Kal-El (Donnerverse)

Template:Member**Kal-El** is the last son of The Planet Krypton, came to The Planet Earth and became **Superman**. In his civilian identity, **Clark Joseph Kent** is a mild mannered reporter for a large metropolitan newspaper. As the city's primary protector, he has to save it from the machinations of Lex L Luthor, An General Zod and The Nuclear Man.

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Christopher Reeve

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## Biography / History

### Birth on Krypton

On the distant planet Krypton, unable to convince Kryptonian elders, scientist Jor-El promises that neither he nor his wife, Lara, will leave the planet. However, he sends his infant son, Kal-El, to Earth to ensure his survival, just as Krypton begins its death throes. Kal-El's spaceship crash-lands three years later in Smallville, Kansas, where the boy is found and adopted by a childless couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark after Martha's maiden name. **Clark is no ordinary child: he is incredibly agile and strong. But at the urging of his parents, he keeps his abilities hidden, frustratingly accepting the ridicule and scorn of his peers as he assumes a mild mannered temperament, fading into the background rather than becoming the star of the football team. But as Jonathan Kent reminds him, Clark was put on Earth "for a reason... (and) it's not to score touchdowns." Soon after, Jonathan has a fatal heart attack and dies, after which a grieving Clark conveys helplessness about having "all [these] powers and I couldn't even save him".** After a few months pass, Clark hears the call of a mysterious green crystal hidden in his parents' barn. He realizes that it is time to discover his purpose, and bids an emotional farewell to his Earth mother. He soon departs on a journey to the Arctic and uses the crystal to build the Fortress of Solitude, a majestic crystal palace in the architectural style of his home planet, Krypton. Inside, Kal-El learns the reason he was transported to Earth and his future role on the planet from holographic recordings of his father. After 12 years of education and training within the Fortress of Solitude, he emerges garbed in a red cape and blue body suit with the El family symbol on the chest and flies off. **Clark returns to civilization, arriving in the city of Metropolis. He's hired as a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper by its editor-in-chief, Perry White. While there, he meets teenage photographer Jimmy Olsen and the paper's star journalist, Lois Lane. Clark becomes immediately infatuated with Lois, but is unable to properly gain her affection while in the bumbling guise of Clark Kent. It isn't long before Clark's true nature is unveiled when, in his blue suit and red cape, he publicly rescues Lois from a helicopter accident atop the Daily Planet building.** Following a series of incidents in which Clark in his yet-unnamed guise comes to the rescue and saves the day, Perry White issues to all his reporters to find out as much information as possible about this mysterious hero. Lois receives an invitation to meet someone at her place, signed only "a friend". Following a perfunctory interview with the Man of Steel, Lois joins him on a flight over Metropolis, ostensibly to see how fast he can go. After their romantic flight, the costumed hero flies off and Lois says to herself, "What a super man", then pauses, and says "Superman!," thus giving the mysterious man his name. **Meanwhile, super criminal Lex Luthor is intent on committing "the greatest real-estate swindle of all time", with the unwitting aid of the U.S. government and the test launching of two ICBMs. To accomplish this, Luthor hopes to cause a major earthquake in California by using the missiles, one of which he has programmed to hit the San Andreas Fault (the other has been programmed to head east to detonate in Hackensack, New Jersey, providing a diversion for the westbound rocket). The quake will cause most of California to slide into the ocean, killing millions of people while simultaneously making the vast tracts of worthless desert land that he had quietly purchased skyrocket in value when it becomes the new West Coast of the United States.** With Superman's fame rapidly spreading, Luthor perceives him to be a serious problem, luring to his lair with a phony threat to gas the population of Metropolis. Having succeeded in attracting his attention, he traps the superhero with a nodule of kryptonite — the only thing to which he is vulnerable. However, Superman effects an escape with the help of Luthor's assistant, Eve Teschmacher, who is both attracted to Superman and frightened for the fate of her mother, who happens to live in Hackensack. **Superman keeps his promise and diverts the path of the Hackensack missile first, forcing it into space. In the meantime, the California missile hits the San Andreas Fault, triggering the massive earthquake Luthor had intended. The length of the fault is devastated by the initial quake, but Superman prevents the catastrophic landslide Luthor intended by plunging deep into the earth to shore up the fault line. However, the quake's violent aftershocks still cause massive damage that creates multiple disasters. As he builds a natural dam from rocks and boulders to stop the flooding caused by the breaching of the Hoover Dam, Superman realizes that he has forgotten about Lois. He discovers her car, fallen into a crevasse that opened up behind it and closed again, trapping her inside and crushing her to death.** Overcome with grief and fury, Superman flies into the upper atmosphere of Earth, where he hears Jor-El's voice forbidding him to interfere in human history. Disobeying his father, Superman flies around the Earth until he is moving faster than the speed of light, thus travelling back in time. This is visually represented by the Earth appearing to spin backwards. **By reversing time, he prevents the Hoover Dam burst, and fixes the fault line in such a way that the crevasse doesn’t reach Lois’ car. The reversal stops at the point where the earthquake began. He then flies back to Lois, who is alive and well. Superman bids farewell and flies off, with a task to finish. Jimmy Olsen then mentions that it is unfortunate Clark is never here to see Superman, and it is this moment only that Lois suspects that Superman and Clark may be the same person, only to dismiss it as "the silliest idea". Superman captures Luthor and Otis and delivers them to prison. The prison warden thanks Superman for his efforts, while Superman modestly demurs, insisting that "we're all part of the same team" before flying off.**

