The Man of Steel remains one of the most influential Superman comic books of all time. Published in 1986 to modernize the Superman mythos post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, the six-issue miniseries written and penciled by John Byrne would serve as the Man of Steel’s official origin story for the next two decades. In the time since, Byrne’s reinvention of the Last Son of Krypton would go on to inspire everything from television’s Superman: The Animated Series and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to the Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel reboot in 2013.
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While James Gunn’s Superman movie isn’t rehashing the origin story audiences have seen before on screen in 1978’s Superman: The Movie and Man of Steel, the first film in the rejiggered DC Universe nods to Clark Kent’s backstory in 1986’s The Man of Steel.
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Revealed by new footage that has made its way online, Clark (David Corenswet) at one point returns home to the humble Kent farm in Smallville, Kansas, where he was raised by his adoptive parents (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince). As he dozes off with Super-Pet Krypto on his chest, we can see two Easter eggs in Clark’s childhood bedroom.
The first is a Smallville Giants pennant, Clark’s Smallville High School football team from The Man of Steel #1, in the team’s colors of orange and yellow.
After Clark’s budding powers helped him single-handedly win the Giants’ last game of the season, Pa Kent took him to the field where the Kryptonian rocket ship crash-landed 18 years earlier and revealed the story of how he came to Earth. Clark, realizing he used his special abilities to make himself better than other people, then decided to leave Smallville and use his powers for the good of mankind. (The Man of Steel #1 is divided into four chapters: a prologue chronicling the final moments of Kal-El’s exploding home planet, Krypton; a teenage Clark’s high school years; Clark’s time operating in secret before an uncostumed “Superman” is exposed in a public act of heroism; and an epilogue where Clark suits up for the first time in his Ma Kent-tailored costume.)
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The second Easter egg is a poster for The Mighty Crabjoys, a fictional band that has, so far, appeared thrice now in the burgeoning DCU. The David Harbour-voiced Frankenstein was seen wearing a Mighty Crabjoys band t-shirt in Creature Commandos, the animated series written by Gunn, and a billboard advertising the punk rock band is seen in trailers for Peacemaker season 2 (also created and written by Gunn).
Superman “tells the story of Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas,” according to the synopsis. “He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way, guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old-fashioned.”
Starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Frank Grillo, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, María Gabriela de Faría, Wendell Pierce, Alan Tudyk, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, and Sean Gunn, DC Studios’ Superman is only in theaters July 11.
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