in a rocket by his scientist father Jor-El moments before Krypton exploded, landing on Earth outside the town of Smallville, where he was discovered and adopted by the amiable Jonathan and Martha Kent. As he grew, he discovered that he possessed superhuman powers. When not fighting the forces of evil as Superman, he lives disguised as Clark Kent, a "mild-mannered reporter" for the Daily Planet. Clark's love interest is fellow reporter Lois Lane. In current comics he is married to her.

Synopsis
Superman's abilities and relationships have changed over time. Editors and writers used the process of retroactive continuity, or retcon, to adjust to changes in popular culture, eliminate restrictive segments of the mythos, and permit contemporary storylines. These changes, while significant, permit the retention of the core elements that make Superman an iconic character.

The story of Superman's origin parallels that of other cultural heroes and religious figures [1] who were spirited away as infants from places where they were in danger.


Cover of Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman. Art by Joe Shuster.In the legend extant in the early 1960s (and memorably summarized at the start of each episode of the 1950s Adventures of Superman television series[2]), Superman was born on Krypton as Kal-El, the son of Jor-El, a scientist and leader. When Kal-El was two or three years old, Jor-El learned that Krypton was doomed to explode, and he brought this to the attention of Krypton's ruling leaders, the Science Council. Disbelieving Jor-El's prediction, they refused to warn their fellow Kryptonians, and forbade Jor-El to do so. Jor-El promised that neither he nor his wife Lara would leave Krypton, and decided to use the little time remaining to save his son. Moments before Krypton exploded, they launched Kal-El in a rocket ship towards Earth, knowing that Earth's lower gravity and yellow sun would give the boy extraordinary powers.

Kal-El's ship landed in a field near the town of Smallville, and was discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent; (in the earliest comics, the Kents were named "John" and "Mary"; in a 1942 text novel and the 1950s television series The Adventures of Superman, the Kents were named "Sarah" and "Eben.") They named him Clark, after Martha's maiden name. After formally adopting him, the Kents raised him on their farm through his pre-school years. By the time Clark started school, the Kents had sold their farm and moved into Smallville, where they purchased a general store. During this time, both Clark and the Kents had discovered Clark's amazing powers, and, with Clark realizing the good he could do with his powers, began training their adopted son to use his powers wisely. At the age of eight, Clark adopted the superhero identity Superboy, and began to fight crime, both in the present and in a far future time as a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. After he graduated from high school and the Kents died, Clark moved to Metropolis to attend Metropolis University. During his junior year, Clark changed his superhero name to Superman. After graduating with a degree in journalism, Clark was hired by the Daily Planet.

In 1986, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, DC Comics hired writer/artist John Byrne to recreate the Superman character and retell the Superman mythos, reshaping the previous forty-eight years of stories by putting several new twists on the established mythos. In this "post-Crisis" version, starting with the miniseries The Man of Steel, Superman—like all "post-Crisis" Kryptonians— was created through in-vitro fertilization on Krypton. While a fetus, he escaped Krypton's destruction in a spacecraft (his "birthing matrix" with a rocket engine attached), and landed months later outside of Smallville, by which time he had fully gestated into an infant. Effectively this Superman was "born" on Earth, and was a "son" of Earth as much as Krypton. As in the original version, he was found and adopted by the Kents, and raised like a normal human. In the retelling, Clark's powers developed gradually, beginning with his nigh-invulnerability, and he didn't fly until he was a teenager. After leaving Smallville, he traveled the world before settling in Metropolis, completing his education, and going to work at the Daily Planet. The remodeled Clark did not become a superhero until just before starting work at the Daily Planet, when he prevented an experimental spacecraft from crashing in Metropolis. The Kents were kept alive during Clark's transition to Superman.

In the post-Crisis comics, Clark Kent is presented more as the "real" person, with Superman the secret identity that he presents to the world to prevent his enemies from harming his family or friends. Also post-Crisis, people do not suspect that Superman is hiding his real identity because he wears no mask. The concept that Clark is the real man, and the greater emphasis on his earthly upbringing, is a deliberate reversal of the earlier, pre-Crisis version. As in the original version, Lois Lane is Clark Kent/Superman's love interest. In the early 1990s, Lois and Clark fell in love. Clark soon told her he was Superman, which caused a brief strain in their relationship, but they eventually married, in the mid-1990s special Superman: The Wedding Album.

A 2004 miniseries, Birthright, introduced further changes to Superman's origin story, bringing back some of the pre-Crisis elements eliminated by John Byrne and introducing elements of the Smallville television series.

Clark Kent

Superman and Clark Kent. From Superman (volume 1) #296, February 1976. Art by Curt Swan.Clark Joseph Kent is the civilian secret identity of Superman. Though never receiving the same popular attention as the superheroic alter ego, the personality, idea, and name of Clark Kent have entered into popular culture in their own right, becoming synonymous with secret identities and fronts for ulterior motives and activities.

As first written in the earliest Superman comics, Clark Kent's primary purpose was to fulfill the basic dramatic concept that a costumed hero cannot operate as a costumed hero twenty-four hours a day, or throughout the entirety of a comic book series. As such, Kent acted as little more than a front for Superman's activities. Although his name and history were taken from his early life with his adoptive Earth parents, everything about Kent was staged for the benefit of his alternate identity — he acquired a job as a reporter for the Daily Planet for the convenience of receiving late-breaking news before the general public, providing an excuse for being present at crime scenes and having an occupation where his whereabouts do not have to be strictly accounted for as long as he makes his story deadlines.

However, in order to draw attention away from the correlation between Kent and Superman, Clark Kent adopted a largely passive and introverted personality, applying conservative mannerisms, a higher-pitched voice, and a slight slouch. This personality is typically described as "mild-mannered," perhaps most famously by the opening narration of Max Fleischer's Superman animated theatrical shorts. These traits extended into Kent's wardrobe, typically consisting of a blue business suit, a red necktie, black-rimmed glasses, and combed-back hair.

Kent wears his Superman costume underneath his street clothes, which lends itself to easy transferrence between the two personalities. However, the purpose of this convention outside of fiction is largely dramatic, allowing Kent to rip open his shirt and reveal the familiar "S" insignia when called into action. When in action, Superman usually stores his Clark Kent clothing inside a secret pouch hidden inside of his cape, though some stories have shown him leaving his clothes in some covert location for later retrieval.

In the wake of John Byrne's The Man of Steel reboot of Superman continuity, many traditional aspects of Clark Kent were dropped in favor of a more aggressive personality; Kent became a respected journalist with a more dedicated social life.

In Metropolis, Superman (as Clark Kent) works as a reporter at the Planet, "a great metropolitan newspaper" which allows him to keep track of ongoing events where he might be of help. Largely working on his own, his identity is easily kept secret. Fellow reporter Lois Lane became the object of Clark's/Superman's romantic affection. Lois's affection for Superman and her rejection of Clark's clumsy advances have been a recurring theme in Superman comics, television, and movies.

Various reasons over the decades have been offered for why people haven't suspected Superman and Clark Kent of being one and the same. In the 1970s, one such suggestion was that the lenses of Clark Kent's glasses (made of Kryptonian materials) constantly amplified a low-level super-hypnosis power, thereby creating the illusion of others viewing Clark Kent as a weak and frailer being; however, this reason was abandoned almost as quickly as it was introduced, since it had various flaws (such as stories where Batman would disguise himself as Clark Kent, among others). [3]. Other fans have noted that the disguise is effective presuming Clark is as skilled an actor as Christopher Reeve. The actor's portrayal of Clark in the feature film series was praised for making the disguise's effectiveness creditable to audiences.

Another reason given in the late 1980s was that Superman would vibrate his face slightly so that photographs would only show his features as a blur. However, more recent stories showing Superman being photographed have tended to ignore this factor.

The main means of Superman protecting his secret identity has usually been the physical distinctions between Superman and Clark Kent: Clark Kent is usually shown as wearing conservative clothing, slightly slouching, and speaking in a higher-pitched voice, along with adopting more introverted mannerisms than his heroic alter-ego. Traditionally, Lois Lane and others would often suspect Superman of truly being Clark Kent (and vice-versa), though more recent comics often feature the general public assuming that Superman (because he doesn't wear a mask, suggesting he has nothing to hide) doesn't have a secret identity; in Superman (2nd series) #2 (1987), for example, Lex Luthor was once told the truth, but he dismissed the idea because he could not believe that someone so powerful would want another identity. Also in the modern stories, Lois Lane never suspected the dual identity beyond one time when she visited the Kent farm and caught Superman and Lana Lang together. In the ensuing discussion, she asked about it, but was fooled with an improvised story by the Kents that Superman and Clark grew up together on the farm.

Furthermore, there have been several occasions where Clark and Superman have been seen together, usually staged by Superman as a means of protecting his secret identity; these means have included the use of shape-shifters posing as Superman (as seen in Action Comics #692 when Supergirl posed as Clark Kent so Superman could rescue him from a Civil Defense shelter) and the use of Superman or Clark Kent robots. Occasionally, Superman has requested people to impersonate him as in one Silver Age story in Action Comics #309 which had John F. Kennedy performing such a favor. This inadvertantly created an awkward situation for DC Comics when the story was published coincdentally a month after the President's assassination. The company attempted to stop distribution of the issue to avoid an uncomfortable inferred suggestion that Superman made his request of Kennedy knowing he would soon be dead.

When crises arise, Clark quickly changes into Superman. In the Fleischer animated series of theatrical cartoons, he often ducked into a telephone booth to make the transformation. In the comic books he rarely does so, favoring the Daily Planet's storeroom. As a dramatic plot device, Clark often has to quickly improvise in order to find a way to change unnoticed. For example in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, Kent, is comically unable to use a newer, open-kiosk pay phone, so enters a revolving door and changed clothes while spinning within it at superspeed. Thus made invisible, he appeared to enter the building as Kent and exit seconds later as Superman.

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Kent Family History
In the current Superman continuity, it was revealed that the Kent family in the 19th century were noted abolitionists who assisted the personnel of the Underground Railroad, like Harriet Tubman. The family moved to the territory of Kansas during the infamous Bleeding Kansas period to promote the cause of creating a free state by running a newspaper for the region.

Unfortunately, the family patriarch was murdered by Border Ruffians who wanted to silence him. Furthermore, the sons, Nathaniel and Jeb, argued and had a parting of the ways so deep about slavery that they found themselves on opposing sides of the American Civil War with Jeb fighting with the notorious Confederate guerrilla unit lead by William Quantrill. Nathaniel fought for the North and married a half-Native American woman who gave him a special traditional spiritual symbol that was apparently a forerunner and inspiration for Superman's chest symbol.

After the war, Nathaniel became a sheriff in Smallville, while Jeb became the leader of a group of bandits. Eventually, Jeb discovered he had a son out of wedlock years ago, and allowed him to join his gang. Unfortunately, his son turned out to be a murderous sociopath and Jeb approached his estranged brother to arrange a trap to stop his son.

Unfortunately in springing the trap, the son mortally wounded his father before being killed himself and Jeb fully reconciled with Nate before dying. Nate remained in Smallville and there the Kents have stayed for generations, including Jonathan and Martha Kent, Superman's adoptive parents.


Superman's abilities
Superman possesses extraordinary powers which render him, as stated in the lead-in to the 1950s television series, "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound". His powers were relatively limited in the early stories, but grew to become near-godlike by the 1980s. After Byrne's 1986 rewrite, Superman's powers were diminished, though have grown again since then.

His powers include:

Near invulnerability: In the 1940s, "nothing less than a bursting artillery shell could break his skin"; by the 1970s he could fly through a star and shrug off a nuclear blast. In 1986, Superman was somewhat depowered. Still able to withstand artillery shells, lasers, and even nuclear explosions, he would be killed if he flew into a star. His powers have since increased, allowing him to fly into the sun unharmed. Because Superman's powers are partly due to Earth's yellow sun, in Action Comics #782 (October, 2001), during the "Our Worlds at War" series, Superman flies through the sun, which gives him enough strength and power to move an entire planet. In addition, his immune system protects him from toxins and diseases.
Vision-related powers:
X-ray vision: The ability to see through anything except lead. He can see things behind a wall as if the wall were not there, or can "peel back" layer after layer of matter in his mind. Opponents sometimes use lead-lined constructs in an attempt to hide things from Superman. In one "post-Crisis" story this trick backfired when Superman simply scanned the field for lead, which instantly stands out as the only opaque substance to his vision, and found the hidden item easily.
Telescopic vision: The ability to see very distant objects, without violating the laws of physics.
Superman can also see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared and ultraviolet, allowing him to see in the dark.
Microscopic vision: The ability to see extremely small objects and images.
Heat Vision: The ability to apply heat to a target by staring intensely at it with the conscious act of activating his power. Visually, the power is typically depicted as twin laser beams firing from the eyes. These beams can be made invisible, allowing Superman to work undetected.
Super hypnotism: Pre-Crisis, Superman had the ability to hypnotize others at will. This ability was dropped in the modern comics. One late 1970s story, attempting to explain the effectiveness of Superman's disguise as Clark Kent, suggested that his super-hypnotism, aided by his Clark Kent glasses, worked continually to make others see him as a thin, mild mannered man, not an athlete in a suit, and even included photographs of himself. However, this theory presented numerous flaws, such as various stories where Batman would disguise himself as Clark Kent; it also failed to account for anyone studying Kent's build from behind, let alone how the illusion could work on a video camera or whenever Kent was performing his job as a TV news anchorman. For these reasons, this explanation for his disguise's effectiveness was dropped, in favor of the traditional "suspension of disbelief" status quo.
Super-hearing: The ability to hear any sound at any volume or pitch. The only Earth creature who can detect sounds at the frequency he can is a Blue Whale (0.01-200,000 Hz).
Super voice: Superman is a master ventriloquist; he used this once to rescue Lois from criminals. He is also a brilliant mimic, able to impersonate human voices or animal sounds. Pre-Crisis, Superman also possessed the power of "super-ventriloquism," or the ability to pitch his voice across vast distances, which he would use in combination with his super-hearing as a means of communication.
The power of flight, by force of will, which also allows him to maneuver precisely in any direction, as well as hover. Originally, Superman could jump 1/8 of a mile, and only acquired the ability to fly in the early 1940s, when the first Superman animated films were being produced and super-jumping proved to not look very impressive on theatre screens.
Super breath: The ability to create hurricane force winds by blowing, and to chill his breath to freeze a target (this latter ability has also been called "freeze breath").
Super speed: The ability to move at an incredible speed, like the Flash. This includes running, but flying is less strenuous and more versatile. The earliest Superman ran at a mere 30 miles per hour, but quickly became much faster; by the 1950s, Superman became capable of flying through space at faster-than-light speeds, as well as travel through time. Post-Crisis, his top speed seems to be at or near the speed of light, and he can no longer travel through time under his own power.
Super strength: The exact magnitude of Superman's strength is unknown, it is generally accepted that his strength easily surpasses the capacity to lift 100 tons, but how much more is not known exactly. This is because Superman's strength, like his other powers, has fluctuated over time, with the Man of Steel being at times able to shift a planet from its orbit. One figure for Superman's strength is 800,000 tons (pre-The Death of Superman story arc).
Super intellect: In the earliest comics, Kryptonians were endowed with genius-level intellects on their native planet. Eventually, this superior mental talent was altered to being another superpower gained only under the influence of a yellow sun (though Krypton still possessed an advanced educational and intellectual state). In the Silver Age comics, Superman possessed the intelligence of a collection of the world's greatest minds. He had a computer-like brain, which gave him total recall and the ability to speak all earthly languages and even most alien ones. His skill with science and mathematics were beyond human comprehension. However, over time, this power as a whole has been scaled back, if not eliminated, in current comics. The ability is evident in The New Batman-Superman Adventures and the Justice League cartoon series, though.
From the 1940s through the early 1980s, Superman's powers were nearly unlimited: he could travel millions of light-years in brief periods of time; he could dive into stars unharmed; he could travel through time by moving at speeds faster than light; and he could move planets and lift any weight. He could even vibrate his body so fast, the vibrations rendered him "invisible" to the human eye.

When Superman was revamped in 1986, he became more vulnerable and was no longer omnipotent. As in the original series, writers again gradually increased his powers. Since "coming back to life" during The Death of Superman story arc, Superman can once again survive nuclear blasts, though they leave him wounded and weakened, and he can no longer fly faster than the speed of light or travel through time under his own power. His strength too has increased, to the point of allowing him to move mountains again.


How Superman's powers work
Superman's powers are derived from his Kryptonian biology and Earth's sun (a yellow star), and are likely increased by Earth's lesser gravity (versus Krypton's higher gravity).

Various explanations have been offered over the years explaining how Superman's powers work. In the earliest comics, all Kryptonians were said to possess superpowers while on Krypton. By the late 1940s, this was changed to Kryptonians only gaining superpowers when under a lower gravity environment such as Earth's. In the early 1960s, after the introduction of Supergirl, this was amended to Kryptonians deriving their powers from mainly exposure to a yellow sun (vs. Krypton's red sun), as well as to a much lesser degree Earth's lower gravity; when under a red sun, a Kryptonian would be completely powerless, even if it was a low-gravity environment. John Byrne in his 1986 reboot suggested that Superman's powers were telekinetic in their functioning (in addition to the traditional yellow sun explanation).

One such "scientific" explanation used in various recent analyses of how Superman's powers might work is as follows:

Kryptonian mitochondria absorb certain wavelengths of the radiation emitted by solar fusion. Under a red sun, this yields increased abilities, which are multiplied a thousand-fold by a yellow sun. The solar energy supplements respiration, such that when cellular materials (perhaps Kryptonian ATP) combine with glucose, they produce abilities beyond those of humans under a yellow sun.