### Giving up his powers for life with Lois

Clark learns from Perry White that Lois is in France, where terrorists seized the Eiffel Tower and threatened to level the city with a Hydrogen Bomb. While in the course of rescuing Lois, the bomb was activated and Superman threw the elevator out of the atmosphere and into deep space, where it exploded. The blast shattered the Phantom Zone mirror, releasing the Kryptonian criminals General Zod, Ursa and non. Clark and Lois ext went on assignment in Niagara Falls, Ontario, investigating what Perry calls a "honeymoon racket". Superman rescues a boy who falls over the railing, and Lois suddenly decides it is far too convenient that Clark disappears every time Superman makes an appearance. She tries to prove it by jumping into the Niagara River, screaming for Superman to save her. Clark never changes identities but, unbeknownst to Lois, uses his heat vision to break off a tree branch for Lois to use to stay afloat. However, later in their hotel room, Clark's powers are revealed when he quickly retrieves his fallen glasses from the fireplace with his bare hands. Realizing that he wasn't burned, Lois realizes the truth. After some hesitation, Clark admits the truth and takes Lois to the Fortress of Solitude, showing her the crystals which created and control the operations; Lois leaves the primary green crystal under her purse, outside the control panel. Kal-El speaks to his father through hologram about his desire to give up his responsibilities as Superman so he can live a normal life with Lois. Jor-El criticizes Kal-El for his decision, but nonetheless offers him a choice. In order for him to relinquish being Superman, he must enter a crystal chamber and be exposed to harnessed rays from Krypton's red sun. He will, therefore, lose his powers permanently and no longer be invulnerable as he has been before. Despite his father’s pleas to reconsider, Kal-El, without hesitance, enters the chamber and undergoes the de-powering process, which culminates in the destruction of the crystal control panel. The two retire to his bedchamber and sleep together. **Meanwhile, the three Kryptonian criminals had devastated a joint NASA-Soviet moon expedition, killing three astronauts. They arrived at Earth, which they initially believed to be a planet called "Houston" (having overheard radio transmissions with Mission Control in Houston, Texas). They wreak havoc on a small town, easily defeating the U.S. military. After defacing Mount Rushmore, the trio conquered the White House, where Zod forced the President of the United States to kneel before him.** Returning from the Fortress of Solitude, Clark is beaten up in a diner by a bullying truck driver. His despondent mood worsens when, in horror, he watches the President announcing the surrender of Earth to General Zod. The President suddenly pleads for Superman's help and Zod issues a challenge to Superman to face him. Realizing the danger posed to the world and the terrible mistake he made, Clark heads back to the Fortress, now a darkened sanctum, and calls out to his father for help. Dreading that there may be no hope left, he then notices He sees the green crystal glowing where Lois accidentally left it– the same green crystal that called out to him at the start of his journey. He used the crystal to activate the panel, and once more. The hologram "spirits" of his parents could no longer appear to him, but they used the last of their Krptonian essence to restore his powers.

#### Defeating Zod and his followers

Lex Luthor managed to notify Zod at the White House about Superman being For-El's son. Luthor manipulate the Krptonianian criminals into luring Superman into a trap, so they could eliminate his enemy. They arrive at the Daily Planet offices and seize Lois, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Superman, his powers fully restored. A destructive battle ensues among the four Kryptonians as Superman struggles with the new experience of battling multiple enemies of his power level. During the battle, Ursa and Zod discover Superman's weakness, his concern for human life, and use this against him. Finally, Superman flees, seemingly in defeat. Luthor convinces the villains that they must pursue Superman to his Fortress. **At the Fortress of Solitude, Superman attempts to distract the villains with a hologram that creates multiple images of himself. However, after grappling with Zod, Ursa and Non threaten to tear Lois limb from limb, and Superman agrees to release Zod and capitulate to them to spare her life. Superman manipulates Luthor into tricking the criminals, counting on Luthor to double-cross him. Superman is forced into the same depowering chamber he used before, and the red light that drains super-powers is actually set loose on the Fortress while Superman is safe inside the chamber. Superman feigns weakness and then crushes Zod's hand after seemingly accepting it in submission. Superman holding Zod up over his head as he curled into a feadal potion. Superman threw Zod at the slanted wall of the fortress, where slid safely to the ground level exposing him to the arctic elements outside. Lois easily punched Ursa, Non leapt toward Superman, only to find he could no longer fly. They both also fell through the fog of the fortress. Superman notified the U.S. Arctic Patrol and the four criminals were arrested outside. After it was all over Superman, realizing the secret of the fortress was compromised, then took took Lois to an iceberg. Lois realized that Superman must continue to serve humanity, conforming to his father's wishes. After Superman flies her home, Lois began to break down in despair. Although life would never be the same, she heartbreakingly assures Superman that she can be trusted to keep his secret identity, which Superman acknowledges consolingly, and he flies off. Superman, realizing that life with Lois can never be he kissed Lois by mysterious means and erased her memory of their romance. She began to belittle him and boss him about as though nothing had happened.** Clark, now with his powers restored as Superman, decided to revisit the diner and confronts Rocky, who was more than willing to pick a fight with him. Much to everyone's surprise, Clark humiliates the trucker, spinning him at super speeds, eventually sliding him across the counter and sending him crashing into the pinball machine, knocking him unconscious. Clark then offers to pay the owners of the diner for the damage. With those around wondering how the stranger was able to beat the bully, Clark simply replied: "Oh, I’ve been... working out." Soon after Superman restored the American flag atop the White House and apologized to the President, assuring him that he'll never let him down again.

### Re-connecting with Lana Lang

Clark retuned to Smalvile for a High School Reunion where a small romance blossomed between him and Lana Lang. During this time a computer genius named Gus Gorman exposed Kal-El to Synthetic Kryptonite at a public function, creating a dark version of Superman. Superman's costume became visibly darker during this time and he began to exhibit negative behavior culminating in a one night stand with a woman named Lorelei Ambrosia, whom he met on the Statue of Liberty. After creating a disturbance at a bar, the corrupted Superman was spotted by Lana and her son Ricky, who pleaded with Superman to become great again. As he took flight, Ricky's words echoed in his mind, reaching his buried conscience, causing him psychical pain. After landing in a Junkyard, Superman let out a primal scream and split into two beings. His true Kent persona emerged, the embodiment of Superman's remaining good qualities, engaged in an epic battle at a deserted automobile graveyard, where Clark emerged victorious and rejoined with uncorrupted Superego, restring his costume. **Later, Gorman's greatest creation, the Ultimate Computer, severely weakens Superman with a Kryptonite ray before Gorman has a change of heart and attacks his own machine. Superman prevailed and destroyed the computer. Realizing Ross Webster was was behind the whole scheme, Superman took Gus and offered him a fine job for man of his skill.**

