Alan Kistler's History of Superman's S-Shield
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 02:16AM This essay is a companion piece to my other Superman Files which cover the Man of Steel's history in comics and his forays into other entertainment media.
It's funny how when movie or TV adaptations come out, some fans will get angry and yell "but that's not how the S-shield looks like in the comics!" Well, kiddies, like everything else in comics, the S-shield has undergone a number of changes over the decades.
In the very first appearance of Superman (June, 1938), the S-Shield was basically just that: a gold shield with an "S" inside. It then shifted into a yellow triangle with a yellow border and a red "S." Then the border quickly became red as well, though this wasn't consistent for many years.
In the old Fleischer cartoons, the shield actually involved a lot of black. Fleischer also was the first one to give it a diamond-shaped border. A few times in the comics, the S-shield followed a similar look and added a white border at times. The border was always drawn to be seperate from the S house within, with visible dividing lines between them.
During the World's Fair in 1940, DC Comics and Macy's got together and hired actor Ray Middleton to be the first person to portray Superman as a real-life, walking figure. They cobbled together an outfit for him, one with its own version of the shield. This version had the name "Superman" actually printed in bold letters above the stylized "S."
During the early 1940's, artist Wayne Boring took on art chores on many Superman stories. He returned the S-shield to its original colors of red and yellow, but made the design more similar to the Fleischer take. Also, an identical S-shield was now being displayed on the back of the cape, although often this was depicted as a blue and gold symbol.
By the time 1945 arrived, other comic book artists had followed the example of Wayne Boring and the S-shield was given a standard design. It was settled that the diamond would always be red and would be merged with the "S" with no visible borderlines between them. Some years later, it also became standard to make the cape's S-shield a solid yellow logo.
In 1948, Superman made his live-action debut on the silver screen in the movie serial 
"Superman Vs. The Atom Men." The hero was portrayed by Kirk Alyn, who wore a somewhat rounded version of the Wayne Boring symbol.
In the 1950s, George Reeves wore a design more accurate to the Boring's version when he depicted the Last Son of Krypton in the TV series The Adventures of Superman.
And so it was that the Wayne boring design became cemented as the "'classic" or "real" Superman symbol in the hearts of the general public.
During the 70's, though, there were a few times where artists tried to make the now-famous S-shield a little more angular and extreme. This look later became identified with the Superman who lived on the parallel world of Earth-2, while the mainstream modern-day Superman went back to wearing the classic design.
In the early 1990's, Superman apparently died, only to resurface several months later. When he returned, he wore a Kryptonian suit that was simply black and had a new silver, reflective version of the S-shield. He only wore this outfit for a few issues before switching back to his classic costume.
A couple of years later, writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross created the mini-series Kingdom Come, which quickly became critically acclaimed as among the greatest of comic stories. The story took place in a possible future where the heroes of today found their world had grown darker and grittier than they liked. After some traumatic events, this gray-templed Superman adopted a darker version of his outfit. The red and blue were less vibrant, the yellow belt was replaced with a black one and the "S" on the S-shield was now only implied. As a nod to the Fleisher cartoons, Alex Ross made the background of the shield black as well.
Years later, writer Grant Morrison introduced Superman's more powerful descendant from the 853rd century (nicknamed "Superman 1 Million") who wore a very reflective costume and a yellow-and-black shield that didn't look like an "S" at all. This future Superman was leader of the "Justice Legion A", a group that patrolled the entire solar system.
A few years later, DC decided to temporarily make Superman "electric", giving him new powers and abilities for about a full year. Likewise, he had a new cape-less costume to boot and the new S-shield fit his new motif. As soon as he got his normal powers back, he naturally went back to the standard S-shield.
After Sept. 11, 2001 and DC's Our Worlds At War storyline, Superman wore what had become the traditional S-shield but turned the yellow parts black as a sign of mourning for the dead. He wore this for a full year.
The origin and significance of the S-shield also changed over the years. Originally, it simply stood for "Superman" and the design had been one that Clark had cooked up himself. Many years later, a Superboy comic revealed that young Clark Kent had not only meant it to stand for his name but also for other "saving lives", "stopping crime" and "super-aid."
When Marlon Brando played the role of Superman's father Jor-El in the Richard Donner directed Superman: The Movie, he thought it would be a good idea to have the S-shield on his own outfit, implying then that it was a family crest and symbolized Clark's heritage as part of the House of El.
When Lois Lane met our costumed alien hero later in the film, she mistook the shield for a stylized version of the English letter "S" and was inspired by that (and by his spirit) to call him "Superman." This was the first time it had ever been proposed that the symbol had existed before his actual alias and that it had been of alien origin.