"K-ATP" is produced rapidly, enabling a Kryptonian to build up reserves that permit days of super-powered activity in the absence of sunlight. In addition, Krypton's gravity was 50-100 times stronger than Earth's, so Kryptonian cells are also much stronger and denser than a human's.

Under a yellow sun, other factors contribute to invulnerability. First, cell membranes and organelles become more resistant to harm; secondly, a bioelectric field surrounds the cells, making them thousands of times tougher. This "aura" surrounds Superman's epidermis and teeth, and possibly his nails as well. His hair is invulnerable, too. Superman has been shown shaving and presumably cutting his hair by reflecting his heat vision off of a piece of curved, reflective metal from the rocket in which he landed. In fact, any type of reflective metal will work, as shown in Action Comics #663 (page 11). When his cells become "supercharged" under a yellow sun, a Kryptonian becomes super-powered. He is invulnerable to forces under 1 kt., and is harmed only by repeated blows of over 1 mt. His brain and nervous system keep up with his enhanced speed, as they too are amplified by K-ATP.

Superman's other senses are less linked to solar energy than his strength and speed. Due to Earth's denser air, he can hear things no human can. Solar energy magnifies its accuracy, allowing him to fine-tune it. His taste, smell, and touch are equally acute. He sees all wavelengths, from radio to X-rays, allowing him to detect thermal trails and other "invisible" things.

Superman's cells store vast amounts of yellow solar energy. He replenishes his supply even on cloudy days, and weakens only after a week without sunlight. Near a red sun, his powers would fail faster. Red solar radiation creates a chemical which does not lead to the super energy produced by K-ATP. Kryptonite exposure also stops the process that converts yellow sunlight into superpowers, leaving Superman immediately weakened. His powers return quickly once the kryptonite is removed. In recent comics, Superman seems to be slowly building up immunity to kryptonite, and it is possible that its effect is in part psychological. In several late 1980s and early 1990s storylines, Kryptonians demonstrated a biological and possibly psychological link to their planet, which may explain the intense effects Superman experiences when in the presence of different types of kryptonite. In one of the storylines' issues, however, Jor-El explained to Lara that he eliminated the particular weakness that connects Kryptonians to their planet from Kal-El while he was still in his birthing matrix, which could also mean that kryptonite effects might be a result of the lack of connection to Superman's home planet.

Earlier in his life, as in his battle with Doomsday, Superman's solar energy supply was depleted by exertion. More recent exertions caused less of a power drain, suggesting that he is now either storing more energy, or growing stronger under the yellow sun. It is unknown whether higher energy stars might increase his powers even more.

Weaknesses
There are some things Superman cannot do. Since he is not human, he cannot donate blood, tissue, or organs. Procedures like surgery are impossible without special equipment. He does not sweat under earthly conditions, as no temperatures are high enough to make him secrete liquid to cool himself down. The issue of whether Superman can father children is humorously explored in the movie Mallrats, as well as in the essay Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by sci-fi author Larry Niven (originally published in his 1971 collection All the Myriad Ways.). On the final episode of the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, the pair adopted a child who, like Clark, came from mysterious origins. But historically, many stories have established that Superman can in some manner have progeny.

As a Kryptonian, he has one specific area of vulnerability. Since Krypton was destroyed, its remains (rendered radioactive by the explosion) have been spreading throughout the universe as kryptonite, a crystalline substance which has several major variants:

Green kryptonite is fatal to Kryptonians exposed to it for a sufficient period of time, and causes immediate intense pain to Kryptonians upon exposure. It can also give humans cancer, as in the case of Lex Luthor.
Red kryptonite has unpredictable effects on Kryptonians' physical or mental states, such as splitting Superman in two, inducing amnesia, turning him into a giant, etc. The effects wear off in 24-48 hours, after which a Kryptonian becomes immune to that particular piece. In the television series Smallville, red kryptonite causes the repressed, more violent and less conscientious part of his personality to gain control; on Lois and Clark, red kryptonite had three different effects: one inducing a sense of apathy, one transferring all powers to another being, and one amplifying his powers by seven times. In the "Tower of Babel" story arc in the JLA comic book, a piece of synthetic red kryptonite made his skin invisible, allowing the sun to supercharge his cells past their normal limit and cause great pain to Superman himself.
Gold kryptonite permanently removes a Kryptonian's superpowers. In Action Comics #823 (March, 2005), yellow or gold synthetic Kryptonite was used to give a frail man incredible size and strength, rivaling that of Superboy AND Superman. This particular kryptonite was apparently uniquely different from regular Gold Kryptonite, in that it was part of a plan by Gog to weaken and age Superman.
Blue kryptonite affects only Bizarros, in the same way that green kryptonite affects only Kryptonians. In some story arcs, it can also counteract the effects of red kryptonite.
White kryptonite affects (and kills) only plant life.
Jewel kryptonite gave Phantom Zone prisoners amplified mental powers.
Slow Kryptonite is a modified variety of Green Kryptonite produced by a Terran scientist that decelerates the speed of nerve impulses, and movements of both Kryptonians and Terrans.
X-Kryptonite was created by Supergirl while she was trying to find a cure for Green Kryptonite. It gives Terrans, or at least Terran cats, Kryptonian style powers for a limited time. See also: Streaky the Supercat.
Anti-Kryptonite affected non-superpowered Kryptonians in the same way that Green Kryptonite affected superpowered Kryptonians. This form of kryptonite was what killed the residents of Argo City.
For more information on kryptonite, see also: Kryptonite.

Other variants were introduced sporadically, but after the 1986 John Byrne reboot, all versions except for green were retconned out of existence. Since that time, an updated version of red kryptonite was reintroduced into the comics. Recently, with the destruction of the Kryptonite meteor in Superman/Batman, large quantites of kryptonite have fallen to earth; new forms beyond the red and green are believed to be amongst them, however, only Blue Kryptonite has been seen in addition to the previously known types so far. The effects of the new Blue Kryptonite were unknown until recently, when, in a Superman/Batman comic, a Bizarro-Batman (self-proclaimed "Batzarro") was shown giving a Blue Kryptonite ring to Bizarro, causing Bizarro to actually speak normally and intelligently while still being "postively lethal" to him.

Kryptonians are also vulnerable to magical and psychic effects, although they are no more detrimentally affected by such effects than a normal human would be.


Equipment
Given his abilities, personal equipment plays less of a role for Superman than for other superheroes.

The Fortress of Solitude, located in the Arctic in the pre-Crisis version of the mythos and (until recently when it was moved to the Amazon) in Antarctica in the post-Crisis version, serves as Superman's secret base of operations. The Fortress acts as Superman's personal getaway, although it has communications equipment for urgent messages. While various 1940s comics made mention of Superman having a "mountain retreat," the Fortress in its familiar sense was first introduced in the comics in 1958.

Pre-Crisis, the Fortress included laboratories, a private zoo of alien animals, a room for communication with the Phantom Zone with a projector to place or remove people from it, a Krypton memorial, a trophy room, and a gym with custom exercise equipment. It also had tribute rooms to personal friends like Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Batman, and Clark Kent (to throw off suspicion about his secret identity by visitors unfamiliar with it), where Superman prepared special gifts for each in the event of his death. Most importantly, the Fortress was where Superman stored the bottle city of Kandor, which pre-Crisis, was a Kryptonian city shrunken and stolen by Brainiac prior to the planet's destruction. For years, Superman worked to reverse the city's condition, while also enjoying the opportunity to visit a native community where he was an honored guest.

Post-Crisis, the Fortress was originally created by the Kryptonian artifact, the Eradicator, when Superman tried to dispose of it in Antarctica. The device created the Fortress which contains much of Krypton's technology, including artificially intelligent robots. Superman and fellow superhero Steel encased the Fortress in a tesseract, permitting the Man of Steel to carry the Fortress wherever he travels. Superman also stores in the Fortress various equipment, weapons, and vehicles of Kryptonian design, including a large fighting mecha called a battlesuit and a means of accessing the Phantom Zone.

A trademark of the Fortress in all of its incarnations is a memorial statue of his Kryptonian parents, Jor-El and Lara, holding up a globe of the planet Krypton.

Superman, in the pre-Crisis comics, also had androids that could impersonate himself (as both Superman and as Clark Kent). He largely abandoned them when Earth's pollution began to interfere with their functions. Post-Crisis, Superman at one time had built various Superman robots; however, all but one were destroyed, with the sole remaining robot currently being kept on duty at the Fortress of Solitude. This one remaining robot was destroyed by superheroine Donna Troy, at the expense of her own life, though she was soon resurrected.

For situations involving kryptonite, Superman in the original comics had a collection of lead-lined suits for protection. If his powers were disabled or he needed stronger protection, Superman also had his "Supermobile," a small flying car-like vehicle which could fly anywhere and use its powerful waldo arms to handle outside objects.

Superman's costume was created by Ma Kent; pre-Crisis, she created it out of the blankets from the rocket that brought him to Earth. Said blankets, like everything else from Krypton under a yellow sun environment such as Earth's, shared Clark's invulnerability. His armor-like costume could also protect others that wore it. While carrying passengers in flight, Superman would wrap them in his cape to protect them from air friction. In the post-Crisis comics, his costume is invulnerable because of the bioelectric field that his cells produce (see how it works).

In the original comics, Clark's eyeglass lenses were made from two small rounded pieces of glass from his spaceship. Since they were of Kryptonian origin, Clark could fire his heat vision through them without melting them (in contrast, the post-Crisis Clark has to lift his glasses [made of ordinary materials] off his eyes when he uses his heat vision). Superman also sometimes carries spare change in his hollowed-out belt buckle, which also doubles as a Justice League communication device. In recent comics (as seen in Superman/Batman), the belt buckle was made of lead and stored a fairly safe synthetic form of kryptonite for Clark to use. When he had Kandor in his possession in the pre-Crisis comics, all of these improvisations were supplemented by the products of the professional tailors and lenscrafters available in the bottle city.

Personality and character
Originally, Superman's personality could be rough and destructive. In one really early story in which the government would not help maintain low income areas unless a disaster occurred, Superman went on a rampage and created one. Superman is also nearly always portrayed as having had some hand in WWII, when the timeline permits. As superhero stories became more oriented toward young readers, the writers moved toward his better known "boy scout" persona. Even so, Superman's capacity for a violent anger is a key element to many of the most dramatic moments in his appearances, since it is this sort of telling snapshot into his psyche that allows readers and watchers to see that Superman's goodness is not inherent to his being, but learned, like it is with us.

This is why, despite the emphasis on Superman having powers "far beyond those of mortal men," his name referred also to his goodness. While Jor-El sent Kal-El to Earth because he felt the human race had the capacity to be great and good if they wished to be, it is clear that Kal-El chose to become Superman and a force for good. The education he received on the family farm is the most potent symbol for 'old fashioned values' one can conjure, and this helps ground the character. He seems out of place and out of touch with his world because he is, in fact, the product of 'better times' more than the real world.

Superman has been willing to lay down his life or sacrifice his powers for good. He rescues cats from trees and participates in community fund-raisers. He often acts behind the scenes and lets others receive the credit. His modesty and humility catches his foes and critics off-guard, as they do not understand why he spends his life helping others and doing good.

Recent writers have attempted to deepen Superman's persona and provide a rationale for his goodness. They reveal his self-doubts, and his fear that he might abuse his powers and become a monster, subject to no one. He therefore makes it a point of submitting to authority, helping him to feel a restraint on his actions. In an extraordinary show of mutual respect, Superman has given Batman a ring of green kryptonite, so that if he ever lost his reason, posing a danger to himself or to humans, Batman could use the ring to defeat him.

This line of thinking, that Superman is a hero as deeply conflicted with his gifts as Batman is with his past, is key to the modern interpretation of Superman not as a better man, but what is best in man. It is also important that Superman often struggles with vast social issues in his fiction, including tackling world hunger, unsuccessfully, in a short wide-panel 1990s graphic novel called Peace on Earth. (with artwork by Alex Ross). Through these conflicts, discussions of good and evil are formed, as Superman struggles with restraint in the face of bigotry, avarice, and cruelty. In this manner, Superman's excessive arsenal of powers is rendered secondary to his ability to convince others to act.

This was a further motivation for Superman becoming a reporter, for it is then possible that his physical abilities give him no unfair advantage in a field where the critical skills are intellectual (although his editor, Perry White, praised him in Superman: The Movie as "the fastest typist I have ever seen"). He writes fiction in his spare time, publishing two books, "The Janus Contract" and "Under a Yellow Sun".

Far from a perfect individual, Superman is often pictured with a sense of childish innocence mixed with patriarchal restraint. He is also a man with an incredible depth of feeling, since he lives within his own mind as much as he does in the reality of society, often struggling with the differences between the right answer and the practical one. In many ways, Superman is truly one of the most "human" heroes conceived, since he responds to emotional grief in stark contrast to the way he shrugs off bullets, bombs, and death-rays. Superman's daily martyrdom is reflected tellingly in print during his reappearance in the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come, where he is pictured as a bearded carpenter with a long beam of wood across his back, mirroring a Christ-like image of a man who gave himself for a world that, in that storyline, did not love him.

Superman's "lily white" persona has been mocked, ridiculed, and spoofed, especially in recent comic book history, when "grim and gritty" comics dominated the market. Superman may seem old-fashioned and even quaint compared to the "dark avengers" who currently command the lion's share of the market, and this is intentional. Superman fights fair long after both sides have begun swinging below the belt, knowing that his vast powers require him to act with equal restraint. On several recent occasions, Batman has faced Superman, and Batman has served as a foil to Superman's goodness; Batman, in his more recent incarnations, won't hesitate to use guile or underhanded tactics to gain an advantage, while Superman will be overly hesitant to use his natural gifts as an unfair edge. Indeed, Batman has undergone an increasingly dark makeover. However, Superman continues to be a driving force in the medium after more than sixty years. He has been seen as an "Old School" hero, valuing the safety in others, keeping his clean image made his comics a sharp contrast to Marvel or Image comics, with ruthless anti-heroes. Superman is seen as a more conservative hero, along with Hawkman and Hal Jordan (pre-Parallax era), as opposed to the more liberal heroes like Batman and Green Arrow.

History

Cover of Superman #14, dated January-February 1942. Art by Fred Ray.Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster not as a hero, but as a villain. Their short story "The Reign Of The Superman" concerned a bald-headed villain bent on dominating the world. The story did not sell, forcing the two to reposition their character on the right side of the law. In 1935, their Superman story was again rejected, but DC Comics printed another of their creations, Dr. Occult, who made his first appearance in New Fun Comics #6, October 1935.

The revised Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, June 1938. Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the company for $130. DC copied the character without remuneration to the creators, while suing other companies for copying it. The Saturday Evening Post reported in 1941 that the pair was being paid $75,000 each per year, still a fraction of DC's Superman profits. In 1946, when Siegel and Shuster sued for more money, DC fired them, prompting a legal battle that ended in 1948, when they accepted $200,000 and signed away any further claim to Superman or any character created from him. DC soon took Siegel's and Shuster's names off the byline.

During a multimedia career spanning over sixty years, Superman has starred in every imaginable situation, throughout the universe, and in many eras of history. Facing myriad perils, his powers have increased to the point that he is nearly omnipotent. This poses a challenge for writers: "How does one write about a character who is nearly as powerful as God?" (Superman's Kryptonian name, Kal-El, resembles the Hebrew words for "all that God is") This problem contributed to a decline in Superman's popularity, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, when Marvel Comics brought a new level of character development to mainstream comic books. By the early 1980s, DC Comics had decided that a major change was needed to make Superman more appealing to current audiences. Writer-artist John Byrne joined Superman and re-started with his The Man of Steel retelling of his origin. This 1986 reboot brought substantial changes to the character and met huge success at the time, being one of the top-selling books. The re-launch of Superman comic books returned the character to the mainstream, again in the forefront of DC's titles.

Some fans debated whether the more drastic changes were necessary, and some of the more traditional historical elements Byrne removed from the backstory were later restored. Byrne himself quit the books after a few years because he felt DC was not supporting the changes he made. But Byrne's changes became the template for Superman's origin and characterization for almost two decades. Most notably, his alterations to Lex Luthor, altering him from a scientific oriented villain to a businessman remain to this day.

Two alterations have had long-term effects. In the epic The Death of Superman storyline, the hero apparently died at the hands of supervillain Doomsday. He returned from the dead, though his "death" gave rise to a number of new characters and storylines. In 1996, Superman (or rather, Clark Kent) finally married Lois Lane, and the two have had a happy marriage... so far. Future editorial changes to the series may reverse some or all of these changes.

In 2003, DC Comics released a 12-issue maxiseries titled Superman: Birthright, written by Mark Waid and penciled by Lenil Francis Yu; this was made into a retcon of Superman's post-crisis origin, replacing Byrne's version, but yet using many elements from that version, along with elements that subtly tie into the Smallville television show.