### Return of Lex Luthor

Superman learns that the United States and the Soviet Union may soon engage in nuclear war, threatening the survival of the planet. Before taking action, he departs to the north pole to seek advice from the spirits of his Kryptonian ancestors at the Fortress of Solitude. Once again, they warned Kal-El that interring with human politics is forbidden. However a letter from a young boy named Jeremy changes his mind. **At a meeting of the United Nations, he tells the assembly that he is going to rid the Earth of all nuclear weapons. Over the next several days, Superman takes all the nuclear weapons, and gathers them into a gigantic net in orbit above the planet. When he has almost all the weapons, he closes the net and tosses it into the sun.** Meanwhile, Lex Luthor's nephew, Lenny, helps break Luthor out of prison. The pair steal a strand of hair that Superman had donated to a museum. Luthor creates a genetic matrix from the strand of hair, and attaches it to the final American nuclear missile. After the missile is fired off into the air, Superman grabs the missile and throws it into the sun. A few moments after the missile explodes on the sun's surface, a ball of energy is discharged from the sun, which rapidly develops into a "Nuclear Man". Nuclear Man finds his way to his "father", Luthor, who establishes that while he is indeed powerful, he will completely deactivate if isolated from the sun's rays or suitably bright artificial light. **A worldwide battle soon follows between Lex's creation and the Man of Steel. While successfully saving the Statue of Liberty, Superman is injured by the radioactive nails of Nuclear Man. The Daily Planet, to Lois' disgust, blares the headline that Superman is dead. Felled by radiation sickness, Clark staggers weakly to the terrace of his apartment, where he retrieves the last remaining crystal from Krypton, which he took from the barn in Smallville at the beginning of the film.** Nuclear Man develops a crush on Lacy Warfield, daughter of the tycoon who has purchased *The Daily Planet*, and threatens mayhem if he is not introduced to her. Superman agrees to take Nuclear Man to Lacy. In an attempt to disable the villain, Superman lures Nuclear Man into an elevator in the building, traps Nuclear Man in it, and pulls the elevator out of the building and flies to the moon, heaving the elevator onto the ground there. Superman doesn't realize the doors have opened a crack. As the sun rises, Nuclear Man breaks out of his makeshift prison and the two resume battle on the moon's surface. At the end of the battle, Superman is driven into the ground by his nuclear-charged opponent. **Nuclear Man returns to Earth, abducting Lacy and flying her into outer space (where she, strangely enough, is unaffected by the lack of breathable atmosphere and air pressure). Meanwhile, the Man of Steel pushes the moon out of its normal orbit, casting Earth into a solar eclipse which shuts off Nuclear Man's powers. He then rescues Lacy from the arms of Nuclear Man, of whom he disposes by returning him to Earth and sealing him into the core of a nuclear power plant.** Later, in a press conference, Superman declares only partial victory in his peace campaign, stating: "There will be peace when the people of the world want it so badly, that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them."

### Superman: The Movie

#### An Last Son of The Planet Krypton

Kal-El is born the son of Jor-El, a member of the Science Council on the planet Krypton, who had trouble convincing them that Krypton and its sun are on the verge of destruction. Undaunted by their ignorance, Jor-El develops a star ship in which he will send his son to a primitive planet called Earth. Both Jor-El and his wife Lara bid their son a sad goodbye as the star ship is launched from Krypton minutes before the planet and its sun explodes.

#### Reaching The-Planet Earth

The star ship carrying Kal-El travels through space, causing the child to age a few years while also educating him. It burns up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere and crash-lands in a nearby Smallville field, causing Jonathan and Martha Kent to pull over and investigate. They see a young three-year-old child emerge from the wreckage unharmed. The Kents discuss what they wish to do with the child when the truck falls off the jack, almost crushing Jonathan who was working underneath it to change a flat tire. Kal-El easily lifts up the truck, making the Kents wonder if the child really came from outer space somewhere.

#### Young Teenage Clark

At age 18, Kal-El, who is now Clark Kent, is busy putting away equipment for the Smallville High's football team when his friend Lana Lang invites him over to listen to records. Clark accepts the offer, but realizes that he has so much work to do and so watches Lana drive off with her friends. Frustrated, Clark kicks a football high into the air and then races back home at super-speed, amazingly outracing an approaching locomotive. His adoptive father Jonathan Kent tells him that he was brought here to Earth with the powers he has for a purpose, and it wasn't for showing off in front of his friends. As Clark tries to get his father to race him to the house, Jonathan suffers a fatal stroke and dies, making Clark feel ashamed that with all his powers, he couldn't save his father.

#### Meeting His Destiny

Sometime following the funeral, Clark Kent is called into the barn, where he uncovers the wrecked star ship and finds the very thing that has called him: a glowing green crystal. He says goodbye to his mother Martha and then sets out toward the North Pole, where he flings the green crystal into the frozen Arctic Sea. From where it lands, it creates a structure made of slanted long white crystals into which Clark enters. By inserting a crystal into a tube, he causes the image of his real father Jor-El appear before him, to instruct him on what he needs to know about himself and about the powers he possesses, learning that his real name is Kal-El. He spends 12 years in the Fortress with the image of Jor-El teaching him, and then later at the end of the teaching, as Jor-El's image departs, Clark Kent now stands in the uniform of a superhero and soon takes off to his destiny.

#### The Daily Planet

Arriving in Metropolis, Clark Kent is hired on as a reporter for the Daily Planet by its editor Perry White, who immediately assigns him to work alongside his best reporter Lois Lane. As Lois shows Clark around the city and the Planet, a mugger accosts them on the street and tries to steal Lois' purse, which she drops on the ground only to give her assailant a kick. The mugger fires a bullet at Lois which Clark instantly snags before he drops to the ground, making it look like he merely fainted. After the mugger runs away, Clark asks Lois whether it was worth being shot over losing ten dollars, two credit cards, a hairbrush, and a lipstick. Lois now wonders how Clark could know the exact contents of her purse. Clark simply says it was a wild guess.

