When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster invented Superman, they revolutionised the entertainment industry. The origins of the first real superhero in history have mostly remained the same despite the fact that his story has been written numerous times and by some of the best comic book writers in history.
The Last Son of Krypton, he is an alien who was transferred to Earth just before his planet was obliterated. When his ship landed in Kansas, a farmer couple, Jonathan & Martha Kent, adopted him, taught him how to utilise his gifts for good, and nurtured him “the American way” (which has since been toned down in terms of reference, of course).
In the main continuity, Kal-El becomes a bright symbol of hope for humanity as Superman. Among the most memorable retellings of the Superman story over the years to us are those in which Mark Miller gave the Man of Steel a Communist makeover in Superman: Red Son, J.M. DeMatteis had the Waynes adopt Kal-El over the Kents, and comedy legend John Cleese gave him a notorious British accent in Superman: True Brit.
You are not here, of course, to hear those tales. We are going to give you the Superman created by Stan Lee that the title of this video promises! One of the most intriguing members of Stan Lee’s Justice League is Superman.
In 2001, The Architect of Marvel Comics crossed the line into his Distinguished Competition and wrote a year-long saga that retold the stories of the Justice League from his perspective. Though we would argue that the fact that his past is unlike anything you can conceive is to his advantage. Here are the Superman origins from Stan Lee’s Just Imagine Universe – Explored without further ado.
It begins with Premonitions of Doom: The Origins of Stan Lee’s Superman
The phrase “Just Imagine Stan Lee and John Buscema developing…” must be well known to most comic book enthusiasts by this point. Buscema, after all, was a leading illustrator during the heyday of Marvel Comics in the 1960s and worked closely with Stan The Man on the development of the Silver Surfer. The majority of what Marvel published in the 1960s and 1970s, including The Avengers, Thor, The Fantastic Four, and approximately 200 issues of Conan the Barbarian, bear Buscema’s visual imprint.
It would therefore be an understatement to suggest that the two make up a type of dream team. Additionally, their Superman may be the best creation of the entire Just Imagine…series. With that said, let’s dive into his history a little bit, and when you see the first page of Just Imagine Stan Lee with John Buscema creating Superman, you feel like you’re watching David Lynch’s Dune; specifically the now-iconic introductory monologue by Princess Irulan.
Except only in this case, the woman in question is not a princess; she’s an ordinary Kryptonian woman whose name is Lyella, who has eyes but for one man. That man? Squadman Salden- a member of the Kryptonian Police Squad, and a dedicated one at that. His hard-ass attitude is rivalled only by Guy Gardner’s in the DC Multiverse, and that itself is saying something.
Salden is a man who is completely dedicated to serving his Squad; we don’t hear much about his parents or his past life besides the fact that he has but one ambition: to become the mightiest member of a squadron that includes genetically-enhanced officers as well. Salden has clearly spent some time on the force, and has even put away some of the worst terrorists in Kryptonian history, including Gundor Gorrok, who is currently serving a life-sentence thanks to Salden’s bravery.
The Squadman is seen working out vigorously as Princess Irulan- sorry, Lyella- muses about the creation of a Space/Time Bender; a machine that would allegedly allow their people to travel to the furthest reaches of the universe in the blink of an eye, thanks to a mysterious green element that serves as its power source. Any guesses as to what that element might be? Now, you might be wondering why on Earth are Kryptonians actively-using Kryptonite in Stan Lee’s version of the Justice League, but as you might have noticed, this is an entirely different Krypton we’re talking about.
It isn’t on the brink of destruction; in fact, thanks to the discovery of Kryptonite, the planet might be on the brink of an evolutionary leap! Lyella marvels about this very fact, but she is also filled with a sense of impending doom. She beckons her beloved to leave his weights and spend some time with her, but he reminds her of his goals. Salden tells Lyella that she is the love of his life; rather, she is life itself to him.
But he cannot stand the fact that a bunch of genetically-altered soldiers are supposed to be the new line of defence for his ancient planet, and he wants his own might to be as strong as his love for Lyella. As you can see, Salden is a typical jock, what with his blonde hair and need-to-win attitude, but his love for Lyella is as real as it gets. Which is why it is even more tragic that she’s right when she thinks to herself that she will never see him again, as Salden takes off to join his squad for active duty.
Salden Arrives on the Scene, but at what cost? The Small Guy Saves the Day to his Deepest Regret
Stan Lee has always been big on keeping stories as natural as is possible- which might seem like a bold claim, coming from the co-creator of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men- but for some reason, his style of working lends an uncanny sense of realism to this version of Krypton; and we mean that in the best way possible. See, normally, when we’d say Superman took off to save the day, we’d be referring to the fact that he would literally fly in to save the day.