Supporting characters
Familiar supporting characters in the Superman mythos include:

Lois Lane: Superman's love interest, who is traditionally portrayed as being indifferent to Clark, but in love with Superman; in current comics, Clark and Lois are married. Actresses portraying Lois have included Noel Neill, Phyllis Coates, Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, and Erica Durance.
Jimmy Olsen: Daily Planet photographer who often works with Lois and Clark, and has become a good friend to both. Jimmy is also known to have associated with Superman, earning him the nickname "Superman's Pal."
Perry White: Editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet. Is noted for his trademark cigars and gruff but caring demeanor with his staff.
Lana Lang: Clark Kent's childhood friend from Smallville. Pre-Crisis, Lana often suspected Clark of being Superboy; post-Crisis, Clark told Lana about his powers in high school before leaving Smallville. Later, Lana married Pete Ross, and had a son named Clark; Lana and Pete later divorced.
Pete Ross: Clark Kent's childhood friend from Smallville. Pre-Crisis, Pete accidentially discovered Clark was really Superboy, but kept the knowledge a secret from Clark. Post-Crisis, he didn't learn Clark's secret until much later, and had married Lana Lang, with whom he had a son named Clark; Lana and Pete later divorced. Pete Ross was recently revealed to be a villain named Ruin.
Lori Lemaris: A mermaid who Clark Kent dated while attending Metropolis University, and was the first person he proposed marriage to (though Lori turned him down). Lori returned to current comic continuity as a prelude to Clark and Lois's short-lived breakup in a 1996 storyline.
Jonathan and Martha Kent: Superman's foster parents who adopted and raised him after he landed on Earth. Often referred to as Ma and Pa Kent.
Supergirl: Pre-Crisis, Supergirl was Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin from Argo City, a city that for a time had survived the destruction of Krypton until its residents died of kryptonite radiation. Post-Crisis, several unrelated versions of Supergirl have been introduced. In recent issues of Superman/Batman, a new "Supergirl from Krypton" (looking very much like the original) arrived on Earth.
Steel: An engineer genius named John Henry Irons who created a high-tech, mechanized suit of armor to fight crime in, after Superman's death in the Death of Superman storyline, and still serves as a superhero today.
Superboy: Pre-Crisis, Superboy was Superman's superhero identity as a teenager. Post-Crisis, Superboy is a clone, originally thought to have been of Superman, that was created after Superman died during the Death of Superman storyline. He soon found out that he was a clone of Paul Westfield. However, recently in Teen Titans, it was revealed that Superboy is actually a hybrid of human and Kryptonian DNA, with the human DNA coming from Lex Luthor. The Westfield connection has not been re-explained since.
Krypto: Pre-Crisis, Krypto was the El family's pet dog on Krypton, who eventually wound up on Earth and gained superpowers like Superman's. Recent comics have introduced an updated version of Krypto; this version currently lives with Superboy (Kon-El).
The Justice League of America: a team of superheroes of which Superman is a member and often the leader. Other notable JLA members include Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern.
In Metropolis, Superman enjoys a close relationship with the police department. This especially applies to the Special Crimes Unit (SCU), a police unit that deals with superpowered threats, led by Captain Margaret Sawyer, one of the few openly gay characters in mainstream superhero comics today.

There have been a number of characters called Superboy. The original Superboy, introduced in 1944's More Fun Comics #101, represented "the adventures of Superman when he was a boy." This Superboy is no longer in publication, as post-Crisis continuity deemed that Clark Kent did not become a superhero until he reached adulthood. A new Superboy character who is a clone of Superman was created in the early 1990s; adventures featuring this character continue to be published. The Superboy name has also been the name of denizens of other dimensions, such as one from a "pocket universe" parallel dimension in the late 1980s post-Crisis Superman comics, and several individuals the current Superboy encountered during his trip through Hypertime (one of those essentially being an exact double of the pre-Crisis Superboy). See also: Superboy.

Pre-Crisis, Superman's foster parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, died in the summer after his high school graduation; post-Crisis, the Kents are alive and well and are regularly visited by Clark, who relies on them for advice in difficult times.


Villains
Superman also has a rogues gallery of supervillain enemies, including:

Lex Luthor: Superman's most well-known enemy. Pre-Crisis, Luthor was a rogue scientific genius with a personal vendetta against Superman. Post-Crisis, Luthor is portrayed as a powerful but corrupt CEO of a conglomerate called LexCorp, but still has the same hatred of Superman.
Darkseid: A cruel and merciless alien who rules the planet Apokolips and only deals with Superman when it benefits his own agenda. Not originally created as a Superman villain, but by Jack Kirby for his New Gods series.
Bizarro: An imperfect duplicate of Superman. Pre-Crisis, Bizarro was created by an imperfect duplicator ray; post-Crisis, he originally was a failed experiment of Lex Luthor's. More recently, a newer version similar to the pre-Crisis version was reintroduced.
Metallo: A cyborg criminal who prefers using kryptonite as his power source, which makes him a deadly threat to Superman.
Mr. Mxyzptlk: A being from the fifth dimension with magical powers who delights in tormenting Superman and traditionally could only be made to return to his native dimension by being made to say or spell his own name backwards.
Brainiac: An alien scientist from the planet Colu, intent on conquring Earth; pre-Crisis, Brainiac was portrayed as being an android. Post-Crisis, he was portrayed as a circus mentalist named Milton Fine who was possessed by a Coluian intelligence. During "The Doomsday Wars" storyline, however, Fine's body was destroyed and Brainiac once more inhabited a robotic body.
Phantom Zone criminals: Pre-Crisis, these were Kryptonian criminals imprisoned in a dimension called the "Phantom Zone", in which they only existed in a ghostlike form; this allowed them to survive the destruction of Krypton. Various such criminals would sometimes escape and attack Superman.
General Zod: Pre-Crisis, Zod was one of the main Phantom Zone criminals that fought with Superman. Post-Crisis, Zod was first depicted as a Phantom Zone criminal that Superman encountered in an alternate dimension; eventually, this Zod was killed by Superman with kryptonite. A second version of Zod was later introduced as a product of Soviet genetic engineering, surgically altered to mimic Superman.
Parasite: A janitor (Maxwell Jensen pre-Crisis; Rudy Jones post-Crisis) who had been mutated into a super-powered man who could absorb the powers, strength, and memories of any organic being, and wanted Superman's power for himself.
Intergang: A nationwide organized crime syndicate armed with weapons supplied in part by Darkseid.
Doomsday: A mindless, impossibly powerful, raging monster that killed Superman during the Death of Superman storyline. During the Last Laugh storyline, a "jokerized" Doomsday that had been reengineered with changes from Superman's DNA attained intelligence; Darkseid and Lex apparently had a deal to make clones of Doomsday. A version of Doomsday seen recently attained more than just the ability to talk, but the ability to reason and experience emotion, which ultimately turned him from an evil monster to a hero that saved Superman in the present and in an alternate future.
Imperiex: An all-powerful force of nature whose purpose is destroying galaxies. Eventually, Superman, Steel, and Darkseid stopped Imperiex by using Doomsday as an ally, along with a powerful weapon called the Entropy Aegis.
Toyman: An insane criminal who uses special equipment and weapons based on toys.
The Cyborg Superman: A reanimated astronaut cyborg who briefly impersonated Superman after his death, and also destroyed Green Lantern Hal Jordan's home of Coast City.
Gog: A human from the future who masters time travel, and hates Superman for allowing his parents to die.

Comics that regularly feature Superman
Current comics starring Superman:

Superman
Action Comics
Adventures of Superman
Superman/Batman
All Star Superman forcoming
Current comics in which Superman does not star, but appears regularly:

JLA
JLA Classified
Justice League Unlimited

Additional reading
Last Son of Krypton - a novel by Elliot S! Maggin: Superman's "life story" is told and he faces a mysterious alien ruler.
Miracle Monday - a novel by Elliot S! Maggin: tells the story of Superman trying to stop an entity of pure evil from causing universal chaos.
"For the Man Who Has Everything" - written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons: Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman journey to Superman's Fortress of Solitude to celebrate his birthday only to find their friend rendered comatose by the evil alien Mongul by an alien parasite that grants its host the illusion of their heart's desire. This story was originally published in Superman Annual #11 and recently adapted for the animated series Justice League Unlimited by J.M. DeMatteis. Reprinted in Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore (ISBN 1401200877)
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? - written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Curt Swan and George Pérez: The final chapter on the pre-Crisis Silver/Bronze Age Superman. Originally published in Superman #423 and Action Comics #583.
The Man of Steel - written and illustrated by John Byrne: The revamp of Superman's origins following the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The Death of Superman, World Without a Superman, and The Return of Superman - written by various artists, notably Dan Jurgens: the story of Superman's death, the world's (and his loved ones') reaction, and his eventual return. A novelization of the trilogy, entitled The Death and Life of Superman, was written by Roger Stern.
Kingdom Come - written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Alex Ross: A painted epic, in which Superman has temporarily retired, giving way to a new breed of reckless, morally ambiguous superheroes. The story was novelized by Elliot S! Maggin.
Superman For All Seasons - written by Jeph Loeb, illustrated by Tim Sale: Superman as a young man in a timeless, Rockwellian America, from confused lad to superpowered metropolite.
Superman: Red Son - written by Mark Millar, illustrated by Dave Johnson: Elseworlds story asks "What if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union?" Superman now stands for workers' rights and the struggle for global equality, and sets out to promote world communism.
Superman: Birthright - a twelve issue maxi-series written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Leinil F. Yu: A "re-imagining" of Superman which brings back some old, pre-Crisis concepts and adds new modern ones.
"Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter" - written and illustrated by Kyle Baker: Letitia babysits the superpowered baby Clark, who rampages around the Kent's farm and ends up in a microwave oven. The story won the Eisner Award for Best Short Story in 2000.

Adaptations in other media

The 1941 theatrical cartoon Superman, produced by the Fleischer Studios.
George Reeves as Superman (1951)
Actor Christopher Reeve as Superman
Actor Dean Cain as Superman
Actor Brandon Routh as Superman in "Superman Returns" due in 2006.The Superman character has made the transition to radio, television, and movies, each on multiple occasions. Among the actors who have played the role are George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, and Dean Cain.

1940s: Superman radio series, starring Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander
1940s: Two Superman serials starring Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill: Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman
1951: "Superman And The Mole Men", feature film, and The Adventures of Superman TV series, both starring George Reeves
1966: "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman", a Broadway musical; lyrics by Lee Adams, music by Charles Strouse. WTOP-TV (now W*USA) used a news theme music based on the play.
1975: "It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman", TV special
1978 Superman: The Movie, starring Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, and Christopher Reeve
1980s: Superman films: Superman II, Superman III, and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, starring Christopher Reeve
1985: Supergirl spin-off movie, starring Helen Slater
1988: Superman's 50th Birthday, TV Special
Early 1990s: Superboy television series, starring John Haymes Newton (1988-1989) and Gerard Christopher (1989-1992)
Mid-1990s: Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman television series, starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher
2000s: Smallville television series, starring Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, and Kristin Kreuk, which places Smallville in Kansas
2006: Superman Returns, to be directed by Bryan Singer. Starring Brandon Routh as Superman/Clark Kent & Kevin Spacey as his archenemy, Lex Luthor.
There have also been numerous animated cartoon series starring the Man of Steel:

1940s: Fleischer Studios' Superman theatrical cartoons (17 in all, with Bud Collyer providing the voice of Superman)
1960s: Filmation's Batman-Superman Adventure Hour
1966: New Adventures of Superman
1970s: Hanna-Barbera Productions produces several Super Friends series
Early 1980s: Super Powers: Galactic Guardians
Late 1980s: Short-lived Superman series based on the "new" DC Comics Superman produced by Ruby-Spears
1990s: Superman: The Animated Series by Warner Bros.
Late 2000: Batman Beyond episodes "The Call Parts 1 & 2" by Warner Bros.
2000s: Justice League: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited by Warner Bros.
Superman/Batman Independent release directed by Sandy Collora.
The last three are in continuity with Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs, forming what some fans call the "Diniverse", named after Paul Dini, who writes and produces the shows.


Cultural influences

USPS stamp honoring Superman's first appearanceSome people incorrectly believe that Superman is partly based on philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch, which literally translates to “overman” but could also mean “superman.” Nietzshe’s Übermensch is any person who rejects unfounded thinking. Some people argue that kryptonians’ mental and physical superiority when compared to humans is meant to indicate that they are racially better, as eugenics would teach. Others say that kryptonian super powers are merely a contrivance and the more advanced world of Krypton represents what the people of Earth can achieve in our future. This theory is bolstered by the fact that our own sun is getting older and will someday turn red, so if the universe with Superman’s physics were to apply to reality then someday Earth would produce humans who, when energized by a yellow sun, would likely have the same powers as Superman.

Superman is believed to have been inspired in part by Philip Wylie's 1930 science fiction novel Gladiator, about a man whose superhuman strength inspires him to help the human race, but who is instead spurned by humanity precisely because of his power. Other sources cited as inspirations include Doc Savage and The Shadow. Superman is a staple of American pop culture.

DC Comics has trademarked variations on the "super" theme, such as "superdog" and "supergal", to circumvent parody or product confusion. Nevertheless, a great many imitations and parodies of Superman have appeared over the years. One of the first Superman-like characters to emerge, Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel, sparked legal action because of its similarities to Superman. Well-known spoofs of Superman include Mighty Mouse, Underdog, Super Grover, and Super Goof.

In the 1990s, comic book artist and writer Rob Liefeld created a Superman pastiche and starred him in his own comic book series, Supreme. The series, published by Liefeld's Awesome Comics, sold moderately well at first, but sales dwindled until the series was taken over with issue #41 by writer Alan Moore. Moore produced 22 issues of Supreme that paid homage to the classic "Silver Age" Superman.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld expressed his fandom of Superman in several ways. On the Seinfeld TV show, a Superman statue sat on the stereo in Jerry's livingroom, and a Superman refrigerator magnet was always visible in his kitchen. Jerry affectionately addressed some of his girlfriends as "Lois Lane". Seinfeld is also famous for having a Superman reference in every episode. In 1998, an American Express commercial featured real-life Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman as buddies holding a running conversation around New York City, (directed by David Kellogg).

One of the few Superman-like characters that DC Comics allowed to stand without litigation is Hyperion, from Marvel Comics's superhero team, Squadron Supreme. The Squadron Supreme was created to do unofficial JLA/Avengers crossovers; the "new" characters were thinly veiled versions of their DC JLA counterparts. Hyperion stood in for Superman, the Whizzer for The Flash, etc. DC in turn introduced the "Assemblers of Angar", a thinly-veiled Avengers pastiche. Hyperion has been revamped in a new Marvel series, Supreme Power, giving a new take on the Superman mythology.

In 2004, local authorities in Sweden refused to allow a child to be named Stålmannen, which means Superman (literally: The Man of Steel). The Swedish parliament was considering at the time whether to intervene and overrule the initial judgement.[4]

Aquaman is a DC Comics superhero. Created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (1941).

Like Marvel Comics’ Sub-Mariner, Aquaman is an undersea hero originating from the mythical kingdom of Atlantis. His alter ego is Arthur Curry, an Atlantean orphan found and raised by a human lighthouse keeper. He learned about his origin in adulthood and vowed to defend the kingdom of the sea.

Aquaman was a minor but durable hero during the Golden and Silver ages of comic books, appearing in back-up stories of more popular heroes and becoming a founding member of the all-star Justice League. He was featured in Super Friends, (1972-85), a cartoon adaptation of the League, increasing his visibility.

Although the premise of a sea-based hero has provided fodder for comedians (both Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have referenced the character in routines), writers who penned Aquaman’s series in the 1990s and 2000s have portrayed him as a grim hot-headed anti-hero.


Other characters
Aquaman's closest companions include Mera, his wife who can form structures made from hard water, and Tempest, an outcast orphan whom Aquaman took under his wing. Other supporting cast members include Vulko, the chief scientific advisor of Atlantis and Tula, who later became Aquagirl and was Aqualad/Tempest's girlfriend.

His enemies include Black Manta, a would-be conqueror of Atlantis and the murderer of his son, Arthur, Jr. There is also Orm, the Ocean Master, his half brother who is consumed with an insane vendetta against his brother.

Post-Crisis history
Aquaman, born as Orin to Queen Atlanna and the mysterious wizard Atlan, was abandoned on Mercy Reef as a baby because of his blond hair, which was seen by the superstitious Atlanteans as a curse, The Mark of Kordax. The only one who spoke up on his behalf was Vulko, a scientist who had no time for myth or superstition, and while his pleas had no effect, Vulko would later become a close friend and advisor of Orin's. Orin was found on the reef by dolphins, and taken in by Porm, who became his mother. As a child, he was found and taken in by a lighthouse keeper who gave him his own name, Arthur Curry. One day Orin returned to the lighthouse and found Arthur gone, so he set off on his own. Now in his early teens he ventured to the far north, where he met and fell in love with an Inupiat named Kako. He also first earned the hatred of Orm, the future Ocean Master, who would prove to be his half brother. He was driven away before he knew Kako had become pregnant with his son, Koryak.

Orin returned to the seas; he crossed paths with humans from time to time but for the most part he stayed well out of the reach of humanity. Until one fateful day Orin happened on the city of his birth. Quite by accident he had found Atlantis. He was captured by the then dictatorial government of the city and placed in the prison camp. He was helped by Vulko, at the time also a prisoner of the state, who taught Orin the language and ways of the Atlanteans. While he was there he realized that his mother was also being held captive, but once she was killed he broke out and fled. He became much more involved in the surface world, and the media took an immediate liking to him. The Flash (II) was the first to call him Aquaman. Aurther became a founding member of the Justice League. At first he had a very rough adjustment to life on the surface, but came to feel at home with his fellow members of the League.. He stayed with the team for quite some time, after it had moved to its space station in orbit. With the destruction of that station, Aquaman dissolved the Justice League, citing that the senior members could no longer fulfill their obligations to the team. He reformed it then with only J'onn J'onzz, becoming the leader for a time.

When he finally returned to Atlantis, he found that the citizens had been inspired to free themselves by his daring escape and that Atlantis was now a free city. He was recognised as the son of Queen Atlanna and so he became the King of Atlantis. He began a policy of slowly reintroducing Atlantis to the surface world, though after being ousted by Shark, he decided to become a more traditional superhero, even though with Shark's defeat he could have ascended the throne again. Around this time, Aurther met and married Mera, a queen from another dimension, and they had a son, Arthur Jr. Tragically, Aquaman's most hated foe, the Black Manta, kidnapped and ultimately murdered the infant, causing a rift between Aquaman and his wife that would never heal. Mera had been driven insane by grief and had been committed to an asylum in Poseidonis. Shortly afterwards, an alien force took the city. Arthur was forced to save the day, and in the process was hampered by an escaped Mera who personally blamed Aurther for the death of their son. In a fit of rage she left this dimension. After Atlantis was freed, Aurther knew he had to remain. He resigned from the Justice League. For a time he served as Atlantis's representative to the United Nations but always found himself thrust into the superhero role. Becoming more and more of a workaholic and solitary figure he returned to the oceans. He became tangled up in Black Manta's latest attempt at destroying Atlantis by dragging it into a war with a surface nation. In the aftermath of the war, Aurther received the Atlantis Chronicles, learning all about the history of his people and discovering that Ocean Master was really his half brother Orm. With all the chaos in his life, Arthur fell into a bout of severe depression.