#### His Known-Heroic Debut

That night, as Lois attempts to take off on an assignment in a Daily Planet helicopter, it spins out of control and teeters dangerously off the edge of the roof. Lois screams for help as she hangs on for dear life, slowly losing her grip. Clark hears her call and quickly changes into his uniform to rescue both Lois and the helicopter. After landing safely back on the helipad, Lois asks who he is, and all he could say is, "a friend", before he takes off, causing her to faint.

#### Entirely Making News

But more surprises would come that night: a would-be cat burglar would be scared by the sight of a man standing in front of him on the side of a building; a group of bank robbers escaping on a boat would have them and their boat hauled all the way to the Metropolis police headquarters; a little girl's cat would be gently rescued from a tree by a flying man; and Air Force One would have a "replacement engine" when lightning struck one of its engines, causing it to nearly crash-land. The flying man behind it all would make front-page news everywhere, and Perry wants his reporters to get the scoop on who this man is.

#### Lois' Date-With-An Friend

Lois, however, is given a secret message by "a friend" to meet him at her place that evening. Believing that it's the same person who rescued her, Lois waits until he shows up, then casually eases her way into doing an interview with him to find out who he is, where he came from, what his abilities and weaknesses are. Her friend invites Lois to take her out on a flight to test that particular ability together, and so she bravely holds on as he flies her all around the city, around the Statue of Liberty, and even high into the clouds. It is after he takes her back to her apartment and flies away that Lois gives him the suitable name -- Superman

#### Lex's Known Plot

With her interview in the papers, Lex Luthor now plots on how he can get rid of a possible threat to his plans. One day as Clark Kent is pulled into Perry White's office for a talk, his ears pick up a high-pitched shrill and the voice of a man threatening to detonate a bomb in the middle of the city. He quickly changes into Superman and follows the voice to the underground lair of Lex Luthor, where he is subjected to a gauntlet of dangers that he survives through without a scratch before entering.

Now having Superman's attention, Luthor shows him the plan of detonating two nuclear devices that he and his lackeys have reprogrammed to specific locations: the first toward the San Andreas Fault where it will cause a massive earthquake that will level much of California into the sea; the other heading toward Hackensack, New Jersey.

#### Kryptonite On-An Chain

Luthor also tricks Superman into opening a lead-lined box that had a chunk of Kryptonite attached to a chain, which Luthor wraps around the Kryptonian's neck as its radiation weakens him before being dumped into Luthor's pool to drown.

While Luthor watches the launch of the nuclear missiles, Eve Teschmacher fears for the life of her mother in Hackensack and so bravely rescues Superman for the promise that he would stop the missile heading for the East Coast first, throwing the chain with the Kryptonite away into a sewer grating.

#### Racing After Missiles

Racing as quickly as he could after the missile, Superman manages to grab it from behind and push it toward outer space where it will detonate harmlessly. But as he looks back, he sees that the other missile has hit its target, and now he has to stop a massive earthquake from destroying millions of lives -- including those of his friends Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, who are assigned to do a story about the land grab on the western side of the San Andreas Fault.

#### An Rumble-In•The-West Coast

Though Superman succeeds in replugging the fault line before it completely collapsed, the aftershocks still do some major damage: the Golden Gate Bridge slowly falls apart, causing a school bus to be pushed dangling off the side of the bridge; a rip in the ground across a railroad track threatens to derail a racing locomotive; the Hoover Dam is cracking and is about to deluge a nearby community. As Superman deals with each of these dangers as fast and as efficiently as possible, yet he doesn't come to Lois' rescue in time before she is crushed to death in her car as a rip in the ground swallows up her vehicle.

#### Turn Back Time

Enraged by this loss, Superman causes time to miraculously reverse itself, undoing all the damage that the detonated missile has caused, and then causes it to go forward again, so all that Lois remembers is that her car just ran out of gas.
After meeting with Lois and Jimmy again to make sure everything is all right with them, particularly with Lois who is now starting to cast eyes on him, Superman brings Luthor and Otis into custody with the police, putting them in prison where they belong.

### Superman II

#### Nuclear Bomb

Clark Kent finds out from his boss Perry White that Lois Lane has gone on assignment to cover the story of a terrorist threat in Paris to detonate a nuclear bomb on top of the Eiffel Tower. Being the kind of reporter that she is, Lois hides herself underneath the elevator car as it rides up to the top of the tower to overhear what the terrorists are planning to do when an incident causes both the car to plummet and the bomb to start ticking away. Superman comes to the rescue at the nick of time, saving Lois and then flying the elevator car with the bomb deep into outer space where it detonates safely. Unknown to Kal-El, however, the shock waves of the explosion causes the gateway to the Phantom Zone to shatter as it passes toward that direction, freeing the three criminals Jor-El had imprisoned in it.

#### Pep Talk With Lois

When Lois returns to her desk at the Daily Planet, she tries to talk to Clark about his being more assertive and not being jealous every time she even mentions Superman. She offers him a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice.

#### Superman At The Falls

Lois Lane and Clark Kent are sent to Niagara Falls to do an undercover piece about honeymoon hotels exploiting newlyweds, posing as newlyweds themselves, when they take a walk near the falls and see a young boy playing near the fence who falls off. As the people gather around to see what will happen, Superman immediately shows up, catches the boy, and brings him safely back to his mother, leaving before Lois can get his attention.

#### Prove Clark Is Superman

Lois begins to suspect something as she notices that whenever Superman shows up, Clark somehow disappears, and so makes a daring test to Clark to prove whether he's Superman or not: she throws herself into the raging river on purpose right in front of Clark. Instead, Clark secretly uses his heat vision to cause a big branch to fall into the river and calls out for Lois to grab onto it so she can swim to shore. Lois looks at Clark in disbelief and starts to feel embarrassed.

