Adoptive Name Change: Kal-El, from the planet Krypton, was renamed as Clark Kent by his adoptive parents from Kansas.

Continuity Snarl: In the early days, Superman's adventures were rather inconsistent, which was common at the time.

With both being Kryptonian, they best represent their opposite traits and motives, and Zod is all too willing to brand Kal-El as a traitor to his own kind as well as a disappointment to Jor-El. Hypothetical Fight Debate: Alice asks Superman the age-old question that if he ever got into a fight with Batman, who would win? In one of the newspaper strip plotlines, a Hollywood producer is making a Superman movie and decides that Clark Kent would be perfect for the role, due to his close resemblance to Superman. He does occasionally wind up on the receiving end of these, however, with Mongul I being one of the most notable examples.

Restraining Bolt: Lex devises a way to deactivate Metallo's cyborg parts, effectively turning him into a statue. Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: Clark Kent and Lois Lane acted this way toward Lor-Zod, son of General Zod — one of the worst enemies of Superman — and his henchwoman Ursa. While traveling, Alice she asks how he flies and he states that it's due to the radiation signature of yellow stars. He’s the Big Good of the DCU, a Nice Guy, and incredibly powerful, so you can understand why other characters would praise the guy so much.When you can scare a guy capable of punching through planets and has many more powers than you, and then keep getting up immune to whatever of those powers he used to kill you last time, you know you are destined to fight each other quite a few times. Jimmy Olsen who, due to Comic-Book Time and RetCons, repeatedly goes back and forth between being a journalist in his early twenties and a tag-along photographer in his mid teens fetching coffee. On the planet Rann, Sardath tells Superman that tracking the zeta beam the mystery spaceman used is impossible due to an active Zeta existing at all places.

Q. (the dude learned how to perform life saving surgery from a library of medical texts in 4 minutes). Not coincidentally, it also overlapped with Tom King's run of Batman— in an unusual twist, DC editorial had Bendis and King swap their respective characters for their work on the different Giant anthologies, with Bendis working on Batman Universe as part of the Batman Giant anthology.The use of the Sunstone to construct the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic is taken from Superman: The Movie. They're quite civilized and seemingly benevolent, with a healer attempting to revive an unconscious Superman by using his own life force, one who also has a wife and children. The possibility of Superman having children with Lois Lane, or any other female human for that matter. That, along with Alice discussing with Superman his opinion on Mister Terrific of all superheroes, would be a reference to an upcoming Tom King series in the works, Strange Adventures.

Unlike Superman, however, he ended up landing at a military installation and sent for a purpose he appears to have known, thus leading to very different development. He is traditionally the chairman (and often acknowledged as the most powerful member) of the Justice League, and when not acting in his capacity as a Leaguer most other heroes tend to defer to his authority and judgment if only out of respect. Anti-Hero Substitute: During The Death of Superman arc, Eradicator was essentially Superman if he were a '90s Anti-Hero.

In the Novelization of Kingdom Come, Wonder Woman points out that Superman could have easily just been an invisible guardian, but he chose to fly in the sky wearing those bright colors "like Apollo", and serve as an inspiration. Thanks to the help of robots or friendly shape-shifters (and on more than one occasion, Bruce Wayne), Clark Kent and Superman have appeared together enough that Clark's "resemblance" to Supes is explained as a coincidence.