Fans are hyped for James Gunn’s Superman, and that hype was intensified by the recent Superman sneak peek, a five minute look at the movie that showed off some remarkable sights… and one remarkable site. Most of the sneak peek took place in one of Superman’s most important locales — the Fortress of Solitude. The Fortress of Solitude is one of those Superman concepts that has stood the test of time, first appearing as the “Secret Citadel” in Superman (1939) #17 before being moved to a “polar wasteland” in issue #58. Superman’s arctic home was massively important in the latter years of the Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age, helping form the core of his Kryptonian identity. The Fortress of Solitude was basically the home of Kal-El and where he could be a person that he couldn’t be as Clark Kent. The Fortress of Solitude made its big screen first appearance in Superman: The Movie, something that changed its visual identity forever, and has waxed and waned in the fortunes of the best modern Superman stories.
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Superman feels like a love letter to Superman, and adding the Fortress to the movie is a very important part of that. The Fortress of Solitude is one of the most interesting part of Superman’s history. The contents of the Fortress, and the changes made to it over the years, are a roadmap of who Superman has become over the years, as the vicissitudes of DC continuity have redefined the character time after time. The Fortress’s history is one of wonder, its locales forming the bedrock of who Superman is as a character.
The Crystalline Fortress of Solitude Came From the Movies
When people picture the Fortress of Solitude, they picture the one that first appeared in Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman: The Movie. The crystalline version of the Fortress of Solitude instantly became iconic, a structure unlike any on Earth that played up the alien nature of who Superman is. It was perfect, but 1978 was a very different time in the relationship between comics and movies. Nowadays, if something is introduced in the MCU, it’s soon going to become canon to the comics. However, back in the day, that wasn’t going to happen. DC didn’t change the Fortress of Solitude from the classic design in the comics until 1989’s Adventures of Superman #460. Since then, the Fortress has changed several times, but it usually goes back to a design inspired by the Fortress from the movies.
The Fortress of Solitude Has Changed Places Several Times
While the Fortress of Solitude is best known for being in the Arctic, that’s nowhere near the only place that the Fortress of Solitude has been. There’s obviously the Fortresses of Solitude that exist on other Earths — so, for example, Earth-Two Superman has a Fortress of Solitude that is very much like the Silver Age one, Superman: Red Son has its own version, JLA: Earth-2‘s Ultraman has one that flies around the Earth — but the Fortress in the mainline DC Universe has also moved around a lot as well. Superman built a Fortress in South America in the mid ’00s, but that would vanish as DC decided to go all in on remaking everything pre-Crisis after Infinite Crisis. The Fortress has been in Antarctica and there was even one floating in the Bermuda Triangle during Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Superman and Action Comics from 2018 to 2021. It’s back in the Arctic at this point, but there was a time when it was in the strangest place of all…
The Fortress of Solitude Used to be Clark Kent
Crisis On Infinite Earths changed the DC Universe forever. Gone was the DC Multiverse, and in its place was a singular universe, one which took the pieces of Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-S, and Earth-X (and whatever Charlton Earth was) and smushed them together. Changing Superman was a major part of the post-Crisis DC Universe. Gone were the loving nods to Krypton, as it became a cold, antiseptic place with no love, where science was a religion. Superman didn’t have a physical Fortress of Solitude, but the idea that writer/artist John Byrne had was that Clark Kent himself was the Fortress of Solitude. He was the last legacy of Krypton, the only being in the universe that was like him. It’s a rather heady take on the whole situation, as Byrne was trying to bring a more mature focus to the character, taking away the kiddie stuff like the cool Arctic Fortress. It’s at the very least an interesting idea, but as far as it goes, it feels a little too pretentious.
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There’s a Legion of Superheroes Room
The Legion of Superheroes was one of the most important parts of Superman’s pre-Crisis history. Superman joined the Legion of Superheroes when he was still Superboy, fighting evil in Smallville. Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl came back in time to meet their hero, and took him to the 31st century, where he joined the team. Superboy spent years going between the present and the 31st century, becoming extremely important to the history of the Legion. Years later, in the Fortress of Solitude, Superman would build a room paying homage to the friends of his younger years, making statues of every member of the team. This room disappeared post-Crisis, as Superman’s past as Superboy was retconned out of existence, but would return post-Infinite Crisis, shown in the story Justice League of America/Justice Society of America: The Lightning Saga. Since then, depending on the status of the Legion in the history of DC, there has always been a Legion room in the Fortress. It’s one of the weirder parts of the Fortress, but also one of the more endearing.