#### The Secret Revealed

Back at the hotel, Lois discovers by accident when Clark trips over the bearskin rug and stuck his hand into the flames of the fireplace, yet didn't burn his hand doing so, that he truly is Superman. With the revelation of his identity now made known to her, Clark decides to take her to the Fortress of Solitude to tell her everything over dinner, letting her know how much he loves her.

#### The Price Of Love

As they both felt so strongly for each other that they couldn't live their lives separately any longer, Kal-El confides with the hologram of his mother his desire to marry Lois. Lara tells him that the only way he can do that is to live as one of the humans, without any of his powers, and shows him the molecular chamber that harnesses the power of Krypton's red sun that will remove his powers forever. Believing that his love for Lois is worth the cost, Superman steps into the chamber as Lois watches it strip away the Kryptonian that he was, leaving him as Clark Kent the human being.

#### The Real Cost

After spending the night together, Clark and Lois drive to a roadside diner where he gets painfully roughed up by a bully trucker named Rocky. Soon the President of the United States comes on the television to tell the world that he has conceded all governmental control to General Zod, and then pleads for Superman to come to the rescue. Clark realizes that the Phantom Zone villains his father have imprisoned are on the loose and now have the same powers he once had. Now knowing the danger he's put the world in with his decision to become human, he heads back to the Fortress of Solitude in the hopes that he can restore his powers. By the time he gets there, he finds the only possible answer being the green glowing crystal that built the Fortress.

#### Fight In Metropolis

In Metropolis, Lois Lane waits nervously in Perry White's office at the Daily Planet for Superman to show up when the rogue Kryptonians show up first, wrecking everything in their path toward the office where Luthor tells them to take Lois hostage. Soon Superman shows up outside the building, daring for Zod to step outside. The three Kryptonians engage Superman in battle, flying and fighting all around the city in the hopes of destroying the son of Jor-El. They notice Superman protecting the humans during their battle and decide to endanger them in order to weaken him enough to destroy him. Eventually Superman realizes the danger that the fight is causing the citizens and flies off, much to the disappointment of those hoping to see Superman defeat the villains.

#### Final Bout In The Fortress

Luthor then directs the Phantom Zone criminals to the Fortress of Solitude, where they also take Luthor and Lois in their attempt to destroy Superman. It is there that Superman, who again fights them but is unable to prevail against them, gets Luthor to trick the Kryptonians into having him be put into the molecule chamber to strip away his powers once again, as Lois sadly watches. However, as Zod made the now seemingly-weakened Superman bow before him, take his hand, and swear eternal allegiance to him, Superman crushed Zod's hand, revealing that he altered the chamber so that he would be safe while the other three Kryptonians lost their powers. Zod, Ursa, and Non all fall into the abyss, and Superman turns Luthor over to the authorities once more while he took Lois back home to her apartment. But when Superman turns back time to avoid the devastation of the planet, they are re-imprisoned in the Phantom Zone.

#### Restoring The Secret

The following day, Clark Kent checks up on Lois at the Daily Planet to see how she is doing, and finds her crying because she cannot deal with what she knows about Clark now and how to relate to him anymore. Clark takes Lois close to him and kisses her, and with the kiss he makes her completely forget anything she knew about Clark Kent being Superman, restoring her to the Lois Lane that he knew. Later on, at the same roadside diner he went to earlier, Clark Kent gives Rocky a taste of his own medicine. As Superman, he flies the replacement sky dome with an American flag on it to the White House and tells the President that he won't let him down again.

### Superman III

#### Swimming In A Car

Due to a series of mishaps that take place due to a woman walking a dog, a man ends up knocking over a fire hydrant with his car, causing his vehicle to be flooded with his windows rolled up, unable to open the doors. Clark Kent sees this happen and goes into a photo booth to change into Superman. A boy inadvertently puts some money into the booth and snaps photos of Clark changing into Superman. He notices this before the boy does and gives him only the picture of him being Superman before coming to the rescue of a man who would have died in his car.

#### High School Sweetheart

Meanwhile, as Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane goes off to Bermuda for a vacation, Clark Kent attends his Smallville High class reunion party where he meets his high-school sweetheart Lana Lang. He finds out that she now has a young son named Ricky, and Lana is dealing with both being a single mother and fending off the unwanted affections of her former boyfriend Brad, who is now a drunk working as a security guard. As Clark spends time with Lana and her son on a picnic, Superman comes to Ricky's rescue when he lies in the wheat fields injured and about to be run over by threshing machines.

#### Foiling Ross' Plans

Ross Webster has Gus Gorman reprogram the weather-reporting satellite to create a hurricane to destroy South American coffee crops, but as Gus eventually reports to his boss, that plan has been foiled by Superman's interference. Ross now has Gorman come up with a way to create Kryptonite, which is known to weaken Superman unto death.

#### The Anti-Superman

However, in the computer's analyzing the elements that go into the formation of Kryptonite, it fails to recognize the "unknown" element, so Gorman substitutes tar in its place. With the synthetic Kryptonite now produced, he presents it to Superman at a homecoming celebration in Smallville as a gift, posing as a U.S. Army Lieutenant General. Though Gorman is disappointed to see that the synthetic Kryptonite didn't kill Superman right then and there, it did produce a side effect that altered his behavior, causing him to increasingly behave in immoral and destructive ways. With Superman now out of the way, Ross now focuses on building a powerful supercomputer that Gorman has designed.

#### The Battle Of Self

Superman's immorality comes to a head following a drinking binge when he lands in a junkyard and splits into two personas: the evil selfish Superman and the good moral Clark Kent. Though his Superman self seems to have the upper hand over his Clark Kent self in the physical confrontation, eventually his Clark Kent self overpowers and defeats the evil Superman self until it vanishes. With Superman's goodness restored, he goes forth to restore all the damage that his evil self has caused and then goes to confront Ross Webster, who is now with his sister, Lorelei, and Gorman at the site of the newly-constructed supercomputer.

