10 Alternate Versions Of Superman You Need To Know About

We all know the basic tenets of Superman's character. He's the Last Son of Krypton, raised in Smallville, Kansas, works for the Daily Planet, loves Lois Lane, etc. Except sometimes, these things don't apply. Just like Batman - as we explored in another list - several comics have played with the Superman character and totally rebooted him from the ground-up, exploring fascinating "what if?" scenarios and dropping him into different environments. From Tarzan Superman to British Superman to Amish Superman (yes, really), it feels like just about every conceivable re-imagining of the character has been attempted at some point. The latest story arc in Peter Tomasi's current run in Superman comics is 'Multiplicity,' which unites a multitude of Supermen from the Multiverse against a common threat. As it's a story that celebrates the many reinventions of the Man of Steel that there have been over the years, we thought we'd do the same and bring you 10 of the most shocking and unlikely alternative Supermen in the history of DC comics. 10) Old Man Superman When the Silver Age of Comic Books came along, DC wiped continuity clean and retconned the Golden Age versions of their heroes into a different Earth - Earth-Two, to be exact. Since then, the original characters have occasionally been revisited. Known as Kal-L, Earth Two's Superman is an older, wiser counterpart to the regular Superman. The leader of the Justice Society of America, he's also happily married to Lois Lane and the editor-in-chief of The Daily Star. At least, he was, until he sacrificed himself to save the Multiverse in Infinite Crisis. What's significant about Kal-L is that he was the first instance of a Superman from another Earth (even though he was already the original Superman). He also got to play a part in some seminal storylines like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Blackest Night. In recent years, he was rebooted for The New 52 where he became enslaved by Darkseid and took the name Brutaal. 9) British Superman While there are British superheroes - like Marvel's Captain Britain and Union Jack - the genre has never really taken off over the pond as much as it has in the US. Maybe things would have been different if Superman was a Brit though, as is the premise of the humorous alt-universe story Superman: True Brit. When Kal-El lands in London, he's raised by the Clarks as a typically mild-mannered Englishman, afraid to use his powers not because he's worried about his secret identity but because he's worried about what the neighbours might think. He also works for The Daily Smear, a parody of British tabloid newspapers. Essentially, this comic tale is full of poking fun at the stereotypical British uptightness and ingrained politeness. This isn't surprising when you consider that it was written by none other than legendary British comedian John Cleese, most known for playing the stuffy Basil Fawlty. Yes, really, Cleese wrote a DC comic. Maybe that's why he's found himself a role in the movies? 8) Flashpoint Superman In case you missed the massive comic book crossover, the animated movie adaptation of it or the ongoing Flash TV show, we'll quickly provide a quick recap for you. The event that led to The New 52 universal reshuffle, Flashpoint saw Barry Allen travel back in time to save his mother - an action which accidentally created a dire new timeline where the world had gone to pot. Wonder Woman and Aquaman were at war, Bruce Wayne died as a boy and Superman was nowhere to be found. The reason was that Kal-El's spaceship did not land in Smallville as before, but slap bang in the middle of Metropolis, flattening the city. The alien child was then taken in by the government for experimentation. When the Flash eventually tracks him down, he finds a stick-thin Kal-El, starved of both the sun's radiation and human contact. It's tragic to see the mighty Superman brought down to the level of a terrified lab rat and, while not quite as fascinating as Thomas Wayne's Flashpoint Batman, it's one of the most interesting revisions of the Flashpoint universe. 7) Real-World Superman What would it be like if Superman actually existed in the real world? That was the question that Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek set out to answer. Set in the real world - where DC Comics exists - a Kansas farm boy named Clark Kent (named after the famous superhero, of course) discovers that he has superpowers and decides to fight crime as Superboy. The coincidences keep on coming, though, when he moves to Manhattan, becomes a journalist (writing for The New Yorker) and has a girlfriend named Lois. What are the chances, eh? For those who don't know, the character was heavily inspired by Superboy-Prime. Like Secret Identity, Prime hails from an Earth where superheroes are confined to comic books. However, when he gets powers he eventually becomes corrupted by them and grows into one of the biggest threats to the multiverse ever. 6) Superman, Darkseid's Son Superman and Darkseid are bitter enemies, right? One is sworn to save the universe while the other wishes to rule it. As polar opposites, they could never be on the same side, right? Wrong! In Superman: The Dark Side, one of the many alt-universe tales published under the DC Elseworlds banner, Kal-El's pod crashes onto the planet Apokolips rather than Earth. As such, he's raised as Darkseid's son and becomes the head of the Apokoliptian army, clad in a special suit of armour which increases his abilities even more. Without any of the compassion, conscience