There’s a Clark Kent Room
Superman doesn’t like to have anyone feel left out, so the Legion of Superheroes aren’t the only friends of Superman that have their own room. All of Superman’s friends had a room in the Fortress. There was a Lois Lane room, a Jimmy Olsen room, a Lana Lang room, and more. Each of these room wold have mementos from adventures with them. Back in the Silver Age, Superman’s friends ended up at the Fortress often, and keeping his identity a secret was a must. Therefore even Clark Kent had a room in the Fortress of Solitude, just so no one would ask any awkward questions. There’s something that is kind of hilarious about Superman having an entire room devoted to his civilian identity. Of course, since Superman and Clark didn’t really have many adventures together, it was more of a place that celebrated the times Clark would write about Superman. It’s an idea that only could of have come from Silver Age, a much sillier time in the Superman comics. That said, it is something of a ingenuous little idea. It makes sense for the Superman of the Silver Age, someone who seemed to enjoy gaslighting everyone about his identity, would have a room devoted to Clark as yet another way to make sure that no one believed that Clark Kent was Superman.
Superman Recreated the Titanic In the Fortress of Solitude in All-Star Superman
Superman is taking a lot of inspiration from All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Superman masterpiece. The story takes basically everything about Superman and presents it all in its most perfect form, and that includes the Fortress of Solitude. The second issue of the book saw Lois Lane brought to the Fortress by Superman, trying to convince Lois that he was actually Clark Kent after years of gaslighting her. The issue has a fantastic full page spread from the Fortress of Solitude, and it’s one of the coolest portrayals of the Fortress ever. Many fans immediately recognized something in the Fortress of Solitude that they had never seen before — the Titanic. Later in the issue, Lois asks about it and Superman tells her he went to the bottom of the ocean and retrieved it piece by piece, allowing him to recreate it in his Fortress. It’s such a Superman thing to do. The Titanic would also show up in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor.
Superman Has the Greatest Zoo in the DC Universe
Superman is known the universe over as a savior, especially back in the Silver and Bronze Age. Superman would travel the spaceways back then, saving planets whenever he could. However, Superman couldn’t always save the day for everyone on some planets, and he’d do his best to get as many living things off these doomed worlds as possible, including animals. He’d do his best to find them a place to live, but this was a problem with the animals he’d often save. Bringing an alien animal into a food chain would basically destroy it, so Superman instead built a place for them to live in the Fortress of Solitude. The Fortress had the most unique zoo in the DC Multiverse, consisting entirely of animals that came from planets that had been destroyed. Superman, as a survivor of a doomed world, is all about giving a home to those without one and his zoo proves that.
The Fortress of Solitude’s Key Is Pure Silver Age Cheese
The Fortress of Solitude is one of the cooler parts of the Superman mythos, but there’s no denying that it is pretty cheesy in its own way. It’s full of strange little trophies from Superman’s life, both as a human and as a Kryptonian, and had an air of childlike whimsy to it. This extended to how he got in and out of the Fortress. Keeping the Fortress of Solitude locked up is a smart thing, so Superman had a lock. However, this was pre-Crisis DC, so it was going to be cheesy. Back in those days, Superman had a massive key to the Fortress. The key was so heavy that no one on Earth but Superman could lift it. Now, there were obviously a lot of problems with this — couldn’t a bunch of strong villains just get together and lift it? — but it was the kind of silliness that DC fans found endearing. Grant Morrison, in their infinite wisdom and their ongoing battle to make “lame” old school DC stuff cool, shrank the key down to regular size in All-Star Superman, but had it made out of material from a dwarf star, making it extremely dense and impossible for anyone but Superman or Supergirl to lift.
What’s your favorite fact about the Fortress of Solitude? Let us know in the comments!