About the time of Zero Hour, Arthur was forced to return to action, compelled by his long time partner Aqualad. Shortly into his new adventures he lost his hand when the madman Charybdis stole his ability to communicate with fish and stuck Aurther's hand in water teeming with piranhas. The shock seemed to have caused him to be a bit unhinged and he began having prophetic dreams. He fitted a harpoon for his missing hand. First, it was just a crude "pigsticker," but after having it melted to slag he had it replaced with a cybernetically controlled replacement from STAR Labs. This new harpoon had a retractable reel that he could fully control.

Aquaman had met the heroine named Dolphin when he lost his hand. She became very infatuated with him, and he longed to have someone close, as Mera was long gone and Vulko began to not trust him anymore. Aqualad, driven by what he thought was visions of his lost love Tula, struck out on his own quest and was gone for several months, falling in with Aurther's father Atlan. Aurther took Dolphin with him back to the Inupiat village of his youth where he discovered that he had an illegitimate son, Koryak, a young man who could breathe underwater and had hardwater powers. After dealing with the Six Pack from Apokolips and several other minor threats, Aquaman went back to Poseidonis with his son. While he was away at STAR Labs, earthquakes began to rock the city. One tremor killed King Theisily and so the city was leaderless. Theisily had been trying to murder both Aquaman and Koryak because of their appeal with the common people. Against Aquaman's advice, the people of the city followed Koryak away from the city. Aurther was left totally alone--except for Dolphin. During a little tryst of theirs, Mera suddenly walked in, knowing nothing of her insanity and attempt to kill her husband. Aquaman and Dolphin followed her into another dimension where he learned that she had been manipulated by Thanatos. He also learned that Mera had had another son while in "netherspace," which was a place where time worked quite differently. Mera told him that she had A.J. nine months after arriving, so she was either a parting gift from Arthur or a welcoming present from Thanatos. Arthur was not sure how to react to this news, remembering the prophecy about two brothers always fighting for control of Atlantis. Aquaman managed to contact his father, Atlan, for the first time ever to facilitate their escape. However, Mera and A.J. were left behind. Aquaman and Dolphin ended up beneath Poseidonis where Aurther learned the source of both the earthquakes and his prophetic dreams. There was a huge alien spacecraft beneath the city that had been there since Atlantis was sunk. Aquaman managed to achieve mental contact with the sentient ship and learned the full history of the people of Atlantis--and why the island nation was sunk beneath the waves so long ago. The ship broke from the sea floor and rose to the surface of the ocean (with Poseidonis resting on top of it). The Justice League came to investigate the city (after Thanatos, posing as Aquaman, had sent a declaration of war to the surface world). Having no patience for his former teammates, Aquaman fought them off, telling them to leave him alone.

Aquaman had learned of the impending return of the Hunter/Gatherers and knew that their return did not bode well for Earth. He and Dolphin set out to reunite the lost cities of Atlantis, including the mage city of Thiena Na Oge and Hy-Brasil, populated with a race of manta-people. Along the way he had to battle his brother, Ocean Master, but was reunited with his old sidekick, Garth, who had undergone intensive magical training under Atlan and was now the hero Tempest. Aquaman rallied all the allies he could get, including Tempest, Atlan, Tsunami, Deep Blue, Power Girl, the Sea Devils, Arion, Neptune Perkins, as well as the people of Hy-Brasil and Thiena Na Oge. Unfortunately, Koryak had led the people of Poseidonis into the lost tunnels and awakened the villain Kordax from his tomb. Kordax mentally controlled the people and had them raze Tritonis, killing, maiming, or scattering all its merpeople. Now Aquaman had to contend with Kordax too, who had joined up with the Hunter/Gatherers as they made their return. They were not the same people who had left Earth long ago, but their intentions were hardly benevolent. All out war erupted with the final battle ending at the White House. In that conflict, Aquaman learnt that Dolphin had been manipulated by Kordax to try and kill him, but she was able to break free of his control. Aurther struck down Kordax and exposed the evil of the Hunter/Gatherers to the world (they had tried manipulating the general populace into thinking that they had only the best of intentions). During the battle with the Hunter/Gatherers Aurther had become more and more the Monarch of Atlantis. All the people of Poseidonis accepted him as king immediately. He commanded that the people work as servants to the merfolk of Tritonis until the city was completely restored. Koryak, overwhelmed with grief of what had happened, stayed with the people as well. During the Final Night, Arthur's dolphin mother Porm was murdered by a villain named Demon Gate, a former fisherman whom Arthur had left to be killed by sharks for killing other dolphins. The conflict nearly caused Aquaman to declare war on Japan to fight the maniac. Eventually he managed to bring him to his knees, but a plea from the ocean life caused Aquaman to spare Demon Gate's life. Instead of death, Demon Gate was exiled to a remote island.

In the course of the battle with Demon Gate, Aquaman had to fight with the sentience of the alien ship beneath Atlantis. With the help of J'onn J'onzz, he forced the ship to obey him again. Aquaman was becoming more ruthless and edgy. While investigating a trench with the Sea Devils, Aquaman encountered his greatest foe, Black Manta, now in the terrible mutated form of a manta like creature. Their battle took them even deeper into the trench. Aquaman had to use all his power against an ancient ghost there. When he returned, his body was covered with flesh like scales. His behaviour became more and more violent. Dolphin, his constant companion during all this, refused to be with him now, too afraid of him. Aurther's transformation became ever more extreme, his scales turning green, his hands webbed. The Swamp Thing helped Aquaman come to terms with all that he had become and what he had done. Aurther went on a mystical voyage which healed him of his mutant condition. Still hoping to regain the trust of the sea life, Aquaman pleaded to Poseidon himself. Poseidon had Aquaman battle his son, Triton, and when Aurther won Poseidon bestowed on him a part of his godhood. More powerful than ever, Aquaman could now tap into the Clear, communicating with sea life over even greater distances. He returned to Poseidonis, the people now back from their servitude, and kept the city on the surface of the ocean. Dolphin no longer loved Aurther, for she had found her love in Tempest, now returned from his long journeys. Aurther gave his blessing to their relationship.

Two great threats came to Aurther's kingdom next. The Millennium Giants ravaged much of the world, including the ocean. Thiena Na Oge was completely destroyed. Not long after, Triton, vengeful of his defeat at Aquaman's hands, stole the power of his father and attacked Poseidonis. The ship beneath the city was destroyed and Poseidonis was returned to the sea floor. Aquaman journeyed into the Underworld to save Poseidon and defeat Triton. Shortly thereafter, Aquaman traveled to an alternate dimension where he found Mera and A.J. (now fully grown). Mera went with her former husband back to our world, where Poseidonis prepared for their king's official coronation. Mera was to be recrowned queen, but she announced that their marriage was annulled and she would not be queen. Koryak was banished from Atlantis when he tried to usurp his father's crown.

Earth was endangered by yet another alien menace. A horde of White Martians attempted to overtake the Earth. In the aftermath of their defeat, the Justice League was reformed as the JLA, and Aquaman became a senior member. The JLA dealt with such threats as the Injustice Gang (which included Ocean Master) and the threat of the rogue angel Asmodel.

All of Atlantis began to flourish under Aquaman's guidance. Much to his overwhelming joy, Mera and he reconciled, becoming husband and wife again. Unfortunately, Atlantis began to be harassed by the despotic nation of Cerdia. While Aquaman attempted to plead with the surface to aid him against Cerdia, the nation launched an all out sneak attack on Atlantis. They were being secretly aided by the Ocean Master. Aquaman rallied his armies and an all out war erupted. The JLA was called in to intervene. In the aftermath of the war, Cerdia was annexed by Atlantis.

Green Arrow (Oliver "Ollie" Queen) is a DC Comics superhero. Created by Mort Weisinger and Greg Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (1941).

Dressed like Robin Hood, Green Arrow is an archer, who invents arrows with various special functions, such as a glue arrow, a net arrow, a punching glove arrow, etc. Originally, most of his other traits were borrowed from Batman. Like the caped crusader, Green Arrow was a millionaire, mentored a young sidekick (Speedy) and policed a fictional metropolis (Star City).

Throughout his first twenty-five years, Green Arrow was not a significant hero. But in the late 1960s, after he lost his fortune, writers gave him the unique role of streetwise crusader for the working class. In 1970, he was paired with the more law-and-order-oriented hero Green Lantern in a groundbreaking, socially conscious comic book series. Since then, he has been popular among comic book fans and most writers have taken an urban, gritty approach to the character.

Inspirations
The Green Arrow character was inspired by a few different sources, including Edgar Wallace's The Green Archer (and the 1940 Columbia Pictures serial of the same name based on the novel) and Fawcett Publications' earlier archery-themed hero Golden Arrow. Green Arrow was also obviously created as an archery-themed version of the earlier character Batman, as several similarities between the two characters can be spotted, especially in Green Arrow's earlier incarnation: Green Arrow has a teenaged sidekick named Speedy just as Batman has Robin; Green Arrow and Batman are both millionaire playboys in their secret identitites; Green Arrow has an Arrowcar and an Arrowplane similar to Batman's Batmobile and Batplane; while Batman is summoned to police headquarters by the Bat-signal, Green Arrow is summoned by the Arrow-signal. The Arrowcar is yellow in color and shaped reminiscent of the land-speed record holder of the 1920s, the British Golden Arrow.

Publishing history

Beginnings
Created in 1941 by writer/editor Mort Weisinger and artist George Papp, who remained with the series for almost twenty years, Green Arrow and Speedy first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (cover-dated November 1941).

Incidentally, another Mort Weisiner-created character called Aquaman also appeared for the first time in that issue, and these two back-up features continued to run concurrently in More Fun Comics until the mid-1940s, and then in Adventure Comics from 1946 until 1960. Green Arrow and Speedy also appeared in various issues of World's Finest Comics until issue #140 (1964). The Green Arrow and Speedy feature was one of five back-up features to be promoted in one of the earliest team-up books, Leading Comics.

Green Arrow was one of the few DC characters to keep going after the Golden Age of Comic Books. The longevity of the character was due to the influence of creator Mort Weisinger, who kept Green Arrow and Aquaman as back-up features to the headlining Superboy feature first in More Fun Comics and then Adventure Comics. The Green Arrow and Speedy feature had a relatively undistinguished publishing history, though the main exception in this period was a short run in 1958 by Jack Kirby.

After the last original Green Arrow and Speedy features in the early 1960s, Green Arrow was made the first non-charter member of the Justice League of America, a team which guaranteed the character's being continually featured, in some way or another, continuously until 1998.

Neal Adams and Dennis O'Neil

Green Lantern #76, April 1970. Art by Neal Adams.In 1969 artist Neal Adams decided to update the character's visual appearance by giving him a goatee beard and costume of his own design. Inspired by Adams' redesign, writer Dennis O'Neil followed up on Green Arrow's new appearance by completely remaking the character's attitude in the pages of Justice League of America #79 (cover-dated November 1969), giving his personality a rougher edge like that of Marvel Comics' archery-themed hero Hawkeye. This revision was explained by having Oliver Queen lose his fortune and become an outspoken and strident advocate of the underprivileged in society and the political left wing. For instance, he once saved a child's dog playing in a railyard, but instead of satisfaction, he brooded on the larger problem of how the poor child apparently had nowhere else in the city to play safely. In short, he became a kind of superheroic hybrid between Robin Hood and Abbie Hoffman. In addition, the Green Arrow began a long running romantic relationship with The Black Canary (Dinah Lance). As a member of the Justice League, he became an argumentative figure who often acted as the team's political conscience.

In the early 1970s, he became a co-feature with Green Lantern in the latter's series in an acclaimed, but shortlived series of stories by O'Neil and Adams that dealt with various social and political issues in which Green Arrow spoke for the liberal argument (thus a voice for O'Neil himself) while Green Lantern was an establishment figure, half-heartedly serving the conservative viewpoint. Oliver Queen convinced Hal Jordan to see beyond his strict obedience to the Green Lantern Corps, to help those who were neglected or discriminated against. The duo embarked on a quest to find America, witnessing the corruption, racism, pollution, and overpopulation confronting the nation. Denny O'Neil even took on current events, such as the Manson Family cult murders, in issues #78-79 ("A Kind of Loving") where Black Canary falls briefly under the spell of a false prophet who advocates violence.

Later in the series, Oliver Queen would land a job as a newspaper columnist, which allowed him to articulate his political beliefs in a more public field. It was during this period that the most famous Green Arrow story of all time appeared, in Green Lantern #85-86, when it was revealed that Speedy was addicted to heroin. In his zeal to save America, Oliver Queen had failed in his personal responsibility to Roy Harper -- who would overcome his addiction with the help of Black Canary. This story prompted a congratulatory letter from the mayor of New York, John V. Lindsay. Unfortunately, the series did not match commercial expectations because of its mature topics. After a brief wrap-up as a feature in "The Flash," the Green Arrow/Green Lantern partnership returned to more traditional superhero storylines.

In 1984 Green Arrow appeared for the first time in his own comic book, a four issue miniseries of murder and betrayal that established potential for a full series.

Mike Grell to Chuck Dixon

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #1, the gritty redefinition of the Green ArrowIn 1987, the character was changed once more in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, written and illustrated by Mike Grell, who had previous experience dating back to Green Arrow features in "The Flash." In this three-issue prestige format mini-series, Green Arrow abandons gadget arrows and fights crime in Seattle, Washington, where he now lives with Black Canary. The series took on a more gritty, violent, and urban tone, befitting the series' mature audience label. While fighting drug runners, Oliver Queen encounters the enigmatic Japanese archer, Shado, whose family suffered in a World War II internment camp. While uncovering the connection between the drug operations and Shado's quest for vengeance, Green Arrow is also forced to kill a murderer to save Black Canary. Shado and Green Arrow join forces against the criminals, later becoming occasional allies and lovers.

The Longbow Hunters mini-series led to a long-running regular series (Green Arrow), which Grell wrote for 80 issues. Grell tried to redefine Oliver Queen as a realistic and flawed character, purging the series of any superhero characteristics. This incarnation of Green Arrow would still team up occasionally with Batman (as in the excellent graphic novel Poison Tomorrow) but his past with the Justice League rarely came up. Dinah Lance remained Oliver Queen's domestic partner for most of the series, although she lost her 'sonic scream' ability during her ordeal. Green Arrow even lost his mask a couple of issues into the regular series when he learned it no longer obscured his identity.

The Green Arrow series dealt largely with serial killers, terrorists, and street gangs, with Oliver Queen sometimes working with Seattle Police Lieutenant Anderson, who sometimes resents Green Arrow's penchant for vigilante justice. During one story-line, Green Arrow wounds a teenager with a paintball gun, thinking him a criminal. This near-tragedy forces a crisis intervention from Hal Jordan, who rallies his depressed friend. Another notable episode involves Oliver Queen's framing for a terrorist bombing, which destroys his heroic reputation until he is given a presidential apology. During his disgrace, Queen travelled across Great Britain, Europe, and much of Africa before returning to Seattle.

During The Longbow Hunters, Green Arrow fell afoul of renegade CIA agent Greg Osborne, who begins to monitor Oliver Queen's activities. At first, mercenary Eddie Fyers is introduced as Oliver Queen's adversary, but he becomes a companion of necessity when Green Arrow is forced to leave Seattle. This event is accelerated when Dinah Lance discovers Shado has had Oliver's unnamed son. When she catches Oliver kissing their houseguest, Marianne (who had a long case of hero worship for Green Arrow), Dinah permanently breaks off their relationship. Mike Grell's departure also signified the end of the series' mature rating, and Green Arrow's eventual return to the DC Heroes mainstream in the Crossroads miniseries.

Connor Hawke

Connor Hawke and Oliver Queen. Art by Matt Wagner.Under later writers, such as Kelley Puckett, Kevin Dooley, and Chuck Dixon, some superheroic elements of the DC Universe were re-introduced, such as Hal Jordan's transformation into the villainous Parallax. In the 1994 Zero Hour storyline, Green Arrow was forced to kill his former comrade in order to save the universe. Puckett introduced a young monk named Connor Hawke, who teamed up with Green Arrow and Eddie Fyers. Eventually, Connor discovered that Oliver Queen was his father. During the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series, Oliver Queen once fled to a meditational retreat after killing a criminal in Star City. Evidently, Green Arrow fathered yet another child after conveniently having yet another undisclosed affair.

In 1995, Dixon and other DC editors decided that Oliver Queen's storytelling possibilities had been exhausted, and he died in Green Arrow #100-101, triggering an explosion that would have destroyed Metropolis. This death scene pays tribute to Frank Miller's graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns, an alternate Batman adventure where Oliver Queen resurfaces as a hard-bitten old revolutionary missing one arm. Never on the best of terms with Queen, Superman intends to rescue Green Arrow by removing his arm, but Ollie refuses to let him, thus bringing about his apparent death.

Like many DC superheroes in the mid-1990s, the "old" Green Arrow was immediately replaced with a young successor, in this case, Connor Hawke. Chuck Dixon, Green Arrow's writer during this period, explored Connor's difficulty adjusting to the world after spending years in an ashram. In marked contrast to his father, Connor was awkward around the opposite sex, sparking some misdirected fan questions as to his sexual orientation. Dixon also tried to resurrect the traditional parternership of Green Arrow and Green Lantern, who had also been recently replaced (by Kyle Rayner). Moreover, Green Arrow II became an active member of the Justice League, using some of his father's old gadget arrows to some advantage against more powerful foes. Connor Hawke starred in the series (as "Green Arrow II") from issue 102 until issue 137, when it was canceled in 1998.