In 1984, Superman writer Elliot S! Maggin created a story concerning the "Sword of Superman" in the pages of Superman Annual #10 that gave an near-biblical origin for the S-shield. We learned that in the midst of the big bang, a lump of molten rock that was floating through the newly created space began to shape into an unusual form. Eventually, it resembled a sword with a strange glyph emblazoned on the hilt.
We then fast-forwarded to when Clark Kent, about to embark on a career as a super-hero, was trying to figure out a design for his costume's chest symbol. Jonathan Kent saw the image of the sword in a dream one night and when he woke up he remembered the strange symbol on its hilt that, to him, had resembled an "S". Since young Clark was going to call himself Superboy, it seemed perfect. So Jonathan related the design to Martha and Clark loved it. In the same story, it was shown that years later, the adult Superman would finally find this sword (which was never named in the actual text) and that holding it gave him god-like power. Fearful of how that could corrupt him, he discarded the sword and it was never seen again, nor was this story ever referenced again.
In 1986, DC completely revamped Superman's history (such as removing his "Superboy" career from continuity), as well as many other aspects of the character. Not wanting Clark to seem arrogant for choosing the name "Superman" for himself, writer /artist John Byrne echoed the 1978 film by having Lois be the one to name him. In his mini-series The Man of Steel, Clark's first public display of his abilities involved him wearing nothing but a leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans. When Lois wrote up the story, the newspaper headline read "Space-Plane Saved By Mysterious Superman."
Seeing that the public had adopted this as his alias, Clark and the Kents went to work on putting together a uniform to go with the new name. While Martha worked on the suit itself, Jonathan and Clark went through several designs of a stylized letter "S" before finally landing on the one they considered the brightest and most iconic.
In the 90's, John Ostrander wrote a mini-series called The Kents which explored the earlier generations of the Kent bloodline. During the series, it was revealed that the Kent family had gotten a Native American blanket during the days of the frontier. The blanket was decorated with the design of a "healing snake", a symbol of life. The implication was that the blanket was kept in the family for generations and that it had been the inspiration for the S-shield that Clark and Jonathan designed many years later.
In the novelization of Superman Returns, a similar origin was given when it was said that the S-shield was a Kryptonian symbol that referenced a serpent of justice. And in Kevin J. Anderson's novel The Last Days of Krypton, the symbol was said to reference a "serpent of deceit" trapped in a diamond.
When Superman: The Animated Series came out on the WB network, the cartoon showed that the S-shield was definitely of Kryptonian origin but didn't explain its meaning or purpose. Although no one on Krypton was seen wearing the symbol in the cartoon, the S-shield was displayed prominently on a recording Clark found in the rocket ship that told him who he really was. So obviously the symbol had meant something to Jor-El and Lara and, realizing this, Clark took it as his own personal seal. Just like the Richard Donner film, Lois mistook the symbol for an "S" and was inspired to call Clark's alter-ego "Superman."
Years later, writer Mark Waid was given the task of updating Superman's origin. The new cartoon series and the live-action shows Smallville and Lois and Clark had all taken inspiration from the Richard Donner film rather than the Post-1986 continuity. For instance, another change John Byrne had made was that Kal-El was actually sent to Earth as a fetus in an artificial womb and wasn't born until he arrived on Earth, whereas all the new shows still showed the classic/movie origin of him being a baby already when Krypton was about to explode.
Mark Waid decided to create an origin that non-comic book fans would feel was familiar as well, using ideas from the Richard Donner movie and Smallville and mixing them in with Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis elements from the comics. Like the cartoon series and the movie, he made the S-shield an alien symbol. But Waid felt that it needed to have more pathos than simply signifying a family line. After all, Superman was known as "the Last Son of Krypton", not the "Last Son of El." Hence, Waid showed that the S-shield was actually an ancient Kryptonian symbol for "hope" and that it signified that one could fight for a better tomorrow.
Later on, in the comic series 52, Waid also added that if the S-shield was shown upside down then the meaning changed. Inversed, the symbol was a Kryptonian glyph that meant "resurrection."
When Bryan Singer directed the film Superman Returns, he put his own spin on the S-shield. It was smaller now, raised, and of a slightly different curvature. And if you looked closely at the now-raised symbol in the film, you could actually see tiny S-shields all over it.
Of course, Superman has worn variations of his shield in stories that take place in alternate universes and timelines (often called "imaginary stories" or printed under the Elseworlds label). And in the mainstream comics, there have also been other versions of the S-shield worn by different characters who are in some way connected to the Man of Tomorrow.
