Which origin do you prefer?

[boomer359]

I prefer the Birthright origin story. The other's are still good and I like them, but they're dated and leave me feeling disconnected to the character.

Birthright brings Superman nicely into modern times and does a good job conveying the range of emotions that Clark goes through in making his decisions. Plus, the art is amazing.

[Johnny Nevada]

First choice is the Silver/Bronze Age version of his origin. What I grew up on, plus it incorporated all the things I liked (Superboy, Krypton as  a decent place to live [marriages having to be blessed by a computer, until Jor-El took care of *that*, notwithstanding ;-) ], etc.). Some of it might be a bit dated or even "hokey", but I still like it...

Second choice, not listed above, is probably the Superman:The Animated Series origin. Granted, a lot of it was influenced by Byrne's version of things, but it kept/made intelligent use of the traditional elements (Krypton, sent to Earth as a baby and not a fetus, Clark isn't a top athlete in high school) as well. That, and the cartoon's version of Brainiac is pretty cool (a better take on the 90s' comics' "Eradicator" idea)...

I might've picked "Birthright" if I had read it (haven't had the $$ to do so...).

[TELLE]

Byrne's Krypton as a whole is STILL the most magnificient of all Kryptons, because it turned Superman's tale (and origin) into some veritable Epic: Superman wasn't just some mindless "kryptonian patriot" trying to live UP to the ethics of an culture whose morals were dubious at best (Phantom Zone, or that custom to force young people to take up a job choosed for them by an computer?? WTF???), but who's the very paragon of the word "Hero".

Plus, there was this aspect of "Dark Krypton" allways trying to reach from the grave and remake Superman into its own corrupted image...  

I think that Byrne's Krypton is an essentially pointless and purposefully contrarion misreading of the post-Siegel Krypton (ie, the Silver Age Kypton).  The idea of a scientific utopia with some very human quirks and faults is what we get in the traditional Krypton.  The ethics of this culture are very similar to those of the Earth cultures most Americans admire and aspire to.  An inspiration and a warning to Superman.

[Evil Lionel Luthor]

either the byrne MOS, or Birthright

[forgottenhero]

Someone's discovered some scientific problems with the BIRTHRIGHT origin:

http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2005/03/kryptonian-astrophysics-101.html

[Kuuga]

(The Superman animated series had a novel solution to this seeming inconsistency in the Brainiac computer. The animated Krypton was fully scientifically capable of diagnosing the planet's problem, and of addressing it, but their folly was in trusting a machine that lied to them out of its own self-interest.)


This is one of the big reasons why out of them all in any media, I would have to point to the STAS origin as my favorite.  The inclusion of Brainiac is like the missing peice of the origins puzzle finally in place. I just love it, from the big things to the little things like Kal-Els ship having a landing gear.

[Captain Kal]

Hey, Forgottenhero, the guy who wrote that 'scientific problems' article clearly didn't read Birthright carefully enough.

First, in the opening pages of BR #1, we see clearly in the simulation Kal-El's starcraft trying to evade hostile alien ships.  Also, Jor-El mentions Krypton searching for life 'similarly advanced' as Krypton in BR #1.  IIRC, in the last issues of BR, Krypton had wars with other systems.  Krypton clearly knew about life in other systems.

Second, Krypton's sun was a 'red dwarf' relative to the Kryptonians' POV.  Possibly, what's a 'dwarf' to them is a 'giant' to us.

But that business of a virtually unpopulated Kryptonian galaxy simply doesn't wash given what BR clearly shows us about Krypton knowing about other worlds with life.  What they were looking for but didn't find were lifeforms as advanced as they were.  That implies Krypton was the epitome of advancement in their galaxy and weren't really interested in lesser advanced worlds for whatever reason.  And they clearly showed at least two pieces of evidence that some systems they encountered were hostile thus eliminating them from consideration for Kal-El.

At the last moment, Jor decides that instead of a similar world and culture, he'd settle for one that would maximize his son's chances via super-powers which gave him Earth in our galaxy.

(I've had this debate with ManoftheAtom on the DC boards so I have most of this memorized.  I'm surprised MOTA didn't write that article himself.)

I should see if I can comment/rebut that article on its own site.

[forgottenhero]

I don't actually own issues of BIRTHRIGHT or the hardcover collection (I plan on buying it in softcover). So, a question: doesn't Waid have Krypton be both in the Andromeda Galaxy and "25 light years away"? (The Andromeda Galaxy, as the article I linked to states, is 2.2 million light years away.)