The 21st century

Cover to Green Arrow #1 (2000). Art by Matt Wagner.In 2000, Oliver Queen was revived in a new Green Arrow series, written by Kevin Smith and illustrated by Phil Hester and Ande Parks. Smith's storyline returned the character to life from a point before the Mike Grell period which includes his use of gadget arrows, although the world around him still reflected the changes that had taken place — for example, the introduction of Wally West, Kyle Rayner and Connor Hawke to replace Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and Queen himself, respectively. Smith's fifteen issues were followed by a story arc by Brad Meltzer, who in 2002 handed the title over to Judd Winick. Hester and Parks remained as the art team throughout these changes.

One of Winick's most-publicized innovations was to reveal that Mia Dearden, a former prostitute unofficially adopted by Green Arrow during Kevin Smith's run, had tested positive for HIV. Winick had published a graphic novel (Pedro and Me) about a gay friend who died of HIV/AIDS, and subsequently wrote a Green Lantern storyline about homophobia, so some critics have pigeonholed him as a writer of social-commentary storylines, or for being overly didactic. Winick argues that his writing range is wider than simple liberal propaganda, that socially relevant storylines are part of the Green Arrow tradition, and that he intends to show Mia living a normal life, "living with HIV, as many people do." [1]


Other media depiction
With the new found popularity of the O'Neil/Adams version, the once ignored character began to attract some interest in televised adaptations, as well as the collectible toy market.

The first television appearance was a single guest spot in an episode of the original 1973 incarnation of The Superfriends where his politics became irrelevant, given the nature of Saturday morning cartoons format and timeslot. In "Gulliver's Gigantic Goof," Green Arrow rescues his fellow superheroes, who have become shrunk by a mad scientist. He also swore oaths such as "By Robin Hood's Bow," and in short, conformed to the bland characterizations of his fellow Superfriends.

During the 1970s, Mego Enterprises commissioned the first Green Arrow doll as a part of its DC Superheroes line, which still features as a collectible. Since then, several action figures and models have emerged during the 1980s and 1990s, appealing to the Emerald Archer's moderate fanbase. For a brief period, a Green Arrow television series had been bruited about in the late 1980s. This series would have likely been based upon the Longbow Hunters incarnation of Green Arrow, based in Seattle. But after Mike Grell's Jon Sable pilot episode failed on ABC in 1988, nothing came of this proposal.


Green Arrow, as depicted in Justice League Unlimited.A more faithful and mainstream portrayal is used in the animated television series, Justice League Unlimited. In this version, his strong political convictions (and his sometimes irreverent advocacy of them) are key reasons the Justice League insists on recruiting him as a populist voice of the team, although it took an alluring encounter with the Black Canary to finally persuade him. In addition, Queen is still a billionare, having sold his company to devote to his volunteer and activist activities exclusively.

Trivia
Oliver Queen bears an uncanny resemblance to the Warlord (Travis Morgan), who was created by Mike Grell, and Deathstroke the Terminator. Deathstroke, however, is missing one eye, and both Warlord and Deathstroke have white hair, while Green Arrow is blond. Furthermore, Green Arrow fans have also drawn some interesting comparisons between Oliver Queen and Mike Grell's original character, Jon Sable, another trouble-shooter for hire, who possesses Olympic-level archery skills. During the Mike Grell run, The Warlord appeared in Seattle leading to a few cases of mistaken identity, (and thus a rather perturbed Warlord). During the Crossroads miniseries, Oliver Queen is also mistaken for Deathstroke the Terminator.

Secret origins
Green Arrow has had several official "secret origins" attributed to his character, but most versions agree that Oliver Queen began as a wealthy playboy who lived like Robinson Crusoe on a semi-deserted Pacific island, after having been washed overboard during an ocean cruise. Forced to hunt for survival, Queen developed his natural archery skill to a peak level. When criminals (originally pirates, but later changed to drug-runners) came to the island, he captured them and returned to civilization. Green Arrow's code against outright killing is established firmly, with the development of trick arrows to subdue or outwit opponents. Perhaps the most mature origins tale came from Mike Grell's four-part 1992 miniseries, Green Arrow: The Wonder Year. Grell portrayed Oliver Queen as a thrill-seeker who inherits his family business at a very young age. Changed by his sojourn on the island, Ollie decided to take up crimefighting as a means of rebelling against his responsibilities. During his first adventure in Star City, Oliver Queen meets an old flame, Brianna Stone, a former college radical who warns him if he continued to carry his bow, he would one day have to use it for real. Grell's miniseries also established Queen's attraction toward dangerous women.

During his early days, Oliver Queen also befriended a boy living with a Native American tribe, Roy Harper, whom he nicknames Speedy because he collared a criminal before Green Arrow could. Roy Harper eventually becomes Ollie's adopted son, as well as Green Arrow's sidekick.

Captain Marvel is a comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and now owned by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker, he first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (1940). With a premise that taps into adolescent fantasy, Captain Marvel is the alter ego of Billy Batson, a youth who works as a radio news reporter and was chosen to be a champion of good by the wizard Shazam. Whenever Billy speaks the wizard's name ("SHAZAM!"), he is instantly struck by a magic lightning bolt that transforms him into an adult Superman-like hero. Several friends and family members, most notably Marvel Family cohorts Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr., can share Billy's power and become "Marvels" themselves.

Hailed as "The World's Mightiest Mortal" in his adventures, and nicknamed "The Big Red Cheese" by his fans, Captain Marvel was, based on sales, the most popular superhero of the 1940s, with his Captain Marvel Adventures series selling more copies than Superman and the other competing superhero books [1][2]. Captain Marvel was also the first superhero to be adapted into film in 1941. Because of a decline in the popularity of superheroes and a copyright infringement suit from DC Comics alleging similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman, Fawcett ceased publishing Captain Marvel and Marvel Family comics in 1953. They later licensed the Marvel Family characters to DC in 1972, and ceded the rights to them outright in 1980. Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family have been integrated into the "DC Universe", and DC has attempted a few revivals. However, Captain Marvel has not found widespread appeal with new generations, although a live action television series featuring the character in the 1970s was very popular.

Due to the fact that Marvel Comics trademarked their Captain Marvel comic book during the interim between the original Captain Marvel's Fawcett years and DC years, DC Comics has to promote and market their Captain Marvel/Marvel Family properties under the title Shazam! (based upon Billy/Cap's magic word as well as the name of the wizard). As a result, Captain Marvel himself is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Shazam".
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Full history

Captain Thunder, soon to be Captain Marvel, on the cover of the ashcan copy of Flash Comics #1. Art by C.C. Beck.[edit]
Development and inspirations
After the success of National Comics' new superhero characters Superman and Batman, Fawcett Publications decided, in 1939, to start its own comics division. Writer Bill Parker was recruited to create several hero characters for the first title in Fawcett's line, then to be called Flash Comics. Besides penning stories featuring Ibis the Invincible, Spy Smasher, Golden Arrow, Lance O'Casey, Scoop Smith, and Dan Dare for the new book, Parker also wrote a story about a team of six superheroes, each possessing a special power granted to them by a mythological figure. Fawcett Comics' executive director Ralph Daigh decided it would be best to combine the team of six into one hero who would embody all six powers, and Parker responded by creating a character he called "Captain Thunder" [3]. Staff artist Clarence Charles "C.C." Beck was recruited to design and illustrate Parker's story, rendering it in a direct, somewhat cartoony style that became his trademark.

The first issue, printed as both Flash Comics #1 and Thrill Comics #1, had a low-print run in the fall of 1939 as an ashcan copy created for advertising purposes. Shortly after its printing, however, Fawcett found it could not trademark "Captain Thunder", "Flash Comics", or "Thrill Comics", because they were already in use. Consequently, the book was renamed Whiz Comics, and the word balloons were re-lettered to label the hero of the book's main story as "Captain Marvel". Whiz Comics #2 was published in late 1939 and dated February 1940. Since it was the first of that title to actually be published, the issue is sometimes referred to as Whiz Comics #1, despite the issue number printed on it.

Inspirations for Captain Marvel came from a number of sources. His visual appearance was modeled after that of Fred MacMurray, a popular American actor of the period. Fawcett Publications' founder, Wilford H. Fawcett, was nicknamed "Captain Billy", which inspired the name "Billy Batson" and Marvel's title as well. Fawcett's earliest magazine was titled Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, which likely inspired the title Whiz Comics.

Marvel wore a bright red costume, inspired by both military uniforms and ancient Egyptian and Persian costumes, with gold trim and a lightning bolt insignia on the chest. The body suit originally included a buttoned lapel, but was changed to a skintight suit within a year at the insistence of the editors (the current DC costume of the character has the lapel restored to it, presumably to differentiate from Superman's outfit).

The costume also included a white collared cape trimmed with gold fleur-di-lis symbols, usually asymmetrically thrown over the left shoulder and held around his neck by a gold cord. The cape came from the ceremonial cape worn by the British nobility, photographs of which appeared in newspapers in the 1930s.


Whiz Comics #2: origin story
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Captain Marvel's origin story finds the homeless and orphaned Billy Batson making a meager living selling newspapers near an old subway station, sleeping in the doorway of the station. Billy had been living with his uncle after the deaths of his parents, but the cruel old man threw the boy out into the streets and stole his inheritance. While selling papers one rainy night, a dark clothed stranger comes to the boy, and asks him to follow him down into the subway station. There, a strange subway train with no visible driver appears, which carries the pair to the secret lair of the wizard Shazam. There, the ancient wizard reveals that he has selected Billy to be his champion to fight for good as the "strongest and mightiest man in the world--Captain Marvel!".

To that end, Shazam orders the boy to speak his name, which was actually an acronym for various legendary figures who have agreed to grant aspects of themselves to a willing subject:

S for the wisdom of Solomon
H for the strength of Hercules
A for the stamina of Atlas
Z for the power of Zeus (usually in the form of resistance to any injury)
A for the courage of Achilles
M for the speed of Mercury (and, by extension, the power to fly)

Billy complies and is immediately struck by a magic lightning bolt, which turns him into Captain Marvel, an adult superhero. He then learned that he only had to speak the word again to be instantly changed back into Billy.

With that, Shazam is immediately killed by a large granite block that falls from above his throne, and Billy vowes to fulfill his bestowed role. Whenever he needed advice, Billy could light a brazier near Shazam's throne, which would summon the wizard's ghost.

Marvel's first call to duty was saving the world from the evil mad scientist Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, who threatened to silence radio forever unless he was paid a large sum of money. Resuming his regular form, Billy tells WHIZ radio mogul Sterling Morris that he can stop the Radio Silencer and Sivana; a disbelieving Morris offers Billy a job on the air if he can do so.

Finding the crooks' hideout, Billy transforms into Captain Marvel and destroys Sivana's radio silencing machine and apprehends his henchmen. Sivana, however, got away, setting the stage for a long line of future confrontations. Marvel transforms back into Billy, who presents the captured criminals and destroyed Radio Silencer to Sterling Morris, who, true to his word, makes Billy an on-air news reporter for WHIZ radio.

Captain Marvel was an instant success, with Whiz Comics #2 selling over 500,000 copies [4]. By 1941 he had his own solo series, Captain Marvel Adventures, while continuing to appear in Whiz Comics as well. He also made periodic appearances in other Fawcett books, including Master Comics.


The super-powered members of the Marvel Family. From left to right, Captain Marvel, Lt. "Fat" Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Lt. "Tall" Marvel, Lt. "Hillbilly" Marvel, and Mary Marvel.[edit]
Fawcett years: the Marvel Family, allies, and enemies
Through his adventures, he soon gained a host of enemies, including Adolf Hitler's champion Captain Nazi, an older Egyptian renegade Marvel called Black Adam, an evil magic-powered brute named Ibac, and an artificially intelligent nuclear powered robot called Mister Atom. The most notorious Captain Marvel villains, however, were the nefarious Mister Mind and his Monster Society Of Evil, which recruited several of Marvel's previous adversaries. The "Monster Society of Evil" storyline ran as two-year story-arc in Captain Marvel Adventures #22-46 (March 1943 to May 1945), with Mister Mind eventually revealed to be a highly intelligent, yet tiny, worm from the planet Venus.

In the early 1940s he also gained allies in The Marvel Family, a collective of superheroes with similar powers and/or costumes to Captain Marvel's (by comparison, Superman spin-off character Superboy first appeared in 1944, while Supergirl first appeared in 1959). Whiz Comics #21 (September 1941) marked the debut of the Lieutenant Marvels, the alter egos of three other boys who found that, by saying "SHAZAM!" in unison, they too could become Marvels. In Whiz Comics #25 (December 1941), a friend named Freddy Freeman, mortally wounded by an attack from Captain Nazi, was given the power to become teenage boy superhero Captain Marvel, Jr.. The next year in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (December 1942), Billy and Freddy met Billy's long-lost twin sister Mary Bromfield, who discovered she could, by saying the magic word "SHAZAM!", become teenage girl superhero Mary Marvel.


Left to right: Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, Uncle Marvel, and the wizard Shazam.Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel, Jr. were featured as a team in a new comic series entitled The Marvel Family, published alongside the other Marvel-related titles, which now included Wow Comics featuring Mary, Master Comics featuring Junior, and both Mary Marvel Comics and Captain Marvel, Jr. Comics. Non-super-powered Marvels such as the lovable con artist Uncle Marvel and his niece Freckles Marvel also sometimes joined the other Marvels on their adventures. A funny animal character, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, was created in 1942 and later given for a spin-off series of his own.

The members of the Marvel Family often teamed up with the other Fawcett superheroes, who included Ibis the Invincible, Bulletman and Bulletgirl, Spy Smasher, Minute-Man, and Mr. Scarlet and Pinky. Among the many artists and writers who worked on the Marvel Family stories alongside C.C. Beck and main writer Otto Binder were Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Mac Raboy, Pete Costanza, Kurt Shaffenberger, and Marc Swayze.


Fawcett vs. DC Comics
Through much of the Golden age of comic books, Captain Marvel proved to be the most popular superhero character of the medium with his comics outselling all others, including those featuring Superman. Part of the reason for this popularity included the inherent wish fulfillment appeal of the character to children, as well as the humorous and surreal quality of the stories. In fact, Captain Marvel Adventures sold fourteen million copies in 1944 [5], and was at one point being published weekly with a circulation of 1.3 million copies an issue (proclaimed on the cover of issue #19 as being the "Largest Circulation of Any Comic Magazine") [6].

National Comics Publications (now DC Comics) sued Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement of intellectual property in 1941, due to the alleged similarity of Captain Marvel to Superman. After seven years of litigation, the National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publishing case — 191 F.2d 594 (2d Cir. 1951), clarified 198 F.2d 927 (2d Cir. 1952) — went to trials court in 1948. During the initial trial, the judge declared Captain Marvel an infringement on DC's copyrights, but still ruled in Fawcett's favor because of information Fawcett's lawyers had uncovered about Superman's copyright status. The defense lawyers had provided evidence that DC and the McClure Syndicate were negligent in copyrighting several of their Superman newspaper comic strips, and the judge decided that DC had abandoned its Superman copyright and it was no longer valid [7].

DC appealed the decision in 1951 in federal court, and Judge Learned Hand declared in 1952 that DC's Superman copyright was in fact valid, and maintained that Captain Marvel was an infringment [8]. The case was then sent back to trials court for damage assessment. Fawcett decided at this time to settle with DC out of court instead of re-appealing, feeling that a decline in the popularity of superhero comics meant that it was no longer worth continuing the fight [9]. Fawcett shut down its comics division in the fall of 1953 and laid off its comic-creating staff, and paid DC $400,000 in damages [10]. Whiz Comics had ended with issue #146 in June 1952, with Captain Marvel Adventures folding with #150 (November 1953), and The Marvel Family ending its run with #89 (January 1954).

In the 1950s a small British Publisher, L. Miller and Son, published a number of black and white reprints of American comic books, including the Captain Marvel series. In 1954, their supply of Captain Marvel material was abruptly cut off because of the lawsuit, and they requested the help of a British comic writer, Mick Anglo, who created a British copy of the superhero called Marvelman.


Shazam! #1, February 1973. Art by C.C. Beck.[edit]
The Shazam! revival
When superhero comics became popular again in the mid-1960s (in what is now called the Silver Age of comics), Fawcett was unable to revive Captain Marvel because of its earlier concession. Eventually, they licensed the characters to DC Comics in 1972, and DC began planning a revival. Because Marvel Comics had by this time established its own claim to the use of Captain Marvel as a comic book title, DC published their book under the name Shazam! Since then, that title has become so linked to Captain Marvel that the general public has taken to identifying the character as "Shazam" instead of his actual name.

The Shazam! ongoing series began with issue #1 in February 1973, and contained both new stories and reprints from the 1940s and 1950s. The first story attempted to explain the the Marvel Family's absence by stating that they, the Sivanas, and most of their supporting cast had been accidentally trapped in suspended animation for twenty years until finally breaking free.

Dennis O'Neil was the book's primary writer. C.C. Beck drew stories for the first ten issues of the book before he quit because of differences with DC Comics; Kurt Shaffenberger and Don Newton were among the later artists of the title.

With DC's Multiverse in effect during this time, it was stated that the revived Marvel Family and related characters lived on the parallel world of "Earth-S. While the series began with a great deal of fanfare, the book got lackluster reviews. Shazam! was cancelled with issue #35 (June 1978) and relegated to a back-up position in World's Finest Comics (from #254 in November 1979 to #282 in August 1982) and Adventure Comics (from #491 in September 1982 to #498 in April 1983). DC Comics bought the Fawcett line of characters outright in 1980, and with their 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, fully integrated the characters into the mainstream DC superhero setting.

