On the Evolution of Superman

Superman was almost a time-traveling super-earthling instead of an alien from Krypton.

Superman has “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,” as the preamble to his early radio and TV shows announced. Why does he have those super powers?

In contemporary stories, Superman is solar-powered. His Kryptonian body absorbs energy from Earth’s yellow sun, which shines brighter than Krypton’s red sun. Another factor sometimes referenced is that Kryptonian bodies are adapted to the planet Krypton’s gravity, which is greater than that of Earth.

An implication of these explanations is that Kryptonians did not have super powers under the red sun and stronger gravity of Krypton.

But in Superman’s 1938 debut in Action Comics #1, an entirely different explanation was given for his powers. A caption on the first page of the story, written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, stated:

“Kent had come from a planet whose inhabitants’ physical structure was millions of years advanced of our own. Upon reaching maturity, the people of his race became gifted with titanic strength!”

No mention is made of solar energy or gravity. Instead, Superman’s powers seem to be a product of evolution, as is implied by the reference to the “advanced” physical structure of “the people of his race.”

This implication is made explicit in 1939’s Superman #1. A page in that issue, also written by Siegel, titled “Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength—!” states (emphasis added):

“Superman came to earth from the planet Krypton, whose inhabitants had evolved, after millions of years, to physical perfection!”

The explanation page also introduces the gravity factor:

“The smaller size of our planet, with its slighter gravity pull, assists Superman’s tremendous muscles in the performance of miraculous feats of strength.”

But Krypton’s greater gravity apparently did not burden Kryptonians too much, because in the “Explanation” page Superman co-creator and artist Joe Shuster depicts two of them leaping tall Kryptonian buildings in single bounds, just as Superman would later famously do on Earth (before his storytellers granted him the power of flight).

The “Explanation” closes by positing that, “It is not too far fetched to predict that some day our very own planet may be peopled entirely by Supermen!”

In 1939, Superman also made his debut in newspapers. In the first strip, “The Superman Is Born” by Siegel and Shuster, we see another Kryptonian, Superman’s father Jor-L, performing super-human physical feats on Krypton as he rushes to meet his newborn son. The action is both pictured in the illustrations and described in the captions:

“Mile after mile streaks by as Jor-L, Krypton’s foremost scientist races along at a terrific speed that would out-distance the fastest express train…

…A great leap carries Jor-L hundreds of yards into the air to a balcony near the top of his home.”

The first caption of that strip makes another reference to evolution:

“Krypton, a distant planet so far advanced in evolution that it bears a civilization of supermen — beings which represent the human race at its ultimate peak of perfect development!”

Kryptonians, Siegel seems to imply here and in his “prediction” quoted above, are what earth-dwelling humans will become after physically evolving to our “highest” possible state.

This notion of “Superman as peak earthling” was even more pronounced in an earlier rendition of the character.

In 1934, four years before Superman’s public debut, Siegel wrote a letter pitching the character and his story to comic strip artist Russell Keaton. That version of Superman was not an alien from Krypton, but a super-evolved human earthling.

Like in the 1938 story, Superman as a baby was saved from his planet’s destruction by his scientist father. But in the 1934 story, the dying planet was not Krypton, but Earth in the distant future. And the rescue vehicle was not a spaceship, but a time machine. Siegel’s letter told the beginning of the story as follows:

1. “In his laboratory, the last man on earth worked furiously. He had only a few moments left.

2. Giant cataclysms were shaking the reeling planet, destroying mankind. It was in its last days, dying….

3. The last man placed his infant babe within a small time-machine he had completed, launching it as —

4. — the laboratory walls caved-in upon him.

5. The time-vehicle flashed back thru the centuries, alighting in the primitive year, 1935 A. D. A passing motorist sighted the metal cylinder…

6. …and upon investigating discovered the sleeping babe within.

7. The infant was placed in an orphanage. The first day, it playfully bent its metal bed out of shape. The astounded attendants, of course, did not realize they were caring for a child whose physical structure was millions of years advanced from their own.”

Just like in the 1938 story, the baby would be named “Clark Kent” and would later use his powers to help those in need as Superman.

Superman has been called “the Man of Tomorrow.” In his 1934 time-traveling iteration, that apellation was more than figurative.

“Superman as super-evolved human” is redolent of the origin of the word “Superman” in the writings of Friedrich Nietzche. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzche proclaims that “Man is something that is to be surpassed” by something: namely, by “the Superman.” According to Nietzche, the Superman will surpass man in the same way that man surpassed “the ape” and “the beast” in general, going all the way back to “the worm.” Nietzche has Zarathustra address humanity thus:

“Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.”

Nietzche was clearly making reference to biological evolution and the theory of the “descent of man” from beasts, and from apes most directly. These ideas, as formulated by Charles Darwin, were making waves at the time that Nietzche was writing Zarathustra, between 1883 and 1885. Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in 1859 and his The Descent of Man was published in 1871.

For both Siegel and Nietzche, “the Superman” was an evolutionary advance upon man. This raises the interesting question of whether Siegel was directly influenced by reading Nietzche. I haven’t come across any indication of that being the case. By the 1930s, the notion of “the Superman” had long since entered the English-speaking zeitgeist via George Bernard Shaw and others, so the influence may have been indirect.

Another interesting question is whether Superman’s later writers abandoned the “evolutionary advance” explanation of Superman’s powers in favor of the solar and gravitational factors, because the former was too reminiscent of eugenics and the Nazi spin on the Nietzchian Superman. Again, I can only surmise.

Of course Siegel—who was Jewish, was singled out for denunciation by Nazi propagandists, and would later write stories in which Superman battled Nazis (including one in which Superman hauled off both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to be tried for crimes against humanity)—would have had no truck with Nazi eugenic doctrines.

Siegel portrayed his Superman as a member of an “advanced race,” but not as a would-be representative of a “master race.” The latter characterization would be reserved for later Kryptonian villains, like General Zod in the movies. Superman used his “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,” not to dominate those mortal men, but to serve them. As Siegel wrote in his 1934 treatment (in copy that would reappear only slightly revised in the 1938 debut):

“Early, Kent decided he must turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind. And so was created SUPERMAN, champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!”