#### The Ultimate Computer

Seeing Superman coming, Ross runs Superman through a gauntlet of missile attacks, then traps him within an energy bubble to suffocate him until he manages to rip a hole to destroy its generating mechanism. Finally, he causes a beam of pure Kryptonite to be aimed at Superman, weakening him. Realizing that he is now being credited as the man who destroyed Superman, Gorman turns against his boss and manually shuts down the computer's power core. However, the computer repowers itself and continues to fire the Kryptonite beam at Superman. Gorman takes an ax and destroys the beam's projector, but the computer is now self-aware and attacks him with a repulsion beam. Seeing how powerful this computer has become, Superman flees from the site.

#### Acid Indigestion

As the supercomputer drains power from major cities, causing blackouts, and keeps Ross, Vera, and Lorelei hostages by its power, Superman soon returns, this time with a canister of seemingly inert chemicals that he places within the core of the supercomputer as he allows himself to be captured. The chemicals then heat up and become acidic, destroying the computer from within until it finally explodes, releasing Ross, Vera, and Lorelei from its control.

#### Happy Endings

Superman then takes a grateful Gorman away to a West Virginia coal mine where he is offered a job as a computer programmer, leaving the other three for the authorities to deal with. While he stops there, he takes a small chunk of coal and, with great pressure, turns it into a diamond.
He returns to Metropolis where he finds Lana Lang has moved there and is now employed as Perry White's new secretary. He gives Lana a ring made from the diamond, even in the sight of her jealous former boyfriend Brad. Lois Lane returns from her vacation, which has turned into an adventure that will make front-page news.

### Superman IV: The Quest For Peace

#### Energy Module

After Superman rescues cosmonauts floating in space without oxygen, he returns to Earth as Clark Kent to deal with selling his family farm after his foster mother Martha Kent's death, finding an energy module in the star ship that brought him to earth that the voice of his birth mother Lara says can only be used once.

#### The Paper Is Sold

After stopping a runaway subway train in Metropolis when its operator collapses from a health problem, Superman enters the Daily Planet building as Clark Kent to find out that the newspaper has been bought out by the tabloid tycoon David Warfield, and that Perry White has been replaced as its editor by David's daughter Lacy, who starts making advances toward Clark despite Lois' warnings that Clark is "the oldest Boy Scout".

#### A Letter From Jeremy

Soon the President of the United States makes a speech on television that peace talks between the United States and the Soviet Union have failed and that they are now considering building up nuclear defenses for possible war. Jeremy, an elementary school student whose class was watching this speech, is motivated to write a letter to Superman, saying if he could destroy all the world's nuclear missiles, then the world could be spared from blowing up one another. Superman initially tells Jeremy that he couldn't do that -- a response that the Warfield-controlled Daily Planet spins as SUPERMAN SAYS DROP DEAD TO KID, which leads Perry White to do some drastic action concerning who's holding the paper's reins.

#### Taking Action

After a private talk with Lois Lane on the issue, he realizes that Earth is his home as well and he can't stand idly by and watch its citizens annihilate each other. He addresses the United Nations by stating that he will destroy all nuclear missiles starting immediately; a statement that gets surprisingly universal support.

#### Birthing Nuclear Man

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor, having recently broken out of prison, comes up with a new plan to destroy Superman: by creating a superpowered being cloned straight from Superman's own DNA, a sample of which he gets from a museum display showing the strength of Superman's single hair strand. Luthor gets help from a few hired black market arms dealers to attach a device that contains what he calls a "genetic stew" onto one of the nuclear missiles which Superman will throw into the sun as he did all others. As the missile with the device reaches the sun and is destroyed, it instantly transforms the "stew" into a superhuman being with incredible power. He flies back to Earth and meets Luthor at his penthouse hideout, referring to him as Nuclear Man, the only being with the power to pierce Superman's skin and make him weak enough to die. Of course, Luthor shows his nephew Lenny that Nuclear Man needs direct sunlight to function or else he will be powerless.

#### Double Date

Lacy Warfield invites Lois Lane to a double date affair at her apartment, with Lacy entertaining Clark and Lois with Superman. During the whole time, Superman finds ways to switch between his two identities to maintain the illusion of himself and Clark Kent being separate persons in separate places at the same time.

#### Piercing The Skin

Soon he gets a secret video message from Lex Luthor, forcing Kal-El to meet at his penthouse. Superman interrupts the date to deal with Luthor, only to find himself face-to-face with his creation Nuclear Man. The two end up in a struggle that takes them all across the world, with Nuclear Man causing various disasters and Superman trying to fix them. Eventually they end up in New York where Nuclear Man threatens to dump the Statue of Liberty in the heart of the city. Superman stops that from happening and flies the statue back to Ellis Island, but Nuclear Man takes advantage of this and pierces Superman's skin with his fingernails. Weakened from contact, Superman drops to the ground after putting the statue back in place, and then Nuclear Man kicks him high into the sky, causing his cape to drop onto the torch.

#### Weakened

Soon the Warfield press machine spins out SUPERMAN IS DEAD, and its publishers now have Superman's cape in their possession. This outrages Lois to the point where she takes the cape off their hands even amidst David Warfield firing her. She goes to Clark's apartment and finds him at home sick, something she never saw happen to him. Lois hands Clark Superman's cape and tells him she just wants Superman to know how much she loves him. After she leaves, Clark pulls out the energy module from the star ship, with the voice of his mother saying that if it can restore his powers, the sacrifice will not be in vain.

#### Going After Lacy

Nuclear Man starts having desires for Lacy Warfield when he sees her picture in the papers. Superman, with his powers and health restored, senses this and tries to stop Nuclear from reaching Lacy as he threatens the citizens of Metropolis with his powers. Superman tricks Nuclear Man into entering an elevator car and then drags it out into space, dumping it on the dark side of the moon where he will remain inert and powerless due to lack of sunlight. However, a bit of the sun's light does creep into the elevator car and repowers Nuclear Man, resulting in a fight with Superman on the moon which leaves the Kryptonian overwhelmed but not depowered.