Shazam! The New Beginning
The first post-Crisis appearance of Captain Marvel was in the 1986 Legends miniseries. In 1987, Marvel appeared as a member of the Justice League, with teammate Guy Gardner jokingly referring to his innocent, pure-hearted teammate as "Captain Whitebread". The same year, he was also given his own miniseries, Shazam! The New Beginning. With the four-issue miniseries, writer Roy Thomas and artist Tom Mandrake attempted to re-launch the Captain Marvel mythos and bring the wizard Shazam, Dr. Sivana, Uncle Dudley, and Black Adam into the modern DC Universe with a altered origin story. In this miniseries, both Sivana and Dudley were Billy Batson's real uncles, and fought over the custody for the boy after his parents were killed (by Sivana) in a car accident. Black Adam is also present in the story as Sivana's partner in crime.

The most notable change that Thomas introduced into the Captain Marvel mythos was retaining the personality of young Billy Batson when he transforms into the Captain (classic-era comics tended to treat Captain Marvel and Billy as two separate personalities). This change would be retained for all future uses of the character, as justification for his sunny, Golden-Age personality in the darker modern-day comic book world.

In 1994, Captain Marvel was retconned yet again and given a revised origin in The Power of Shazam!, a painted graphic novel by Jerry Ordway. This version of Marvel's origin, now considered his official DCU origin story, more closely followed his Fawcett origins, with only slight additions and changes.

In this version of the story, it is Black Adam who kills Billy Batson's parents, in his resurrected non-powered form of Theo Adam, while the Batsons and Adam are excavating an ancient tomb in Egypt. He also kidnaps Billy's sister Mary, who ends up missing.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The wizard Shazam is made aware of all of these events, and, just as in the Fawcett origin, has Billy brought before him by the dark-clothed stranger, and grants the boy the power to become Captain Marvel. As Captain Marvel, Billy takes on the form of his late father, which is how Theo Adam guesses his identity, has a revelation about the power of Shazam, and becomes Black Adam using a scarab he stole from the tomb. After subduing Black Adam and his employer, the rich tycoon Dr. Sivana, Billy swears to find his sister as Captain Marvel.

The graphic novel was a critically acclaimed success, leading to a Power of Shazam! ongoing series which ran from 1995 to 1999. The series reintroduced the Marvel Family and many of their allies and enemies into the modern-day DC Universe.

During the publication of the series, the Marvel Family also appeared in Mark Waid and Alex Ross's critically acclaimed miniseries Kingdom Come, with a brainwashed Captain Marvel playing a major role in the story. Captain Marvel also starred in an oversized special graphic novel, Shazam!: Power of Hope, in 1999, written by Paul Dini and painted by Alex Ross.

Current DCU status and personality

Captain Marvel and Stargirl on the cover of JSA #48 (2003).Since 1999, the characters have made appearances in an number of other comic book series. Ironically, a typical use for Captain Marvel guest appearances in current comics is as a backup for Superman when an independent flight enabled super-strong being is called for, especially in situations where Superman's special weaknesses, which Captain Marvel does not share, are involved. Marvel is usually depicted as a pure-hearted and unwaveringly upstanding; since he is still a youth, it is harder for him to become corrupted (thus the wizard's reasoning for not choosing another adult like Black Adam as his champion). In the Underworld Unleashed miniseries (1999), Captain Marvel's soul is treasured by the demon prince Neron, but Marvel's soul is so pure that Neron was unable to possess it. In addition, Marvel is depicted as being, despite his wisdom, somewhat immature; since he is only a teenager, he tends to take many things for granted and is usually nervous about interacting with other superheroes.

In 2003, Captain Marvel became a member of the revived Justice Society of America, and was featured prominently in that book alongside his nemesis Black Adam. Marvel had originally joined the team to keep an eye on Adam, who had joined the JSA claiming to have gone straight. Black Adam eventually left the JSA to rule his home country of Khandaq, but Marvel remained with the team. During his tenure in the JSA, Marvel dated Courtney Whitmore, a.k.a. Stargirl, which put him in an unusual position: while he could legally date Courtney as Billy Batson, it looked very strange for the grown-up Captain Marvel to be with the teenaged Stargirl. The Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, another JSA member, confronted Marvel about the issue, but instead of telling Garrick and the team the truth about his age, Marvel chose to follow the Wisdom of Solomon and leave the team and Courtney.

Captain Marvel returned to the JSA in JSA #73 (May 2005), because of the threat of Eclipso and the now-corrupted Spectre in Black Adam's homeland of Khandaq. Currently, in the Day of Vengeance miniseries, Marvel is locked in a desperate battle between himself and The Spectre, who is out to destory all magic and has targeted Marvel and the wizard Shazam for annihilation.

A four-issue Captain Marvel/Superman miniseries, Shazam/Superman: First Thunder, will be published in the fall of 2005, beginning with issue #1 on September 7. The miniseries, written by Judd Winick with art by Josh Middleton, will depict the first meeting between the two heroes.[11]

Supporting cast

Captain Marvel, as depicted by Alex Ross.[edit]
Marvel Family
The Wizard Shazam. Although he is killed, as prophesized, after giving Billy the power to become Captain Marvel, Shazam's spirit remains as the vigilant caretaker of the Rock of Eternity. In current continuity, Shazam is a much more active character than he was during the classic Marvel Family adventures, and attained godhood after the 1998 Genesis crossover.
Mary Marvel. Billy's once-lost twin sister Mary Batson (adopted as Mary Bromfield), who found she could say the magic word "SHAZAM!" and become a female Marvel. The classic-era Mary Marvel remained a teenager after saying her magic word, with a yellow on red short sleeve and skirt costume, while the modern version is transformed into an adult like her brother, with a yellow on white costume. During the run of the The Power of Shazam! series, Mary shared the title of "Captain Marvel" with Billy. In the Formerly Known as the Justice League miniseries, Mary became part of the "Super Buddies," a group consisting largely of former Justice League members, after Captain Marvel turned down his initation.
Captain Marvel, Jr. Attacked and left for dead by Captain Nazi, Freddy Freeman was given the power to become a Marvel to save his life. Whenever he speaks Captain Marvel's name, Freddy becomes a teenage version of Captain Marvel with a sharply contrasting yellow on blue costume. This created the odd problem that he could not identify himself without changing back to his regular form. The modern-day Junior now goes by the alias CM3 (short for "Captain Marvel Three", "CM1" being Billy and "CM2" being Mary) so that he can identify himself without transforming, and was a member of the Teen Titans during the late-1990s.
Uncle Dudley/Uncle Marvel. During the classic era, an old man named Dudley, who claimed that he was not only a relative of the Marvels but also a Marvel himself (although neither was true). The Marvels took a liking to him and decided to humor him, and "Uncle" Dudley became Uncle Marvel, the Marvel Family's manager. In modern continuity, Dudley is simply a janitor at Billy's school who finds himself involved in Marvel Family adventures. His niece Freckles Marvel was an irregular companion of Mary Marvel's in her classic-era solo adventures.
The Lieutenant Marvels. Three other boys named "Billy Batson" (nicknamed "Tall Billy", "Fat Billy", and "Hill Billy"—the latter because he was from Appalachia) who learned that, because they also were named Billy Batson, they could draw on the power of Shazam. They vowed only to use their power if asked by Captain Marvel, and only if all three were to say the magic word, "SHAZAM!", in unison. They have not appeared in Marvel Family stories since the early 1980s, having been retconned out of existence during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. A spin-off character generally confined to his own series, the pink funny animal rabbit version of Captain Marvel periodically assisted the human Marvels in their adventures.


Through his adventures, Captain Marvel gained a host of enemies, including the following:

Dr. Sivana (and the Sivana Family). Captain Marvel's very first and primary foe. Sivana, a bald, diminutive mad scientist, often attempts to take over the world or destroy the Marvels using his inventions. In classic-era continuity, Sivana's teenage children Georgia and Sivana, Jr. often joined their father in his evil schemes; the three of them were collectively known as the Sivana Family.
Black Adam. An older Egyptian renegade Marvel who crossed Shazam, and was punished by either exile (classic version) or death (modern version). He returns to Earth (or life) after Shazam appoints Captain Marvel his new successor, and was soon established as Marvel's most powerful foe. In current DCU continuity, Black Adam, claiming that he and his murderous host Theo Adam are separate personalities, joined the Justice Society of America, claiming to be a hero as he had once been in Egypt. Adam eventually turned on the JSA, wanting to be a hero on his own terms, and forcefully overthrew the tyrannous governemnt of his old homeland of Khandaq, appointing himself ruler.
Captain Nazi. Adolf Hitler's champion, created through science as the "perfect specimen" of a soldier. Obviously inspired by the events of World War II, Nazi continued to appear in classic-era Marvel Family stories into the 1980s. In the Power of Shazam! series, Nazi was brought back into action after having been in suspended animation for fifty years, and quickly became an enemy of the Marvel Family.
Ibac. A frail thug named "Stinky" Printwhistle who was empowered by Lucifer himself with the powers of four of the most evil men to walk the face of the earth. When he says the name "IBAC", he becomes a large, muscular brute with super-strength. Saying his name again transforms him back into Printwhistle (therefore, like Captain Marvel, Jr., Ibac also cannot say his own name).
Mister Mind. Arguably the most notorious classic-era Captain Marvel villain, the at-first unseen Mister Mind started and headed a supervillian team known as the Monster Society of Evil. After two years of masterminding tyranny with a team of dozens of villians and criminals (including several previous Marvel Family adversaries like Captain Nazi and Ibac), Mister Mind was revealed to be a two-inch, myopic, mind-controlling worm from the planet Venus. The evil worm was placed on trial, convicted of killing 186,744 people, killed and stuffed. Mind reappeared in the Power of Shazam! series as the leader of a race of millions of mind-controlling Venusian worms, who irregularly appear across the DC Universe attempting to control potential human hosts.
Mister Atom. An artificially intelligent nuclear-powered robot created by Dr. Charles Langley. In the Power of Shazam! series, Mister Atom, under the control of Mister Mind, destroys Fairfield, a town near Fawcett City where Mary Bromfield lived with her adoptive parents, with a nuclear explosion.
Blaze and Satanus. Only present in the modern-day Marvel Family stories, the demoness Blaze and her brother Lord Satanus, originally appearing in the Superman books, are the illegitimate children of the Wizard Shazam, who was bewitched by their mother during his superhero days in Biblical Canaan. Blaze has attempted to spread her evil influence throughout Fawcett City since the 1940s, requiring Shazam and his allies to work together to stop her.
Oggar. The self styled "World's Mightiest Immortal", he was a major recurring enemy of the Marvels in the Pre-Crisis DC stories. His magic enabled him to do nearly anything, but it cannot be directly cast against a female target. Thus Mary Marvel was usually called upon to deal with him.

Other characters
Beautia and Magnificus Sivana. Dr. Sivana's beautiful adult daughter Beautia shared her father's passion for world domination until meeting, and falling for, Captain Marvel. She has an unrequited crush on the shy Captain, not realizing that he is actually only a young boy. Her brother Magnificus is also generally depicted as a Marvel Family ally, although in his only Golden Age appearance, Magnificus had super powers and fought Captain Marvel hand-to-hand.
Mister "Tawky" Tawny. A humanoid sapient tiger who, in classic-era continuity, wishes to live among the humans in civilization instead of in the wild or the zoo. As such, he is typically dressed in a tweed business suit and usually carries himself in a formal dignified manner. The modern-day Tawky Tawny was a stuffed tiger doll who was animated by Lord Satanus to assist the Marvel Family in their battle against Satanus's sister Blaze. He only appeared as an animate being to Billy, Mary, and later Dudley at first (a la Hobbes in Calvin and Hobbes), but later was made permanently real by the power of Ibis the Invincible.
Mr. Sterling Morris. The president of WHIZ radio and Billy's employer.
Miss Wormwood. In modern-era comics, Billy's schoolteacher (and later principal), presented as the typical "mean teacher" stereotype. Her name is another reference to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, where Calvin's schoolteacher was also named Miss Wormwood.
Cissie Sommerly. Billy's girlfriend in classic-era continuity.
Nick and Nora Bromfield. In modern continuity, Mary Batson's adoptive parents, who adopted her through illegal means after their maid, Sarah Primm, brough the child to them (Primm saved Mary from her kidnapper, Primm's brother Theo Adam). Nora Bromfield was a cousin of Billy and Mary's mother, but chose not to tell Mary about her real family. The Bromfields would eventually gain the rights to legally adopt both Mary and Billy, giving the children a traditional family structure again.

Cultural influences
Captain Marvel's adventures have contributed a number of elements to both comic book culture and pop culture in general. The most notable of these is the regular use of Superman and Captain Marvel as adversaries in Modern Age comic book stories. The Superman/Captain Marvel rivalry has its origins in a popular comics story in MAD Magazine #4 from 1953, entitled "Superduperman", which was inspired by the Fawcett/DC legal battles. In the story, Superduperman (an obvious Superman doppelganger) does batle with the Captain Marvel-esque Captain Marbles. Marbles' magic word was not "SHAZAM", but "SHAZOOM", which stood for Strength, Health, Aptitude, Zeal, Ox—power of, Ox—power of another, and Money. After DC revived Captain Marvel in the 1970s, they followed MAD's cue and often pitted Captain Marvel and Superman against each other for any number of reasons, but usually as an inside joke to the characters' long battles in court; they are otherwise staunch allies. Notable Superman/Captain Marvel battles in DC Comics stores include All-New Collectors' Edition #C-58 (1979), All-Star Squadron #37 (1984), Superman #102 (1995), the final issue of the Kingdom Come miniseries (1996), and, most recently, Superman #216 (2005). The "Clash" episode of Justice League Unlimited, which included Captain Marvel as a guest character, featured a Superman/Captain Marvel fight as its centerpiece.

Captain Marvel was the first major comic book hero to have a young alter ego. Although kid superheroes had generally been neglected before Marvel's introduction, kid sidekicks soon became commonplace shortly after Marvel's success: Robin was paired with Batman in May 1940, and Captain America was introduced with sidekick Bucky in March 1941. The idea of a young boy who transformed into a superhero proved popular enough to inspire a number of superheroes who undergo similar transformations, including Marvel Comics' Darkhawk, Malibu Comics' Prime, and animated/action figure superheros such as Hanna-Barbera's Young Samson and Mattel/Filmation's He-Man.

In pop culture, Billy Batson/Captain Marvel's magic word, "Shazam!", became a popular exclamation from the 1940s on, often used in place of an expletive. The most notable user of the word "Shazam!" in this form was Gomer Pyle from the 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. Even more than ten years after the character disappeared, the superhero was still used for jokes such as in The Monkees when Peter Tork tried to escape the ropes he was tied up in by yelling "Shazam!", only to magically break a mirror and sheepishly note that it's seven years bad luck for Captain Marvel. Another catchphrase popularized by Captain Marvel was his trademark exclamation, "Holy Moley!"

In the Fox Network animated series American Dad!, Steve's favorite t-shirt has Captain Marvel's signature lightning bolt insignia on it (although he repeatedly refers to it as a "Shazam" shirt, which is technically incorrect).

Appearances in film and television

The Adventures of Captain Marvel, starring Tom Tyler in the title role.The first filmed adaptation of Captain Marvel was produced in 1941. The Adventures of Captain Marvel, starring Tom Tyler in the title role of Captain Marvel and Frank Coglan, Jr. as his alter ego, Billy Batson, was a twelve-part film serial produced by Republic Pictures in 1941. Often ranked among the finest examples of the form, its release made Captain Marvel the first superhero to be depicted in film.


Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel, from Filmation's Shazam! television show.Over thirty years later, Filmation produced Shazam!, a live-action television show which ran from 1974 to 1977 on CBS. From 1975 until the end of its run, it aired as one-half of The Shazam!/Isis Hour. The Shazam! TV show was a more indirect approach to the character; it told of Billy Batson/Captain Marvel making road trips, instead of flying across the USA to combat evil. Michael Gray portrayed Billy Batson in the series, with both Jackson Bostwick (season 1) and John Davey (seasons 2 and 3) as Captain Marvel. Shortly after the Shazam! show ended its network run, Captain Marvel appeared as a character in the low-budgeted comedy special, Legends of the Superheroes, in 1978.


Captain Marvel in the Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam!Three years later, Filmation revisited the character for an animated Shazam! cartoon, which ran on NBC from 1981 to 1982 as part of the Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam!. The rest of the Marvel Family joined Captain Marvel on his adventures in this series, which were more similar to his comic-book adventures than the 1970s TV show.


Captain Marvel in Justice League Unlimited.In 2005, Captain Marvel guest starred in the Cartoon Network animated series Justice League Unlimited, in an episode entitled "Clash". Marvel was voiced by Jerry O'Connell, with Shane Haboucha as Billy Batson. In the episode, Marvel joins the Justice League, but soon finds himself at odds with Superman over the perception of presidential candidate Lex Luthor's credibility. A fight sequence between Marvel and Superman, during which the dueling heroes level much of Luthor's prototypical Lexor City, contains references to the Kingdom Come miniseries. "Clash" aired in May 2005 in Canada, and aired on June 11, 2005 in the United States.

Currently, New Line Cinema has plans for a Shazam! live action feature film, with Michael Uslan as producer. The film is currently scheduled for release in 2006.

Black Canary is a female superhero published by DC Comics.

The Black Canary was originally a non-superpowered crimefighter who relied on martial arts and detective skills to combat crime. Later the character was given a superhuman sonic "Canary Cry" that could be used to shatter objects or disable opponents. She has often been referred to as "The Blonde Bombshell" due to her extraordinary beauty and sex appeal, which have been accentuated by her trademark fishnet stockings (which have come and gone through the years in various forms via costumes, but which she currently wears).