But on Stan Lee’s Krypton, native Kryptonians seem to have none of the superpowers that have made them iconic to comic book readers over the years; they can’t shoot laser beams from their eyes, they don’t have x-ray vision, hell, they can’t even fly! They’re pretty much like regular human beings save for two key differences, one of which we’ll address later on. But the other is their hyper-advanced technological systems; Stan Lee’s Krypton is a futuristic planet with technology that far outclasses that of Earth.
Earlier when we said Salden “took off”, we did mean it literally, but his “power of flight” is thanks to a device called a shoulder harness; which seems to be a very common thing on his planet, as Salden is impressed with the new version that his department has issued to him. It makes nary a sound, and the Squadman takes a moment to marvel at the wondrous things science can achieve himself; but then he arrives to the situation at hand, and quickly realises the gravity of it.
A group of terrorists had hijacked a vessel, and his squad was basically pinned down in the middle of a hostile gunfight that had put the hostages at jeopardy as well. They began ordering him to stay behind, basically, because he wasn’t “enhanced” like them but a stun bomb rocks them all into submission and sets the stage for Salden to show off his stuff.
And show off he does, basically turning into Kryptonian John Wick; misdirecting terrorists by throwing their grenade at them, sneaking into the vessel through a duct just small enough for him, and then proceeding to come out on top in a one-against-five scenario, where the latter were armed with guns. His heroics are broadcasted all across Krypton thanks to their holographic news systems, and his captain thanks him for his brave service once again.
Salden takes his leave, and heads home to his beloved Lyella, unaware that he would never talk to her again. We leave the Squad HQ to enter a max-security prison yard where Gundor Gorrok is administering the beating of a lifetime to a former crew member who snitched on him. The facility’s guards try to stop the terrorist from killing his fellow man, but that was their biggest mistake; Gorrok wanted the Squadmen to get involved so he could steal one of their shoulder harnesses and get his revenge on the man who put him in that hellhole in the first place.
He makes his way to Salden’s home, but finds Lyella instead; and with a short window to escape from his enemy’s home, he decides to turn his wife into an example, killing her in cold-blood and leaving behind a note for Salden that simply said; “Something to remember me by!”
When the Squadman arrived home and discovered the horrifying scene that awaited him, he broke down in guilt & grief because if he hadn’t put Gorrok behind bars, perhaps Lyella would’ve been alive today. He blames himself for her death, and thinks to himself that he’s lost the one thing that meant the most to him in this world; and so, he vows to kill Gorrok in retribution, setting him down a path that would change his life forever; and not in the way even he would’ve expected.
Retribution, A Chase Gone Wrong, and a Whole New World: Salden Arrives on Earth!
So understandably, after losing his last real relationship besides the one he has with his duty, Salden goes into a blood-rage, threatening to beat up his own squad members if they didn’t reveal Gorrok’s location to him. He also goes so far as to skip arming for the mission to capture the infamous fugitive, preferring to dispense punishment the old-school style; with his bare fists. They catch up with him at the worst place possible; the site of the Space/Time Bender. Turns out, the criminal had put 2 and 2 together and figured that his best chance for survival was in a galaxy far, far away.
Presently, he was in the process of hijacking said chance for himself, which conveniently seats 2; hmm, we wonder why. Oh, no time to think about things because here comes Squadman Salden with bad intentions on his mind. Gorrok, looking to finish the job while he’s at his escape, opens the doors to the Space/Time Bender and allows Salden to enter the vessel; as soon as he does, Gundor Gorrok hits the jump button that warps them both to an oxygen-based planet.
The two eternal enemies are locked in battle all the while, with Gorrok having the upper hand for most of it. They arrive upon a blue-green planet in the Sol system, and Gundor Gorrok thinks his victory complete when he manages to escape the crashing Space/Time Bender thanks to a shoulder harness. Salden prepares himself for imminent death; because the vessel was currently hurtling towards the surface of this alien planet, and he was trapped inside with no way out.
Even though the vessel landed in the ocean, which cushioned the landing and saved Salden from certain death, it wouldn’t be long before he died anyway; or so he thought to himself. Salden curses his luck, saying, “What a way to end up! Running out of air miles below the surface of a strange planet in an unknown galaxy!” And to be honest with you, we get where he’s coming from; he knows that once he opens the gate to his vessel, its game over for him.