Superman's imperfect duplicate Bizarro has worn several strange versions of the shield. The first one was just a mirror image of Superman's symbol. Years later, John Byrne just gave him Superman's symbol, but colored it black and orange. Years after that, Jeph Loeb gave Bizarro a mirror-image S-shield again and switched the black for purple.
Writer/artist Matt Wagner did his own angular/twisted take on Bizarro's S-shield in his mini-series Trinity. And the creators of Superman: The Animated Series gave Bizarro's symbol a more comical take to emphasize the childish nature of the character, an aspect they wanted to focus on in their series.
SUPERMAN: The Animated Series, the Batman Beyond cartoon and the Cartoon Network series Justice League all showed alternate versions of our boy's costume. In the SUPERMAN: TAS episode "Brave New Metropolis", Lois traveled to an alternate timeline where Superman had become a darker man with a black costume and a shield that looked somewhat like a lightning bolt. The Batman Beyond story "Call To Action" portrayed an older Superman living roughly 80 years in the future and wearing a black and white costume that had a blend of his old uniform and Kryptonian stylings. In the Justice League story "A Better World", Superman and his friends met the Justice Lords, versions of themselves from a parallel universe where they had overthrown the governments of Earth and had taken over. This tyrant Superman wore a white and red S-shield on his darker costume.
Superman once saved the life of a man named John Henry Irons. When the Man of Steel was believed to be dead, Irons was inspired to pay back the favor by continuing Superman's fight for justice. Donning the S-shield in honor of his hero, Irons created a high-tech armored suit and became the second hero to be called Steel. As he's modified his armor, his S-Shield changed later to a more individual look that was decorated by two large discs, but he recently went back to this original symbol, which is basically a metallic classic S-shield decorated with rivets.
Supergirl has normally used the classic S-shield as her symbol. But in the real world you and I inhabit, many T-shirts have been decorated with a pink version of the symbol that is meant to specifically bring Supergirl to mind. In one storyline, a woman calling herself Supergirl and claiming to be Superman's daughter from the future (a claim that turned out to be false) decorated her black outfit with a simple red "S" rather than a stylized logo. An evil version of Supergirl was later created who wore the silver and black S-shield that Marlon Brando wore in the Richard Donner film.
Two romantic interests of Superman also had their own rounder versions of the S-shield. One was Luma Lynai, a Pre-Crisis character who was a "superwoman" in her own right and flew around in a white and green outfit. The other was Obsession, a woman who was basically a Superman-stalker and used magic to gain comparable power. She dressed up in a "Superwoman" costume and tried to pass herself off as "Mrs. Superman."
Pre-Crisis, a girl from the future took on the title of Supergirl and had her own costume that used Clark's classic red-and-yellow shield. Recently, a new, mysterious superwoman showed up during the "New Krypton" story-arc. Her S-Shield was of classic design but colored white and red, instead.
The Post-Crisis version of Superboy (a teenager cloned from a mixture of Superman and Lex Luthor's DNA) originally wore the classic S-shield but later adopted a black and red version to help stand out on his own. Though the symbol itself was the same as Clark's post-Sept. 11th shield, black t-shirts with this S-shield are meant to evoke Superboy since that's exactly what he wore later in his career as his "costume." Similarly, the character the Eradicator (an artificial intelligence created long ago on Krypton) later adopted a black and red version of the shield, but with a distinctly more alien design.
And that just about does it for the many version of the S-shield. Now, some of you might be wondering, "Hey, if the comics almost always have an S-shield on Superman's cape, why do modern-day cartoons and the movie Superman Returns depict it as just plain red cloth?" Simple. Modern-day animators (including CGI designers) love making the cape more realistic by having it constantly flap in motion and flutter around. And by adding all this motion, it makes it much more difficult to animate a design on the cape that would have to move in turn and in-synch with the rest of the cape without seeming unnatural. So modern-day animators usually drop the golden S-shield from the back of the cape because they figure it's just easier to save themselves a bit of time and
money.
I hope you found all this interesting. If not, why did you read all the way to the end? Dummy.
If you enjoyed this and want to learn more about Superman, Click Here for the menu to my many files on the Man of Steel. Cheers!
- Alan Kistler ...
... thinks Mark Waid's S-shield origin is the best.
Reader Comments (5)
I'm afraid I have to correct you. "Brave New Metropolis" was broadcast in September 1997 and had been fully animated and edited months before. "Superman: The Dark Side" was published in August 1998 through October 1998.