Late last year I picked up the Superman Sunday Classics and in it they reprinted an origin story from around 1942-3 that was about two pages long.
I don't agree. Superman doesn't need a simplified non-origin. In fact, the very "simplicity" of the origin in the Gold through Bronze age was its biggest liability, and it was the thoroughness and completeness of BIRTHRIGHT that was its greatest strength.
The biggest problem with Superman's origin, and also with Batman's origin, is that it was always tended to be covered in
montages.
I'm sure you can picture the Batman origin montage now: there's always the same three panel sequence of him "training:" one panel with Batman lifting weights, another with him holding up test tubes, and finally one with Bats at a pommel horse (or rarely, set of rings).
If the origin was covered in these montage sequences, then by definition there are going to be "gaps." And if there are gaps then there's the potential to go crazy.
Batman's origin was not harmed in this way, because mostly when we filled in the montage gaps, it was with cute, disposable facts like "Batman trained with Argentinean cattlemen in the use of the bolos."
Superman's origin, though? There were always new things being added or deleted. It was like he had a Wikiorigin.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: in some versions of the story, Jor-El built the rocketship for both Lara and Kal-El, but Lara refused to leave because she wanted to die with her husband, and the weight would unsteady the craft. Some retellings have this, others don't.
And don't get me started on the "little details" that were forever being added: Jor-El sending a Super-Teacher, or Mon-El's ship landing as Krypton crumbled. One of the most important elements of the origin of Superman, the urgency with which he was sped away, was eventually neutered because it seemed Jor-El had just about all the time in the world, what between sending Mon-El off and building the Super-Teacher and all that.
You're right in comparing this to the Marvel heroes. One of the things I think is most interesting about the House that Stan Built is that every little detail, no matter how old, still counts. We Superman fans regularly forget really colossal things like the fact Heat-Vision wasn't a separate power for DECADES. Or the fact in some issues, gold blocks Kryptonite radiations as well as lead.
Compare that to, for instance, ONE LINE in an early issue of the Stan/Jack X-MEN where Professor X admits in a thought bubble he loves Marvel Girl. Stan wisely never, ever mentioned this again because it made the Professor look like a creepy, creepy letch, and transferred the "secretly in love" angle to Cyclops.
In case you're curious, the explanation later writers would come up with for that fantastically Mopee-ish line is that because Prof. X trained with Marvel Girl and they shared each other's thoughts, he was somewhat possessive and protective, and that "scrambled" him a little until the Prof came to his senses.
But my point here is this: because we saw the day-to-day developments of the X-Men "on camera," because we had a definite "first issue" and start point, something that Superman and Batman both don't have, there's a greater sense that what we see is "honest."
Hell, in the early Daredevil run, the Man Without Fear used gadgets in his cape and cowl, including a microphone inside his baton. These gizmos were abandoned after one issue, but almost every writer after (including Frankie Miller himself) has at least in passing rationalized them away: Matt Murdock eventually discarded them. Even if it was a one-issue phase, it was still a part of the story of Daredevil.
And so we come to the problem with the origin of Superman: whatever is in and out depends on the caprice or whim of the writer. And that's no origin at all.
This is why I liked BIRTHRIGHT very, very much: here was an origin of Superman where everything happened "on camera." There were no gaps that a future obnoxious writer could use to say, "Kal-El, before you left, your father sent out your beloved pet Kangaroo."
In fact, because it was so complete, it isn't necessarily desirable to include little twists like this.
As for there being multiple Superman origins...actually, I like this.
The thing that ticked me off about the Jeph Loeb "Return to Krypton" is that all it did was bring back "classic" Krypton. It didn't show us anything we haven't seen before. BIRTHRIGHT at least, showed us a totally different take on Superman's origin, with totally different elements that were a nice surprise: the idea that Clark Kent travelled the world before becoming Superman, which gives him a global, cosmopolitan perspective instead of being Jeph Loeb's provincial "Super-Forrest Gump."
How about the All Star universe Superman?
No one knows this. Including, I bet, Morrison.
Sure, there was that two-page thing in the beginning that hand-waived the origin away.
This is a great example of the postmodernist, subliterate assholery that makes me loathe Morrison with every fiber of my being: the ASS origin was a copy, but of something that has no "original." (What would Jean Beaudrillard say?)
DC is still tip toeing around the issue and I think it's because they are so desperate to get people to approve of it that they are afraid of offending someone if they choose the wrong origin. I think they figure that by the time that his history is revealed, you will like the series so much you won't care if it's not to your specifications.
I think DC has been pretty good with their "have your cake and eat it too" explanations that are intended to please many different kinds of fans. Hal Jordan is a Green Lantern, and so is Kyle Rayner.
If there's ever a time to whip out a new Superman origin, it would be now. People are as exhausted and tired of the Byrne/Wolfman origin now as they were in 1985 with the Wikiorigin. And people aren't willing to commit to BIRTHRIGHT. It went over about as well as an abortion in a Disney cartoon.
Spider-Man, which are considered the best two superhero movies ever made.
For the record I agree with Alex Ross: time will not be kind to the Spider-Man movie in the long-term. The truly good, truly definitive Spider-Man movie has yet to be made.
I just think it would be refreshing to see some of these overpaid modern "superstar" creators add something significant to the mythos instead of re-telling the oldest story in the book. Just as it's nice to hear a new joke every now and then, no matter how great the old ones are.
Awww, c'mon. Waid made some pretty substantial and significant additions to his BIRTHRIGHT origin.
My question is, should there be one for all time version that has to be universally followed in all forms like there is with the other characters?
Yes, I think there ought to be at least for the comics. I really hope Kurt and Geoff get off their fannies and give us this. If they don't want to use BIRTHRIGHT, fine, but we need
something.
This is not to say that there can't be other origins to meet the needs of shows, games, etc. However, one of the greatest advantages of comics is that they are how it all "really" happened.
Of course, there's always some ape like Morrison reminding us all stories are imaginary stories. But this is temporarily putting away an instinct we all have initially: that the comics version is real and definitive.
Cartoons can afford to be vague, but comics are what started it all.
A friend that knows I like adventure comics, asked me if I knew how it all "really" happened with the X-Men (he was a fan only of the movies). Note the assumption implicit in that statement!