The sheer pressure of the ocean will crush him to death, and if that doesn’t do it, then it’ll be one of this planet’s predatory life-forms. But his great astonishment, neither happens! The water pressure doesn’t budge his vessel as greatly as he thought it would, and when tries to get to the surface, he shoots up like a torpedo!
After breaking the surface, he notices that a green iridescence has covered his ship’s crash site; no doubt contamination from that rare Kryptonite element. But right now, he’s got bigger fish to fry; and we mean that semi-literally because Salden out-swims sharks to get to the banks of a beach, where he lies down exhausted and filled with thoughts of Lyella and revenge.
Two Kryptonians on Planet Earth: Salden and Gundor’s Fates Collide!
While both Gundor Gorrok and Squadman Salden were of Kryptonian origin, their trajectories on planet Earth couldn’t have unfolded more differently if they’d tried. Gundor used his shoulder harness to land at a tribal island and quickly began acting upon his plan to rule the world. He convinced the islanders that he was a god, because he fell from the sky you see, and after whooping their best warriors, he takes his “rightful throne”, being attended to by the entire tribe for his every whim. Salden has a decidedly harder time on Earth.
For starters, he gets ambushed by some thugs who were looking to rob him clean. He then finds out that Earth’s technology is light-years behind where it needs to be for the creation of a Space/Time Bender. And to top it all off, Gundor Gorrok lives, while his beloved Lyella lies murdered. He thinks to himself that he must return home, if it is just to honour her memory, but things aren’t so bad for him either.
Salden realises that the reason that he is being able to perform the seemingly god-like feats that he has, is because Earth’s gravitational pull is about a 100 times lesser than Krypton’s; which is an homage to the original explanation for Superman’s powers, given by Jerry Siegel. And fans of Dragon Ball Z know exactly how that affects your power levels.
So now that he was on a planet that was literally lighter than his, everything he did was amplified at least a 100 times: he could leap over buildings, break bones with ease, and see accurately across great distances thanks to some kind of telescopic vision. With these “superpowers”, Salden is able to immediately grasp English and makes his way to a circus, reasoning that he will need money to survive on an alien world like this- somehow, Stan Lee’s protagonists always choose the most-eccentric ways to earn cash, and Salden is no exception.
With a performance that would put the Flying Graysons to shame, Salden wows the circus audience for half an hour and gets out of the place with enough money to rent out a shady apartment and buy a computer and a TV in an effort to learn about Earth’s space programme; but his research leaves him disheartened. Salden finds out that this “crummy little planet” has barely reached the preliminary stages of space travel, and deduces that it’s all the intra-planetary conflict that has led to all this; war & terrorism has withheld Earth from reaching its potential as a star-spanning race, and Salden feels like he was fated to arrive on this planet to save it from itself.
But he is also aware of the fact that they might not take kindly to aliens, given how primitive their society was; when the circus master asked him how he performed his outrageous trapeze act, he simply replied that he used a gizmo to do it. And later on, after resolving to help end war on Earth in an effort to accelerate their space programme, he realises that he needs to come up with a story for his “powers”; which he comes up with after reading an issue of Furious Comics that a previous tenant had left behind.
And so, the story is set; Salden would claim that all his power came from his shoulder harness, which he would claim was a patented invention of his. Even if anyone came across it, there wouldn’t be any trouble, because the Space/Time Bender crash broke its fuel cells and it was practically useless now. He would keep his true identity as an alien hidden from all, for reasons we’ve already mentioned above.
And for the purposes of blending into human society, he would go by the name he randomly came up with when that circus master asked for one; Clark Kent. Fun fact: Clark Kent is the only superhero name in Stan Lee’s Just Imagine Universe that remains unchanged, because it was already alliterative!
As Salden broods over his future plans for returning to Krypton, we see that his adversary has grown tired of ruling over tribals and has decided to take over an honest-to-god city, which has landed him squarely on the doorstep of the Church of Eternal Empowerment; situated in beautiful, sunny Los Angeles.
An elderly couple beckons him inside, telling him that their Reverend has been waiting for him. Gorrok is clearly disturbed by this as no one should know he was even here; but after meeting with this Reverend Darrk, he decides throwing in with the guy would allow him to achieve his goals faster. In another part of town, the newly-christened Clark Kent gets a visit from a face that is all too familiar to us Superman fans.
Meeting Lois Lane, Defeating Gorrok, and Saving the Chinese President: How Salden became Superman!