or humanity that defines our Superman, Darkseid's Kal-El is a merciless mass murderer. However, is Superman's heroism only due to his nurture rather than nature? Well, eventually he does turn against his evil lord and master - proving that, even in terrible conditions, Superman's inherent goodness will eventually win out. 5) Captain America Superman While DC have Superman, Marvel have Captain America. Both are the strong-moralled (and muscled) leaders of their respective leagues of heroes. When the two company's combined forces to create Amalgam Comics in 1996 though, Clark Kent and Steve Rogers were merged into one. In this unique mash-up, Clark Kent volunteers for an experimental procedure during World War II. After being given a serum derived from alien cells discovered from a crashed spacecraft - plus a boost of solar energy - Kent becomes Super-Soldier, capable of flight, enhanced strength and heat-vision. With his friends Sgt. Rock and his Howling Commandos, Super-Soldier goes up against Lex Luthor AKA Green Skull, the fiendish head of HYDRA. In case you're wondering, other mash-ups of Amalgam Comics included Iron Lantern, Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Doctor Strangefate. Super-Soldier was one of the most successful though, as he also nabbed a sequel series, Super-Soldier: Man of War. 4) Ultraman The evil doppelganger from an alternate universe is an old trope, but it's one that DC has got a lot of great mileage out of over the years. Mainly through the Crime Syndicate, the supervillain counterpart of the Justice League from Earth-Three. Their number includes Batman analogue Owlman, Flash-alike Johnny Quick and Green Lantern knock-off Power Ring. Their leader is the worst of the bunch, though: the evil Superman-esque Ultraman. There have been many revamps of Ultraman over the years, but The New 52's is the best one for painting him as the anti-Superman. Raised on a cruel version of Krypton, Kal-ll is sent to Earth to avenge the planet's destruction and is raised by drug addicts Johnny and Martha Kent - who he murders when he has no more use for them. Oh, and he also gains power when exposed to kryptonite. And has the hots for Wonder Woman's evil doppelganger Superwoman. First appearing back in 1964, Superman and Ultraman have battled many times over the decades. The most recent was in the 2013/2014 Forever Evil arc that saw various Justice League teams - including Lex Luthor's Injustice League - join together to face the threat of Ultraman and his Crime Syndicate. 3) President Superman While his enemy Lex Luthor has held the seat of office, Superman has never taken over the Presidency. An alternative version of him has though - and he was based off former president Barack Obama. On Earth-23, Kalel of Krypton lives on Earth as Calvin Ellis, the President of the US. As if that wasn't enough, he has a secret identity as this Earth's Superman. He's also done something that regular Superman has never done in rehabilitating Braniac to be his personal supercomputer (who helps him keep his superhero shenanigans under cover). Apart from being an interesting look at Superman as America's head of state, Earth-23's Kalel is notable for being the rare time that Superman has been depicted as African-American. There had been at least one other version, but Kalel was by far the more interesting, fleshed-out character. 2) High Chancellor Superman Perhaps the most famous alternate Superman for those who don't read the comics is the star of Injustice: Gods Among Us. The smash-hit video game's story goes that, due to an evil scheme by the Joker, Superman was inadvertently responsible for the destruction of Metropolis and the death of a pregnant Lois Lane. The tragedy tipped Superman over the edge and he became the totalitarian dictator of the world. While most of his fellow heroes supported him - like Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc. - his old buddy Batman did not and ran an underground rebellion against him. Initially just a way to explain why the superheroes were fighting each other in Injustice's Mortal Kombat-style gameplay, the storyline of Injustice struck a chord with fans and went on to spawn a hit comic book series which details this version of the DC universe in more detail. If those doom-laden nightmare sequences in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice - where a darker Supes speaks of losing Lois and has soldiers working for him - are any indication, the DCEU might take inspiration from it as well. 1) Communist Superman Like Superman: The Dark Side, a bunch of Elseworlds stories played with the idea of Superman's pod landing somewhere other than Smallville. The definitive version of this kind of tale is absolutely Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar. This one poses the question of what Supes would be like if he was raised, not in the good ol' US of A, but in Communist Russia - and taken under the wing of Joseph Stalin himself (whose own name coincidentally means Man of Steel). In a tale that combines socio-political themes with a fascinating study of Superman's character, we see that this Kal-El believes the only way to save the world is to rule it. There are similarities to the likes of Injustice, then, but Red Son offers a more optimistic take that comes to the conclusion that Superman will always be Superman, despite where he's raised. Aside from all that, Red Son is just a fantastic story with many excellent twists and turns that we won't spoil here. The Communist Superman even reappeared briefly in the aforementioned 'Multiplicity' arc.