#### Lunar Eclipse

He goes back to Earth, kidnaps Lacy Warfield, and drags her off into space while Superman pushes the moon in front of the sun, causing Nuclear Man to lose his powers. Superman quickly brings Lacy back to Metropolis and then deposits Nuclear Man into the heart of a nuclear reactor, where he becomes a powerful energy source.

#### Real Peace

At a press conference Lois attends, back at the job she's done her best work in with the Daily Planet restored from David Warfield's control, Superman tells the people that the only way the world can have true peace is if they want it so badly that the governments will have no choice but to give it to them.

#### Justice Prevails

At the end of the movie, as Luthor and his nephew try to make their getaway, Superman captures them and flies off with their vehicle. He first takes Lenny to Boys Town, where the presiding pastor will watch after the young man and teach him well. He then takes Luthor back to the prison that he escaped, letting Luthor know that he knew about Nuclear Man's weaknesses and that he will see him in twenty years.

## Powers and Abilities

### Powers

* **Regular Kryptonian Physiology**: Like all Kryptonians, Superman develops superhuman abilities while operating under a yellow sun.
	+ **Energy Absorption**
	+ **Enhanced Vision**
	+ **Heat Vision**
	+ **Flight**
	+ **Superhuman Reflexes**
	+ **Invulnerability**
	+ **Superhuman Durability**
	+ **Superhuman Stamina**
	+ **Superhuman Strength**
	+ **Superhuman Speed**
	+ **Known Molecular Reconstruction**: Superman was able to rebuild the broken bricks of the Great Wall of China with rays from his eyes.
	+ **Memory M Manipulation**: Superman has the ability to erase memories. He used this ability on Lois Lane when he kissed her to make her forget that she had a relationship with him, and his secret identity.

### Abilities

* **Indomitable Will**
* **Journalism**
* **Multilingualism**: Superman is fluent in English, Russian and Italian.

### Weaknesses

* **Vulnerability to Kryptonite**: All Kryptonians are vulnerable to exposure from green Kryptonite. Immediate exposure causes great discomfort, while prolonged exposure will prove fatal. In *Superman III*, the synthetic Kryptonite created by Gus Gorman caused Superman to behave in immoral and destructive ways, and eventually led to a splitting into two physical selves that fought for dominance over each other.

## Powers and Abilites

### Powers

Superman's superhuman abilities are powered by the energy of Earth's yellow sun. His abilities usually appear suddenly and he must learn to control them. They seem to get stronger as Clark gets older.

* **Kryptonian Physiology**: Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Superman possesses the same potential powers as an average Kryptonian. His cells store yellow solar energy and allow for the use of his powers to fade gradually when yellow solar radiation is not available instead of immediate failure.
	+ **Vast Superhuman Strength**: Superman's strength is augmented by yellow solar radiation interacting with the greater than human density, resilience and biological efficiency of his musculature. His strength is more an act of conscious will on energy fields than actual physical strength. It is this act of conscious will that enables him to perform physical feats that are beyond the mere application force, such as moving a mountain top without said rock crumbling under its own mass. Superman can crush coal into diamond, and even move the entire moon out of orbit and move it back into orbit again.
		- **Superhuman Leaping**: Superman is capable of leaping great heights and distances, even prior to developing the power of flight.
	+ **Superhuman Senses**: All of Superman's senses are heightened to superhuman levels.
		- **Super Vision**: Superman also possesses a superior sensory arrangement of visual capabilities.
			* **Electromagnetic Spectrum Vision**: He can see into all of the EM Spectrum. Superman can see and identify radio/television and any and all broadcast/transmitted frequencies, allowing him to avoid detection through radar or satellite monitoring methods.
			* **Telescopic Vision**: The ability to focus his vision to see something at a great distance.
			* **Microscopic Vision**: The ability to see extremely small objects and images down to the sub-atomic level.
			* **X-Ray Vision**: The ability to see through anything except lead. Since it is passive, this ability would not generate harmful radiation in the same manner as a focused projection of hard X-rays.
			* **Thermal Vision**: The ability of see through the heat tracks left by a living being or object.
			* **Infrared Vision**: Superman can see with better acuity in darkness, and to a degree in total darkness.
	+ **Superhuman Hearing**: Superman's hearing is extremely acute, allowing him to hear the faintest sounds, even while he's in orbit (while sound cannot be transmitted through a vacuum, space, especially near Earth, is not a perfect vacuum and sound can be detected with high enough sensitivity). He can also hear a larger range of frequencies than humans.
	+ **Heat Vision**: Superman can, as a conscious act, fire beams of intense heat at a target by looking at it. He can vary the heat and area affected.
	+ **Flight**: Superman is able to defy the forces of gravity and achieve flight. This ranges from hovering to moving in any posture, in any direction.
	+ **Invulnerability**: Superman is nigh-invulnerable to extreme energy forces. In addition, his extends this protection against toxins and diseases. His eyes have enough invulnerability to withstand a bullet without blinking.
	+ **Superhuman Stamina**: Superman is able to maintain continuous strenuous physical action for an indefinite period of time. This based on his body converting yellow solar radiation directly to energy, but is limited by physiological and psychological needs to eat, drink, and sleep.
	+ **Super-Breath**: Superman is able to create hurricane force winds by exhaling air from his lungs. He can chill the air as it leaves his lungs to freeze targets. He can also reverse the process to pull large volumes of air or vapor into his lungs.
	+ **Telekinesis**: Superman exhibits a level of telekinesis, being able to slow people's fall with his sight. He can also fire blue beams out of his eyes to repair damage to structures, sometimes referred to as **Masonry Vision**.
	+ **Super Healing**: When Superman *is* wounded, he heals quickly if not instantaneously.
	+ **Vocal Abilities**: Superman has shown possession of various vocal abilities. Stories have shown him being capable of raising his voice to loudspeaker levels, for purposes such as delivering a message to a large crowd.
	+ **Super Hypnotism:** This power enabled Superman to hypnotize anyone. He could make people forget incidents or obey his commands. This power was often used to safeguard his identity. He also has a minor form of telepathy, which he uses to erase Lois' recent memories with a kiss.
	+ **Superhuman Speed**: Superman is able to move at incredible speed by sheer force of will. This extends to perceptions and allows for feats such as catching bullets in mid flight as well as covering vast distances in little or no time.
		- **Superhuman Agility**
		- **Superhuman Reflexes**
		- **Time Travel**: Superman can reverse the flow of time by flying around the earth faster than the speed of light.
	+ **Longevity**: Superman can potentially live indefinitely with little to no ageing to his being, so long as he continuously retains enough yellow solar radiation in his body.
	+ **Self-Sustenance**: He does not need to eat or sleep (but is still capable of doing so) and doesn't require oxygen to breathe enabling him to travel in space and underwater unprotected.
	+ **Enhanced Sense of Touch**: Kal-El could "read" the content of wire recordings with his fingers.
		- **Photographic Memory**: He could learn surgery in minutes by reading the appropriate books, and re-build an exploded computer by recalling where each component was. Superman's data processing speed is equivalent to a TRS-80.
		- **Super-Memory**:
	+ Omni-lingual