As Salden ponders over how he can navigate the vastness of planet Earth and locate Gorrok for their final confrontation, an answer presents itself to him on a silver platter; or shall we say, herself? Because the Kryptonian’s thoughts are interrupted by a talent agent who was rather impressed with his circus act and wants to sign him to a contract. Drum rolls for her name reveal please; it’s Lois Lane! The only other proper alliterative name for a character that found its way into Stan Lee’s re-imagining of the DC Universe.
Lois Lane pitches a publicity gimmick to “Clark Kent”; she wants to call him Superman, and is convinced that his incredible feats of strength can get them TV deals, merch rights and money out the wazoo. While Salden is initially apprehensive of the Earth woman’s grandiose pitch, he starts to see the merits in it; if he becomes popular, he wouldn’t have to seek out Gorrok. Gorrok would seek him out!
Just as he asks Lois to continue with her pitch, they are interrupted by agents from the Pentagon, who are here to confiscate Superman’s gizmo for testing; you know, the usual super-secret government stuff that also finds its way into Stan Lee stories. Salden gets sassy with the Earthlings, telling them he expects his shoulder harness dry-cleaned without starch when they return it, but they snap at him and go about “government business.”
An agent puts on the harness and tries to fly but crash-lands right on his face, thinking there might be some trick behind this thing, but has to end up leaving before he can figure it out because Superman has the greatest defence in the world against secret government operations; he has a lawyer! His lawyer threatens to sue the Pentagon for this, and that, and the other, and the agents leave whimpering as Salden incredulously thanks his legal saviour.
Lois Lane chimes in by telling him she hired the guy for him, and that when you’re with Lois Lane, “you butt’s always protected.” She starts talking about a Larry King interview, when Salden clocks an on-going political crises playing out in the very city they were in. Apparently, the Chinese President had been kidnapped and the terrorists had demanded 10 billion dollars in ransom within 12 hours.
By this point, Salden has enough knowledge about Earth’s political systems to figure out that this situation could escalate into an all-out war; and that would put his plans of going home to Krypton on an indefinite hold. He decides to take control of the situation and flies off to the Pentagon with a plan; Salden was going to single-handedly save the President’s life! He disguises himself as part of the payload the terrorists were supposed to receive, but is shocked to discover that the money wasn’t picked up by a helicopter; it was swallowed by a literal hole in the Earth, which led him to his old nemesis Gundor Gorrok.
The evil Kryptonian had somehow managed to gather a band of terrorists and even kidnapped Lois Lane. He reveals himself as the mastermind of the kidnapping of the Chinese President, and Salden rightfully wonders how he managed to pull this off so quickly after landing on Earth. But all his investigative questions are drowned in a sea of blind rage when Gundor Gorrok opens his mouth next.
After getting Salden tied up by his goons, he taunts the Squadman, claiming he can finally finish what he started on Krypton. He had killed his wife, and he would now kill him; this flips a switch in Salden’s mind and he breaks free of his literal steel bonds to layeth the smacketh down on Gorrok’s goons. He saves Lois Lane from certain death- and unwittingly becomes her star talent in the process- and then returns to face-off against his enemy for one last time. The 2 Kryptonians battle in the subways of Los Angeles, but Gundor Gorrok’s over-zealous nature proves to be his undoing.
He fires off an RPG in a close-quartered combat scenario and pays for it dearly when the entire subway system collapses in on him. Salden manages to leave unscathed, but his work remains unfinished; the 12 hour timeline is almost over, and he is nowhere close to finding the Chinese President yet. As Lois prattles off about getting the best military bid for him in case a war breaks out, Salden realises something; earlier, down in the under belly of LA, when he had asked Gundor Gorrok where the President was, he had taunted him by saying, “only time will tell.”
Now, up on the surface, Lois points out that there’s a giant clock tower in LA where he can check the time. Salden, with his newly-acquired telescopic vision, can see that the Chinese President has been strapped to one of the hands of that giant clock, with a rather explosive package. He immediately leaps into action and saves the President, hurling the bomb safely up towards the atmosphere and allowing it to detonate. When he lands, the Chinese President absolves the US government of any involvement in the plot to kidnap him, and Lois Lane lets him know that her client, Superman, is available for overseas bookings as well!
And thus, the “S” symbol that adorned Salden’s shoulder harness and was the logo of the Squad that he would’ve gladly given his life for, takes on a new life of its own on planet Earth. Though Lois Lane and Clark Kent spend most of their time together discussing business deals, Salden knows that the S will now stand for some form of hope for the people of Earth.