As a result of Justice League of America issues #219-20 and the limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Black Canary was retconned into two characters, 'Dinah Drake Lance' and 'Dinah Laurel Lance'. The elder Dinah married her beau, Larry Lance, and when her daughter came of age she took over her mother's costumed identity (against her mother's wishes). Even though the elder Dinah began fighting crime in 1947, it has been established that the younger Dinah has been active for 12 years in the 'DC Comics Universe continuity', which is a fixed timeline DC Comics uses when discussing its modern heroes.

Dinah Laurel Lance was a founding member of the post-Crisis Justice League, a position she took at the age of 19. Shortly into the League's history she met Green Arrow (Oliver Queen). While Dinah couldn't stand the emerald archer at first, they quickly became involved (despite him being roughly 35 years old when she was about 20). Dinah remained part of the league for about five or six years before it was dissolved by Aquaman and reformed in Detroit. During that time, her mother died, which affected her deeply.

She herself moved to Seattle for many years with Green Arrow, where at one point she was kidnapped and tortured, which made her lose both her Canary Cry and her ability to have children. Nonetheless, she continued and persevered, keeping a fairly active presence as a crimefighter. She remained in Seattle for many years, even after her and Green Arrow parted ways. After his supposed 'death' during an adventure, Dinah, although still single, was going through a rough patch, trying to find herself, and her 'purpose'. This led to her meeting Oracle (Barbara Gordon), and a pairing that became known, unofficially, as the 'Birds of Prey'.

On one adventure, the Black Canary was seriously wounded and then was immersed in a Lazarus Pit. This restored her Canary Cry and ability to have children that was impaired several years earlier. Recently, in addition, the Huntress has joined the ranks of the Birds of Prey, as well as Zinda Blake, a female Blackhawk.

She was highly honored to be a member of the newly reformed JSA. She is one of the few DC characters that holds reserve status in both the JLA and the JSA.

When Oliver Queen was restored to life, he and Dinah shortly resumed their relationship. He came close to asking her to marry him, but chose not to at the last moment, believing she would say no again. In the end, a number of things led to another 'breakup', and as of this writing both Green Arrow and Black Canary remain on unsteady ground with one another.


Black Canary using her Canary Cry in Justice League UnlimitedOn the animated series Justice League Unlimited, Black Canary is voiced by Morena Baccarin.

A modified version of Dinah Laurel Lance, Carolyn Lance aka The Black Canary (played by Lori Loughlin) made an appearance on the WB television series Birds of Prey.

Brainiac is a fictional supervillain in DC Comics, most often appearing as an opponent of Superman.

Pre-Crisis
First appearing in Action Comics #242 (July 1958), Brainiac was a bald, green-skinned humanoid, who arrived on Earth and shrunk various cities, including Metropolis, storing them in bottles with the intent of using them to restore the (unnamed) world he ruled. He was accompanied by a "space monkey" named Koko.

While fighting Brainiac, Superman discovered the villain had previously shrunk the Kryptonian city of Kandor. He was able to restore the Earth cities to full size, but the Kandorians sacrificed their restoration to help him. Superman stored the city in his Fortress of Solitude, vowing to return the natives to full size.

Brainiac's legacy was revealed in Action Comics #276, in a Legion of Super-Heroes back up story. This introduced the green-skinned, blond-haired teenager Querl Dox, or Brainiac 5, who believed himself to be Brainiac's 30th century descendant. Unlike his apparent ancestor, Brainiac 5 used his "twelfth level intellect" for good, and joined the Legion alongside Supergirl, with whom he fell in love. His home planet was given variously as Yod or Colu.

In Superman #167 (Feb 1964) it was discovered that Brainiac was a machine, created by the "Computer Tyrants of Colu" as a spy. To increase the illusion that he was alive, he was given a "son", a young Coluan boy who was given the name Brainiac 2, but escaped. This was Brainiac 5's ancestor. It was later revealed that his name was Vril Dox, and that he went on to lead the revolt against the Computer Tyrants.

It was in this story that Brainiac first appeared with a distinctive gridwork of red diodes across his head, later explained as the "electric terminals of his sensory nerves". This would remain his appearance until Action Comics #544 (June 1983), in which he was forced to create a new body, a metallic skeleton with a green, honeycomb-patterned "braincase". He retained his appearance until the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Post-Crisis
In the Post-Crisis DC Universe, Brainiac's history was dramatically altered. Vril Dox was now a radical Coluan scientist who, having attempted to overthrow the Computer Tyrants, was sentenced to death. In his last moments, his consciousness was attracted to Earthly sideshow mentalist Milton Fine, who worked under the alias "Brainiac". Needing cranial fluid to maintain his possession of Fine, Dox went on a murder spree. He discovered Fine had genuine psychic powers, which he frequently used on Superman. This version of Brainiac made his first appearance in Adventures of Superman #438 (March 1988).

Brainiac was later captured by Lex Luthor, but used his powers to wrest control of Lexcorp away from him. Under his mental domination, Lexcorp scientists restored his Coluan form. The diodes in his head now increased and stabilised his mental powers, as well as allowing him direct access to computer banks. He continued to plague Superman, using a combination of mental powers and computer control. On one occasion he even returned to his pre-Crisis incarnation's city-shrinking tactics.

In the crossover story Invasion! it was revealed that, prior to his dispersion, the Computer Tyrants had allowed Vril Dox to clone a lab assistant. This was Vril Dox II, who would go on to form L.E.G.I.O.N., and (although he never uses the name) is the post-Crisis version of Brainiac 2.

To confuse things further, following the loss of Milton Fine's body, Vril Dox would place his consciousness in a robot body he called Brainiac 2.5. He became briefly obsessed with gaining Superman's form.

At the turn of the millennium, Brainiac revealed he had placed a sleeper virus in Lexcorp's Y2K bug safeguards. This was intended to dramatically boost his abilities. Instead it allowed Brainiac 13 to arrive from the 64th century. B-13 began transforming Metropolis into the 64th century version of the city, which, apparently, he controlled. When it became apparent he was to be defeated by the combined efforts of Luthor, Superman and his own past self (now possessing Luthor's infant daughter), he gave control of the city to Luthor in exchange for Lena/Brainiac 2.5, who he forced to help him escape.

He returned to Earth during the Our Worlds At War crossover, in which Earth and its allies fought a multifront war against Brainiac 13 and Imperiex. Brainiac 13 claimed to be allying himself to Earth, but this proved to be part of a complex plan to regain control. His chief aide was "Leniac", a green-skinned teenager with "control discs" on her forehead, suggesting the diodes of earlier Brainiacs (and identical to the forehead discs of the "upgraded" Brainiac 5.1, in the Legion, and the Animated Series version of the original Brainiac).

At the end of the war Brainiac 13 and Imperiex were both sent back in time, becoming part of the Big Bang, and Brainiac 2.5 was expunged from Lena, who reverted to infancy, although the discs remained.

In Superman #200 (Feb 2004), Superman travelled into the future and battled Brainiac 12, learning that everything Brainiac 13 had done in the past had been designed to ensure things reached the point where Brainiac 13 would be created. B-12's defeat before his upgrade apparently reversed the advances B-13 had made to Metropolis.

Appearances in other media
The standard pre-Crisis version of the character - the green-skinned robot with skull-diodes - was seen on the Super Friends cartoon. The mechanical version appeared in later iterations of the series, when Darkseid was the primary antagonist. In a famous Cartoon Network parody, Brainiac pleads with Luthor for a "decent pair of pants", prompting Solomon Grundy to utter the now-famous reply, "Solomon Grundy want pants too!"

Brainiac was also seen in episodes of the Filmation animated series "The New Adventures of Superman". This was the green-skinned robot version as well, who was first seen using his shrinking ray to create a sort of "cosmic Noah's ark", by shrinking a male and female of each earth species to take back to his dying homeworld. He appeared in several episodes of this series which began in 1966.

In Superman: The Animated Series, Brainiac was the supercomputer that ran most of the day-to-day operations on Krypton. It sensed the imminent destruction of the planet, but rather than warn others, it chose to save itself and the collected records of Krypton. In its mind, as long as the records of Krypton existed, the loss of the planet itself - and all its living inhabitants - was acceptable. Brainiac uploaded its core program and all of the collected data to an artificial satellite (which it altered into a spacecraft), and began exploring the galaxies. Each time it came to an inhabited world, it would upload all the knowledge it could from that world, then destroy it - by decreasing the number of beings who have access to the knowledge, the more valuable that knowledge becomes. Along with raw data, it also assimilated whatever useful technology it could find, improving itself with every world it visited (not unlike the Borg of Star Trek). It eventually made its way to Earth, and came into conflict with both Superman and Lex Luthor. After its defeat, Brainiac tried several times to revive itself. First by capturing Luthor and forcing him to rebuild him, and another time by taking control of Bruce Wayne, prompting Superman to team up with Robin in order to find him.

The animated series Justice League, Brainiac struck a secret deal with Darkseid where Brainiac would seem to attack Apokolips, Darkseid's home planet. When the League arrived to stop the attack, many were taken hostage by the two villains. While Brainiac was attempting to deliver his mind into Superman, Darkseid betrayed him and hacked into his systems. After a battle between Brainiac (controlled by Darkseid) and the League, the ship they were on exploded, seemingly killing both Brainiac and Darkseid. However, Brainiac had delievered a portion of his consciousness inside Lex Luthor during a previous encounter years before. Brainiac started to subtly control Luthor into committing actions that resulted in a major story arc that occurred in the first two seasons of the new Justice League Unlimited.


Brainiac infused with Lex and the android BrainiacBrainiac assimilated nanotechnology from the Blackheart creature and Amazo. He became a new Brainiac with human qualities similar to the original Brainiac of DC Comics. The traditional Brainiac starship and Brainiac controlling Lex Corp story-line was evident in the episode "Divided We Fall." This version of Brainiac was mostly grey and blue, and partially robotic. This Brainiac was beaten by the Justice League, the Flash in particular.

In the upcoming fifth season of Smallville, Brainiac will be a semi-regular character, played by James Marsters.

The Joker is a DC Comics supervillain, widely considered to be Batman's archenemy. Created by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, he first appeared in Batman #1 (1940).

Modeled after Conrad Veidt’s character in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs (which was based on a novel by Victor Hugo), the Joker is a prank-obsessed criminal with a clown-like appearance. Writers have alternatively portrayed him as a goofy trickster-thief or as a homicidal psychopath with a warped sense of humor. Recent writers of the Batman comic book series have preferred the latter, and the Joker has been responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman’s life, such as the murder of Jason Todd, the successor to the mantle of Robin after Dick Grayson, and the injury/paralysis of Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl.

The Joker has been featured throughout the Batman comic book saga and has been an enemy of the Caped Crusader in most adaptations in other media. Interpretations of the Joker that have made him well-known to the general public include Cesar Romero's in the 1960s Batman television series and Jack Nicholson's in the 1989 feature film.


Analysis
The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince of Crime and the Harlequin of Hate. Throughout the evolution of the Batman universe, interpretations and incarnations of the Joker have taken two forms. The original and currently dominant image is of a sadistic, fiendishly intelligent psychopath with a warped sense of humor, deriving pleasure from inflicting grotesque, morbid death and terror upon innocent people. In this interpretation, he is a textbook example of antisocial personality disorder; In a sense he is Charles Manson cursed with a clown's grinning face and a grotesque sense of showmanship. Whereas Batman represents law and order in society, the Joker represents chaos and crime. The other interpretation of the Joker, popular in the late 1940s through 1960s comic books as well as the 1960s television series, portrays the Joker as an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief. The 1990s cartoon Batman: The Animated Series is notable for blending these two aspects, but most interpretations tend to embrace one characterization or the other.

There is even an indication that the Joker's insanity may be a super power in and of itself. In Elseworlds: Distant Fires, an alternate future where a nuclear war deprives all super beings of their powers, the Joker is rendered sane. Technically, the Joker seems to derive his insanity from a freak accident in the same way many heroes receive super powers. Therefore, in a way, the Joker's insanity is a super power. In its short run Amalgam Comics had super beings from Marvel Comics and DC Comics appearing in each other's universes, much confused and not recognized, but the Joker recognized Spider-Man and even commented on his costume change and wondered what Spider-Man was doing in Gotham City. Similarly, in Arkham Asylum, a psychiatrist suggests that the Joker's mental condition is an instance of "super-sanity," a unique form of sensory perception more suited to an increasingly fast-paced world.

Part of the Joker's prominence among Batman's enemies likely derives from the fact that, more than any other villain, the Joker in many ways represents the antithesis of Batman's personality and methods. Batman is almost always depicted, even in the campy 1960's television show, as a serious, stoic man; one who pursues his campaign against crime with utter earnestness and a disciplined, focused mind. In the darker portrayals of the comics and more recent films and television, the Dark Knight is further depicted as a brooding and humorless avenger; one who pursues justice as an enigmatic shadow striking from the dead of night. The Joker, by contrast, is literally a killer clown, driven by a disordered and chaotic mind to pursue destruction and chaos with as much panache as possible. His appearance and actions suggest the bright and garish pomp and circumstance of the circus.


Origins
In the comics

The Joker, before the accident, with his wife. Art by Brian Bolland from The Killing Joke.The definitive origin and actual name for the character was never established in the comics (although some people now assume his real name is Jack Napier as in the 1989 Batman movie). In a 1951 story an origin was told in which he was originally a criminal who called himself the "Red Hood". In an encounter with Batman, he jumped into a pool of chemicals to escape pursuit, and this permanently dyed his skin white and his hair green, giving him the appearance of a ghastly clown. (In the light of later developments, it's worth noting that even in this story, the only source of information about who the Joker was before his fateful run-in with Batman is the Joker's own recollection)

This origin was greatly expanded upon in the 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke written by Alan Moore. In that story, the Joker was an unnamed engineer who quit his job at a chemical company to become a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to support his pregnant wife, he agreed to guide two criminals into the plant for a robbery. During the planning, the police came and informed him that his wife had just died in a household accident. Grief-stricken, the engineer tried to withdraw from the plan, but the criminals strong-armed him into keeping his commitment to them.


The Joker emerges from the vat and goes insane, in a scene from The Killing Joke. Art by Brian Bolland.At the plant, the criminals made him don a special mask to become the infamous Red Hood. Unknown to the engineer, this was simply a way to implicate any accomplice as the mastermind of a crime to divert attention from themselves. Once inside, they almost immediately blundered into security personnel and a violent shootout and chase ensued. The criminals were gunned down and the engineer found himself confronted by Batman, who was investigating the disturbance.

In panicked desperation, the engineer escaped by diving into a toxic waste vat and swam through a pipe leading to the outside. Once there, he discovered, to his horror, that the chemicals permanently stained his appearance into that of a clown-like being with chalk white skin, ruby red lips and bright green hair. This turn of events, compounded by the man's misfortunes on that one day, caused him to go completely insane and resulted in the birth of the Joker.

In a recent comic book (Batman: Gotham Knights #54 - 2004), it was heavily implied that much of the above origin was in fact true (Which revealed that the Joker's first name was Jack), with details of it being backed up by a witness to the death of the Joker's wife. In this version, however, his wife was kidnapped and murdered by those same gangsters, in order to force his cooperation in the Red Hood robbery. The witness was none other than Edward Nigma, who would eventually become the Riddler. Whether this revised origin is an improvement is a subject of debate.

In the short story "On a Beautiful Summer's Day, He Was" by Robert McCammon, featured in the anthology The Further Adventures of the Joker, the Joker is suggested to have been born a monster, not made one by bad luck. The story concerns him as a young boy who gets pleasure from killing small animals, considered the hallmark sign of a budding sociopath, and collecting their bones. The story notes that his father is also insane and, in a chilling scene, beats his mother while the boy listens through the wall, grinning. The end of the story has him graduating to murder, killing a neighborhood boy who discovers his makeshift graveyard. The story identifies the Joker's last name as Napier.

In "Best of All," another story in the anthology, the Joker murdered his abusive father as a child. His mother was revealed to be Batman's old friend and confidant Leslie Thompkins, which he revealed to Batman to torment him.

Any recountings of the Joker's origin are largely unreliable, however, as they are taken directly from his own memories, and as he himself puts it in The Killing Joke, "I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!"

The 1989 film

Jack Nicholson as the Joker.The 1989 Batman movie offered a somewhat different origin for the Joker, and at the same time made him part of Batman's origin. The Joker's real name in the movie was Jack Napier, a play on the word "jackanapes" and possibly also adapted from the surname of actor Alan Napier, who had played Alfred in the 1966 series. Napier, a career criminal, went by the nickname "Ace" and dressed in black, a tie-in with and contrast to his later playing card incarnation. Following a similar Batman encounter to the comic book version but not while in a costumed persona, Napier became a victim of a freak chemical accident (the reaction to the chemicals, the combination of a gunshot wound to his face which severed nerves and a botched attempt at reconstructive surgery becoming the reason for the Joker's eternal "smile"). But when Bruce Wayne learned about the Joker he remembered his own past (how his parents were murdered at the hands of Jack Napier) and only then did Wayne realize the Joker was partly responsible for him becoming Batman in the first place. In the comics as well as the 2005 film Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill.

In the animated series

The Joker as he appeared in Batman: The Animated Series. His voice was provided by Mark Hamill.Batman: The Animated Series - mainly in the episode "Beware the Creeper" and the spin-off movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm - offers another version of the Joker's history: he is portrayed as a former anonymous hitman for a mob with ties to the Beaumont family, and was responsible for the death of Carl Beaumont. As in the 1989 movie, he was not wearing any disguise when he made his fateful attempt to rob the chemical factory; unlike the movie, no attempt has been made to connect him with the death of Bruce Wayne's parents (although "Jack Napier" has been mentioned as one of the hitman's aliases, and in the episode Dreams in Darkness, an Arkham Psychiatrist identified him with the name Jack Napier).

