Retro Review: John Byrne’s ‘The Man of Steel’ #1 Stands the Test of Time

As a second volume of The Man of Steel hits the stands today, it seemed like as good a time as any to look back at John Byrne‘s groundbreaking original, and to ask whether or not it stands the test of time. While the miniseries itself is imperfect, a look back at its status quo-shattering first issue reveals that…well, yes. It holds up remarkably well.

The first issue of John Byrne’s 1980s Superman reinvention The Man of Steel opens on a splash page establishing shot of Krypton — something that may have inspired Brian Michael Bendis and Ivan Reis to do the same years later.

Immediately, though, there is something different and kind of special here: John Constanza’s lettering is frantic and visceral, setting an uncertain tone. A page turn later and a radically new planet Krypton is introduced, knocking the audience back on their heels as the story begins in earnest.

Byrne’s reimagining of Krypton was one of comics’s biggest swings — it is almost impossible at this point, with a half dozen reboots and revivals in the rear-view mirror, to imagine something as ambitious and controversial as reinventing Superman’s canon for the first time . The changes to Superman’s birth planet are also indicative of what Byrne set out to do: Superman was Clark, a human being, not Kal-El, a Kryptonian. Byrne’s scientific dystopia came straight out of a science fiction novel; it felt alien not just to us, but to someone like Superman — a far cry from the tights-and-capes-wearing Kryptonians of the pre-Crisis, who gave both Superman and the reader a comfort zone when ever stories had to be set on his birth world.

Byrne’s big ideas and striking designs remain resonant enough decades later that between Krypton and Supergirl, there are more of Byrne’s ideas currently on TV than almost any other individual Superman creator, from Genesis Chambers to Kelex and more.

While transforming Superman in to the true Last Son of Krypton was a controversial decision at the time, it forced Byrne, his contemporaries and successors to think about the world of Superman differently. It can be debated whether that decision opened more doors than it closed or not, but certainly the reinvention of Krypton did. It meant that any time a story was told on Krypton the old rules, the old look, the old everything was thrown out — and Byrne’s Krypton provided a fertile ground in which to grow loads of new characters and concepts throughout the years between The Man of Steel #1 and the first major reworking of Krypton post-Byrne, in 2000.

Dick Giordano’s inks complemented Byrne’s pencils as well as almost any inker this side of Terry Austin, and The Man of Steel stands out as an artistic highlight of Byrne’s storied career. Byrne and Giordano’s redesign of Lois was entirely appropriate to the time, even if some of her fashion choices seem laughable now.

That said, Byrne’s women can be problematic — something common to comics of this era. Lara Lor-Van is a blubbering, panicky mess, which is an entirely appropriate reaction when your world is dying around you but feels hysterical juxtaposed with her husband, Jor-El, who is the picture of calm and wisdom.

His Lois Lane would be criticized for being shrill and volatile, but it is Lana Lang — poor Lana, emotionally abused and given nothing to do but pine over her high school boyfriend for years — whose characterization really boggles he mind. Lois and Lana, though, barely appear in this issue. That could be a deeper criticism of the series, although Byrne had so much to do in these initial pages that almost no major character gets much to do except for Superman and the Kents. Characters like Lois, Lex, Batman, and Lana get virtually entire issues dedicated to them later, so narratively it is an understandable compromise.

Some of Byrne’s decisions — such as giving Clark powers gradually over time, allowing him to participate in school sports, and shifting him from the uber geek to a relatively popular and well-adjusted person in his personal life — reshaped the character in such a way to give Smallville a chance to be a success. It would, after all, be difficult to follow a story about Clark Kent the bumbling loser who has to currently pretend he’s a weakling. In terms of the public consciousness, though, maybe the most important beat in this issue was a moment of raw, human emotion that would help to shape the way he was portrayed for decades.

After his first public super-feat, Clark was swarmed by the press and the public. “They all wanted a piece of me, Pa,” he tells Jonathan Kent when recalling the story. The scene was referenced and repeated numerous times in the comics in the years that followed, and along with a sequence from “Dark Knight Over Metropolis” in which Superman gives Batman a Kryptonite ring, may have been the most frequently-cited scenes of the era. It is a heart-wrenching moment that Zack Snyder would try to recapture a bit of in his feature film, also titled Man of Steel, albeit with imperfect results.

It should be noted that there is a single, random disembodied Superman head used at the top of one page to signify that the narration on that page is Clark’s. It is almost quaint now, and its silliness explains why word balloons featuring superhero logos or other signifiers of the speaker gained popularity in later years.

Byrne’s propensity to over-explain things would make reinventing Clark’s powers a dull and plodding process, but in the first issue all we got was explanations for where his costume came from (it really IS an S in this verison, and Ma Kent made the suit based on Clark and Pa’s designs), why it doesn’t tear (clothes up against his skin tend to be as invulnerable as he is), and a new addition: a cape that did fray and tear, giving a generation of artists a cool new visual to work with when drawing Superman in combat.

Byrne’s The Man of Steel is sometimes imperfect, and the data dump necessary in order to get all of this information out in a single issue means pages densely packed with crowded word balloons. Still, it is hard to argue with the results, which is a well-made and entertaining comic that set the standard for a new generation of readers.

The Man of Steel is available digitally on ComiXology in both single issues and a collected edition. You can get a physical copy for cheap on your favorite comic shop or bookstore.