### Abilities

* **Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic)**: In combat situations, Superman makes use of an improvised fighting style that relies on overwhelming force and speed.
* **Genius Level Intellect / Super Intelligence**: Superman display an unusually high level of intelligence, maintaining a high degree of control over his powers, being an experienced tactician and scientist. People from Krypton already had genius-level intellect, being a society thousands of years ahead of Earth in technology. In the presence of a yellow sun, Superman's intelligence is further enhanced, literally to super-humanoid levels, giving him super intelligence and allowing his brain to operate faster than a supercomputer.
	+ **Journalism**: Clark is one of the best reporters on the *Daily Planet*, rivaled only by Lois Lane.
* **Indomitable Will**: Superman has shown to have a powerful spirit, free of corruption and temptation. Having been raised by a kindly Kansas farmer and his wife, he was taught to protect life and help others. He is very optimistic and never gives up, even when things look bad.
* **Leadership**: Superman has the ability to command respect and inspire others with his charisma, ardor, and idealism.
* **Expert Combatant**: In combat situations, Superman makes use of an improvised fighting style that relies on overwhelming force and speed.
* **Ventriloquism**: Used to practice in high school.
* **Investigation**: Both as a superhero and as a journalist, Superman is an expert at gathering evidence from all kinds of sources.
* **Intimidation**:
* **Agriculture**: Growing up on a farm, he learned a lot about agriculture.
* **Charisma**
* **Limiters**: Over the course of his life and acquisition of power under a yellow sun, Superman has learned how to place mental inhibitors on his own power. These "limiters" as he calls them, are used to keep his power in check so that he doesn't accidentally "flex and cause the tectonic plates to shift." Though it is known that he has placed several of these limiters within his own mind, it is unknown how many and just how powerful he would be if he decided to release them all. To him, they are the barriers that allow him to be human enough to live a normal life, and he only ever releases one of them when fighting a particularly powerful opponent or performing a predominately difficult task. When he punches a normal human, his punch is *considerably* pulled, otherwise they could be knocked clear to another planet, and die instantly.

## Weakness

Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonite, radioactive remnants of his home planet, Krypton. The known variations of kryptonite affect him in different ways. Superman can protect himself from kryptonite radiation using lead. Removal of the substance reverses the effects.

* **Kryptonian Physiology**: Superman possesses the same potential weaknesses as an average Kryptonian. These include:
	+ **Kryptonite:** Although Superman is invulnerable to nearly everything, under the yellow Sun, Kryptonite is the one substance that can destroy him.
		- **Green Kryptonite**: Green K renders Superman physically weak and painfully ill.
		- **Red Kryptonite**: Red K has effects on Superman that are unpredictable.
	+ **Red solar radiation:** Natural in Krypton's planetary system, red solar radiation replaces the higher-yield yellow solar energy in Superman's cells, robbing him of the fuel for his powers.
	+ **Lead:** Although the element lead is the one substance that blocks kryptonite radiation (one of Superman's weaknesses), it is also the one substance through which Superman cannot see with his X-ray vision.
	+ **Solar energy dependency**: Superman's abilities will eventually weaken without replenishing his energy reserves with normal (yellow) sun radiation, especially if he doesn't have any direct contact with yellow sunlight. If he engages in strenuous physical activity for a large amount of time without continuous solar energy absorption, he will expend his stored solar energy and will continue to be weakened until he either dies or replenishes his solar "fuel".

## Paraphernalia

### Equipment

* **Superman Costume:** Originally just the normal Kryptonian cloth that infant Kal-El was swaddled with during his flight to Earth, Superman's costume becomes just as invulnerable as he himself is, if not actually more so, under the radiation of a yellow sun. Evidence of the possibility that Superman's costume becomes more durable than himself on Earth includes the fact that fights with various enemies capable of physically harming Superman still fail to tear or rip his costume. As a result, Superman's costume provides some measure of protection even when Superman is stripped of his superpowers, as it can resist the effects of drastic temperature change and physical abuse, though this says nothing about the ability or lack thereof of its wearer to sustain this type of damage under circumstances of powerlessness. Superman's costume is also known to be able to shield its wearer (or anything wrapped in its cape) from the effects of friction.
	+ Superman can also create enlarged cellophane versions of the S-insignia on the costume and throw them at opponents to trap them like a net.
* **Regular Kryptonian Lenses:** Clark Kent can use glasses with lenses from his Kryptonian spaceship to project his heat vision without melting them.
* **Supercomputer:** Superman's highly advanced supercomputer, located in the Fortress of Solitude.

## Personality

Most of Superman's personality traits are the direct result of his modest farm upbringing. Being very close to both of his parents, Superman was respectful, obedient and highly valued their approval. Raised with a strong moral background, he does not like invasions of privacy, thinks villains should be punished and wants things to be fair. Superman is also hard-working and usually does not place much value in material possessions.