Trademarks
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The Joker's trademarks are his countless "comedic" weapons (like razor sharp playing cards, acid-spewing flowers, and lethally electric joy buzzers) and Joker venom, a deadly poison that infects his victims with a ghoulish rictus grin as they die while uncontrollably laughing hysterically (although some versions cause immediate death, without the painful laugh spasms beforehand). This venom comes in many forms, from gas to darts to liquid poison, and has been his primary calling card from 1940 till the present. In the 1989 movie, it was dubbed "Smilex", but its symptoms are the same. The Joker's trademark playing card can be seen at the end of the movie Batman Begins.

Appearances
In his initial dozen or so appearances, starting with Batman #1 (1940), the Joker was a straightforward mass murderer, much like a typical Dick Tracy villain with a bizarre appearance modeled after the playing card, but with only comparatively mildly eccentric behavior. He was a master thief who liked to leave smiling corpses in his wake. In these early appearances, he would steal any number of things, but he seemed to have a particular fondness for jewels. It is of note that in his second appearance ("The Joker Returns", also in Batman #1), the Joker was actually slated to be killed off, with the final page detailing the villain accidentally stabbing himself and lying dead as Batman and Robin run off into the night. Fortunately, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson quickly changed their minds and added a panel implying that the Joker was still alive.

For the next several appearances, the Joker would often escape capture but suffer an apparent death (falling off a cliff, being caught in a burning building, etc.), from which there would be no body and thus he would quickly recover. In these first dozen adventures, the Joker killed close to three dozen people, which was impressive for a villain who didn't use giant robots, mutant monsters, space lasers, or the like. This was the status quo from 1940 till around 1942. Ironically, the turning point came in "Joker Walks the Last Mile" (Detective Comics #64), where the Joker was actually sentenced and executed via the electric chair, only to immediately come back to life. Alas, while the Joker was back, he was decidedly less deadly than ever. At that point, the editors decided that only one-shot villains should commit murder, so as to not make Batman look impotent in his inability to punish such recurring foes as the Joker or the Penguin. As the Batman comics as a whole softened their tone, the character's emphasis was soon turned to jokes and comedy-themed crimes and the Joker became a cackling maniac. He quickly became the most popular villain and was used almost constantly during the Golden Age of Comic Books. The use of the character lessened somewhat by the late 1950s and disappeared almost entirely when Julius Schwartz took over editorship of the Batman comics in 1964.

This changed with the success of the 1960s television series which brought the character to the forefront along with the rest of the classic rogues gallery. During that period, the Joker (portrayed with zest by actor Cesar Romero, who refused to shave his rather sizable mustache for the role, resulting in the bizarre sight of makeup smeared over his mustache) was a persistent but essentially silly and harmless character in his 18 appearances (out of 120 episodes) spanning from 1966 until 1968.


Batman #251, September 1973. Art by Neal Adams.In 1973, the character was profoundly revised in the Batman comic stories by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams. Beginning in Batman #251 with the story "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", the Joker became a homicidal maniac who casually murdered people, even his own henchmen, on a whim, but enjoyed the battle of wits with Batman. This take on the character has been the predominant one since. Steve Englehart, in his short but well-received run on the book, added elements deepening the severity of the Joker's insanity with the Joker's desire to trademark fish subjected to his toxins.

The character even had his own nine-issue series during the 1970s where he faced off against a variety of foes, both superheroes and supervillains. Although he was the hero of the series, certain issues had as high a body count as stories where he was the antagonist. Of the nine issues, he committed murder in seven of them.


The Joker and Harley Quinn. Art by Alex Ross.The most recent major addition to the character was the introduction of Harley Quinn, an insane psychiatrist who fell hopelessly in love with the Joker in Arkham Asylum and now serves as his loyal, if daffy, sidekick costumed in a skintight harlequin suit. Their relationship often resembles that of an abusive domestic relationship, with Joker insulting, hurting, or even attempting to kill Quinn, who always comes back for more. That this sort of material actually made its debut in a cartoon intended for children (Batman: The Animated Series, which aired from September 1992 till October 1999) is particularly of note. The comic book story "Mad Love" from the Batman Adventures series (a book inspired by the 90's cartoon), a story that recounts Quinn's origin and shows her actually defeating and single handedly almost killing Batman (she's only stopped by an egotistical Joker, who nearly kills her, only to woo her back in the end), won several comic book awards and eventually became an episode in the cartoon. She was popular enough to be integrated into the comics in 1999 and even had her own sporadically successful comic series which only recently ended its run with 38 issues. A modified version of the character, less goofy but still criminally insane and utterly devoted to the Joker, was featured on the live-action TV series Birds of Prey which lasted only 13 episodes.

Most recently, a very different version of the Joker appeared in the new animated series The Batman. No explanation for this Joker's origin has yet been given, but his costume - a purple and yellow straight-jacket, fingerless gloves and bare feet (which are white with green toenails) - green dreadlocks, red eyes and athletic prowess clearly mark him as different to his predecessors. Later in the series, he regressed back to his more traditional garb (but still had dreadlocks and wore no shoes). Apparently he knows martial arts and is able to spar competently with the Batman. He also moves and fights with monkey-like movements, using his feet as dexterously as his hands, and often hanging from the walls and ceilings. He is still recognizably the Joker, though he seems to have no motive for his crimes other than enjoying them. He still employs his signature lethal laughing gas. His physical appearance and voice actor (Kevin Michael Richardson) suggest that this Joker is/was African-American before his appearance was altered.


Other media
While Romero was the first to play the Joker on television screens (and in movie theaters) in the 1960s, Nicholson was chosen to play the role in the feature film Batman directed by Tim Burton. In animation, Mark Hamill is the most famous actor to supply the character's voice, in Batman: The Animated Series and its various spinoffs, including Justice League and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. He also provided the voice for the character in an episode of Birds of Prey. Kevin Michael Richardson provides the voice of the Clown Prince of Crime in The Batman. The future of the Joker in film is all but cemented by recent interviews with screenwriter David Goyer, who recently explained to Premiere Magazine that he plans to use The Joker as the main villain for the sequel to Batman Begins. Audiences are evenly split over this possibility. Some confirmation will come soon.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
To further speculation, Batman Begins ends with James Gordon, future Police Commissioner of Gotham, telling Batman that the city has a new villain who robs banks and kills people (among other things) and that he leaves his signature behind at every crime: the Joker playing card. Batman then says that he will look into this matter. Although Mark Hamill is regarded as the fan favorite, actors who are contenders for the part are: Crispin Glover, Willem Dafoe, Lachy Hulme, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Tim Roth, Alan Cumming, Benicio Del Toro, Steve Buscemi, and Paul Bettany

Bane is the DC Comics villain best known for breaking Batman's back.

Bane possesses peak human strength, enhanced by his use of the drug "Venom." He is also quite intelligent (having deduced Batman's secret identity) and devious (he crafted the escape from Arkham Asylum of all of Batman's enemies).


History
Born to serve the life sentence of his father, Bane's childhood and early adult life were spent behind the walls of Pena Duro, an infamous prison located in Santa Prisca. There, he read as many books as he could grab his hands on, and built up his body in the prison's gymnasium. He became a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom, which had killed its other subjects. It nearly killed him at first, but he survived and found its effects enhanced his physical strength.

Years later Bane escaped Pena Duro, along with several accomplices (his friends Trogg, Zombie and Bird). His ambitions turned to destroying Batman, whom he had heard tales of while serving his sentence. Bane was convinced that the demonic bat that haunted his dreams since childhood was a representation of the Batman.


Bane breaks Batman's back. Cover to Batman #497. Art by Kelley Jones.Bane destroyed the walls of Arkham Asylum, allowing its deranged inmates to escape into Gotham City, where Batman spent three months rounding them up, running himself to exhaustion, and then returned to Wayne Manor, where Bane awaited him. He fought Batman, defeated him, and delivered the coup de grace: he broke Batman's back and threw him to the streets of Gotham.

While Bane established himself as ruler of Gotham's criminal underworld, Bruce Wayne passed the mantle of Batman to Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael). As Batman, Jean-Paul grew increasingly violent, allowing the villain known as Abattoir to fall to his death, and refused to recognize Robin as his partner. "AzBat" (as comics fans refer to him) fought and defeated Bane at the end of the "Knightfall" arc.

Bane first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (1993). The "Knightfall" story arc ran through Batman #491-500, Detective Comics #659-666, and Showcase '93 #7-8, with tie-ins appearing in several other titles published during that time.


In other media
While Bane is one of the more popular villains in the comic continuity, he hasn't enjoyed as much visibility on television or the silver screen.

Bane has appeared as a villain on Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs (voiced by Henry Silva in all appearances but the direct-to-video Mystery of the Batwoman, in which he was voiced by Hector Elizondo), but in those depictions never achieved what his comics counterpart could: the defeat of Batman. The producers were reluctant to utilize him (along with Doomsday in the Superman Animated Series) because they felt that their comics incarnations were both gimmick characters. This explains his singular appearance in Batman: TAS and his small role in Batman: Gotham Knights.

Bane first appeared in Batman: The Animated Series as a muscular thug hired by the mobster Rupert Thorne to eliminate Batman. He ends up fighting Batman in the sewers, but before he can break his back as he did in the comics, Batman is able to use the controls that inject Bane with Venom to give him an overdose before pulling out the tube that sends the drug into Bane's body; this becomes a recurring theme in Bane's defeats when he does appear in the series. Bane notably appeared in a later crossover episode of the Batman/Superman Adventures, in which Bruce Wayne had been brainwashed by Brainiac and in order to find him, Robin enlisted the help of Superman. To prevent anyone from determining Batman's secret identity by seeing the connection between the simultaneous disappearance of Bruce Wayne and Batman, Robin had Superman dress in Batman's suit and impersonate his voice. During the episode, they ambushed a meeting between Bane, Mad Hatter, and The Riddler, and Bane was quite surprised when "Batman" beat him to a bloody pulp.

In Batman Beyond, the effects of Venom appear to have taken their toll. By this time, Bane has become wheelchair-bound and almost in a vegetative stupor, needing the Venom which has ravaged his body just to stay alive.


Jeep Swenson as Bane in Batman and Robin.In the 1997 movie Batman and Robin, Bane was played by the late wrestler Jeep Swenson (1957-1997). He was again a convict from a prison, but this time he was turned into Bane by a mad scientist who injected him with Venom. Rather than being the devious, intelligent villain of the comics, he was a mindless thug who served as the sidekick of Poison Ivy, one of the main villains of the film. His defeat came when his Venom tube was pulled out of his head. This depiction of the character was one of many aspects of the film which received harsh criticism from fans and critics alike.

In The Batman, a newer animated series, Bane also appeared as a hitman and professional thief. In this rendition, he was even more monstrous in size and, to defeat him, Batman had to utilize a prototype robot called the "Bat-Bot".

Doomsday is the name of a fictional supervillain in the Superman comic book series.

Origin
Doomsday was artificially created by Bertron, a mad scientist working on Krypton, Superman's home world, though neither he nor his creator were Kryptonian (although Bertron had used a cadre of Kryptonian scientists who assisted him in his lab). Doomsday hated Superman because whenever he looked at a Kryptonian, he saw his creator who had subjected him to death over and over again in order to create the perfect life form. In order to do this, they sent a baby onto the surface of Krypton, where it would be killed by the harsh environment or vicious creatures. Each time, the lifeform's remains were harvested and used again, to create a better, stronger version of the last. Through decades of this process, the being which would eventually become Doomsday was forced to endure the agony of death, thousands upon thousands of times; the memory of these countless deaths drove it to hate all life, and especially Kryptonians.

History
Doomsday was created in 1992 by writer/artist Dan Jurgens for a story arc in the Superman series of comic books that was titled The Death of Superman. In this series, Doomsday was an ultra-powerful destructive villain who engaged in a seemingly endless, mindless rampage across the face of the United States. He had been buried underground for an unknown period of time at the beginning of the story arc, until he tunneled his way out and into the light of day. He immediately began attacking anything and everything within range, with the mindless ferocity of a monster, never speaking, and apparently enjoying the wanton destruction and mayhem he was causing.

In his first encounter with the Justice League, Doomsday defeated the entire team of superheroes in a matter of minutes, laying waste to the entire surrounding area, and finally attracting the attention of Superman. (Because he never spoke, he never called himself "Doomsday." The name "Doomsday" was coined by Booster Gold, one of the members of the Justice League, who said that the monster's rampage resembled "the arrival of Doomsday," meaning the end of the world.) Superman quickly found that Doomsday's awesome power was easily a match for his own, and he realized that if Doomsday reached the city of Metropolis, the resulting battle could conceivably destroy the city and kill millions of innocent people.

In the space of only a few issues of the Superman comic book series, Superman and Doomsday engaged in a titanic, no-holds-barred battle that made Superman realize that Doomsday would continue to attack relentlessly, unending, with no defeat or surrender in sight. It culminated in Superman #75, where in a heroic act of self-sacrifice, Superman fought Doomsday to the bitter end, until the two combatants struck a simultaneous, fatal blow that left both combatants lifeless.

In the aftermath of Superman's apparent death, no less than four super-beings appeared in his wake, all of them declaring themselves to be the "real" Superman. One of these four, a half-man/half-machine cyborg (who would later become a dangerous villain called simply "The Cyborg") took the apparently lifeless body of Doomsday and flung it into deep space, on a trajectory that would supposedly ensure that it would never land on any planet.

However, Doomsday's body was found by a deep-space scavenger ship that happened to be en route to Apokolips, the home of the evil Darkseid. During this trip it was learned that Doomsday was not really dead. He revived and, after slaughtering the crew of the salvage ship, found himself on the harsh world of Apokolips. This was to be the setup for a final showdown between Doomsday and Superman, who had been uneasy about the possibility of Doomsday's resurrection. Unfortunately, Darkseid's servant DeSaad opened a boom tube to Caltron-- the first world where Doomsday was successfully defeated -- and sent Doomsday through to what DeSaad believed was his defeat at the hands of the Radiant.

Doomsday is essentially able to adapt and overcome any opponent, so although the Radiant had defeated him once, he would not be able to defeat him again. Superman refused to heed this warning and allow Caltron to be destroyed. He fought Doomsday again with the help of a Mother Box, a thinking computer, but he met with defeat. He was forced to use one of Waverider's time travel devices to bring Doomsday to the one place where nothing can survive: the end of time.

Doomsday returned yet again in the miniseries The Doomsday Wars. In this series, Brainiac uses his technology to travel to the end of time to retrieve Doomsday in order to combine the beast's massive power with Brainiac's formidible intellect. Doomsday's will proves too strong to override completely with psionics, so Brainiac attempts to use a human host to genetically engineer a Doomsday body without the mindless rage. He chooses to use Pete Ross and Lana Lang's newborn baby. Superman thwarts Brainiac's plot with one of the villain's own devices, and places Doomsday in kind of stasis with four JLA teleporters.

Following these events, Doomsday was released by Lex Luthor's Suicide Squad to battle Imperiex, a threat that was judged to be even greater than Doomsday himself. Once freed, Doomsday slaughtered the Squad, and then went on to battle Imperiex's numerous probes, which had thus far managed to seriously injure or kill most of Earth's heroes. Doomsday tore through numerous probes with seemingly little effort before finally, confronting Imperiex himself. Imperiex proved too much for Doomsday, and blasted him, reducing Doomsday to a skeleton. Eventually, Doomsday's body was retrieved and his flesh regrown by Lex Luthor, who then handed Doomsday over to Darkseid to repay Earth's war debt to Apokolips. By this time, Doomsday had evolved intelligence. Darkseid attempted to replicate Doomsday, producing an army of Doomsday "clones." Fortunately, Darkseid was not able to perfectly duplicate the creature in all its raw power, possibly as a result of the creature's complex DNA.

When Superman travelled to Apokolips to reclaim the life of John Henry Irons, the man known as Steel, Darkseid's wife Mortalla ordered his troops to release Doomsday in an attempt to help Darkseid. Doomsday's short freedom was quickly halted by John Henry Irons in the Entropy Aegis, an armor with incredible power. Doomsday disappeared and was seen wandering the harsh lands of Apokolips.

With his newfound intelligence, Doomsday managed to escape Apokolips and return to Earth. From his arrival, Doomsday encountered a series of emotions previously alien to him - love, compassion and kindness. Exploring the full abilities of these new emotions, Doomsday made his way to Metropolis once more, though not in the destructive manner he had before. Upon his arrival in Metropolis, Doomsday found Superman at the brink of death at the hands of one of his enemies. Using his new emotions, Doomsday shocked both Superman and his opponent, Gog by helping Superman fight against Gog's army. This unfortunately was not enough to save Superman, who died at the hands of Gog and caused the future to diverge. In this new future, Doomsday was remembered as one of Earth's greatest heroes, who continued Superman's legacy by leading an army under his name against the army of Gog. This timeline ended when an old and weary Gog offered Doomsday the chance to return to the past and save Superman - albeit at the cost of becoming a monster again.

Doomsday's present whereabouts are unknown.


Doomsday in Other Media
In Justice League, the Justice Lords (a tyrannical version of the Justice League from a parallel universe) fought a weaker, more intelligent version of Doomsday (voiced by Michael Jay White). The situation was resolved by that version of Superman firing his heat vision into the villain's head, lobotomizing him. Later, it was revealed that the Cadmus Project had created this Doomsday as an imperfect clone of Superman, programmed to hate the Man of Steel. His brain eventually regenerated, and he resumed his quest to kill Superman. Like in the comics, this version of Doomsday seems to have a biology that adapts to any opponent given time, so any attack used to defeat him works only once: when he re-appeared after his laser-lobotomy, he had grown a heavy bone plate in his skull making it impossible to lobotomize him again. He was finally banished to the Phantom Zone as a last resort.