He takes some form of solace in that, but is still disturbed by the fact that Gorrok was able to orchestrate such a plan in such short order. He thinks to himself that a bigger factor must be at play, as he crosses the Church of Eternal Empowerment; and we all know instantly that the day is not too far for Superman to take to the skies and save mankind from itself, once again.
How is Stan Lee’s Superman different from DC’s Superman?
If you couldn’t tell by the story we’ve narrated so far, the Superman that DC readers loved and cherished as a pure hero since 1938 and the Superman that Stan Lee created in his 2001-2002 miniseries are two entirely different people. Yes, they’re Kryptonians, but even the way their planet has been represented is completely different. For starters, Kryptonians do not have crazy superpowers like icy breath or laser beam eyes or the ability to hear the heartbeat of a person that is literally halfway across the world.
They are just regular humanoids existing on the planet Krypton in a galaxy far removed from the Milky Way. On Stan Lee’s Krypton, science is cherished as much as it is in DC’s Krypton, but unlike the latter, it forms the basis for their development as a civilization; take, for instance, the fact that on Krypton, people travel using shoulder harnesses. It’s like something out of Back to the Future, right?
And we still don’t have our hover boards! But what makes Lee’s version of Superman so compelling to us is the fact that his story doesn’t begin as an infant in Kansas; it begins as an adult Squadman on Krypton. And therein lies the biggest difference between Stan Lee’s Superman and the Superman that Jerry Siegel created; the fact that Salden is a fully-grown man whose actual intentions are much more personal and borderline-selfish than Kal-El’s is what makes him such a layered character.
He gives Superman’s idealism a practical voice; where Kal-El might have innocently revealed his alien nature to the first humans he encountered as an adult alien, Salden played it cool and tricked the humans into thinking he was one of them; and that his “gizmo” is what made him special. This effectively negates the possibility of a Lex Luthor-type figure in Lee’s Just Imagine Universe, but who knows whether ol’ Lexy was even considered for an appearance by Stan The Man.
What we do know is that his Superman isn’t inherently altruistic; yes, he was a police officer on his planet and has morals that cannot be violated no matter the cost. But like most cops, we feel, he isn’t afraid to “bend the rules”; something mainstream Superman would usually not stand for.
For instance, the only reason he even wants to help reduce crime on Earth is because he wants their space programme to develop to the point where they can help him get back home. But when he returns home in a later issue of the mini-series, he finds himself disappointed, thinking that life as a hero on Earth was better than coming back to a planet that had nothing to offer to him anymore.
And so, we see Superman in a much more jaded light under Stan Lee’s guidance; which we think is a refreshing take on the Man of Steel, and one that also appropriately depicts his moniker in the sense of Salden being implacable as a glacier. DC’s Superman embodies everything heroic about a superhero, from his powers down to his conduct. He’s supposed to be a goodie two-shoes, because he’s the world’s first superhero.
Stan Lee’s Superman acts heroic to make ends meet; and that, we think, makes for a much more interesting dynamic. Don’t get us wrong, there is no comparison between the Superman we know and the Superman Stan created; they are fundamentally different from each other. We just wanted to give Stan his flowers for bringing out a side of the Son of Krypton that most other writers haven’t been able to capture as effectively within less than 50 pages.
Marvelous Verdict
If you want to give a read to any one of the 13 classic stories that Stan Lee penned for DC for the year that Just Imagine… ran, make it this one. It’s not just because of the fact that we get to see Stan Lee and John Buscema work their creative magic within the confines of DC; it’s also the fact that they took a massive gamble on re-imagining Superman as a kind of stoic, out-for-himself, grown-ass adult when he gets to Earth, and it paid off in-spades.
Superman is usually featured as the fulcrum of DC Comics; as the axis around whom every major event in company history rotates. From Crises on Infinite Earths in 1985 to Doomsday Clock as recently as 2019, everything that happens in DC is inadvertently linked to Superman; except that one time a Batman from the Dark Multiverse invaded the Prime Reality. But Lee and Buscema’s work is able to take him out of that role and turn him into this sort of war veteran, who can’t wait to go back home to pay his respects to his dead, but ends up living where he is because dammit, he cannot deny that he has grown to love this place.
Even if it is for all the artificial adulation that he receives. They’ve given Superman fallible qualities that don’t spiral into outright tyranny- something DC loves doing- and it makes for a rather-interesting read-through of the rest of this series. Even though Superman isn’t the lynch pin of Stan Lee’s Just Imagine Universe, we’d argue that he is perhaps better represented here as a stand-alone character than his own stories sometimes; and we’re willing to take that opinion to our graves.