Superman is the de facto superhero. He’s the man who started it all, defining what this genre should look like, and there’s a case to be made that he’s still the best hero to ever put on tights. Superman set the standard that everyone else is still trying to live up to, and regardless of how you feel about him, his impact within the DC Universe is undeniable. He’s the number one hero who everyone can turn to when the chips are down. People know that there’s no threat too big or disaster too chaotic for the Man of Steel to handle. He’s a symbol of everything that makes superheroes great. There can never be someone to replace him.
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Yet, that simple fact hasn’t stopped people from trying. There have actually been multiple Supermen over the years, and I’m not just talking about alternate versions or doppelgangers. Plenty of people have donned the cape, but no matter how hard they tried, something stopped them from truly living up to the mantle they sought to emulate. Nobody else has ever filled Superman’s shoes, and today we’re looking at five people who tried and dissecting why it didn’t work for them. Without further ado, let’s talk about Superman’s successors.
5) Eradicator
The Eradicator was created as a weapon to preserve Krypton’s heritage by any means necessary, even if that meant clashing with the planet’s last son. However, when Superman was killed by Doomsday, the machine knew it had to preserve Clark’s legacy as much as the House of El’s. It placed the hero in a Healing Matrix and created a cloned body to continue as the new Superman. Unfortunately, the Eradicator was clearly not suited for the job. He fully believed in Krypton’s supremacy in all ways, and enforced what he saw as Krypton’s superior laws.
In the end, the Eradicator never understood what it meant to be Superman. He was cruel, overly violent, and downright fascist. He allowed numerous cults to form in worship of him, even buying his own hype as a messiah meant to save the people of Earth from themselves. He was an arrogant machine dedicated to preserving an idea over actually helping people, which means that he entirely misunderstood what the crest of El has come to mean. The Eradicator simply didn’t have the compassion that is required for Superman to function.
4) Lex Luthor
Lex hates Superman with a burning passion beyond words. Heck, he once attained godhood with the only stipulation being that he couldn’t harm Superman, and he lost those powers because he couldn’t resist trying to destroy the Man of Tomorrow. There’s not a soul alive who despises Superman more, and yet, when the New 52 version died, the villain finally learned that Superman was a hero, and that the world needed a Superman. So, he donned his own suit and started calling himself the new Superman, even working with the post-Crisis incarnation. He tried to prove that he had what it took to be a true hero.
Of course, this being Lex Luthor, his heroic streak didn’t last forever. Lex never felt appreciated by Clark, which eventually pushed him over the edge, back to villainy. Obviously, anyone who can turn into a mass-murdering psychopath because they don’t get recognition doesn’t have what it takes to be Superman. Lex can be a hero, but he refuses to let go of his ego. He will inevitably put his own interests before everyone else’s, which goes against everything Superman stands for. Lex never wants to save the world. He only wants to be the person saving it.
3) Steel
John Henry Irons was another soul inspired by Superman, deciding to carry on the torch after the original passed away. He made his own suit of armor and set about cleaning up Metropolis. He mainly fought to keep weapons he designed out of people’s hands, but worked to make Metropolis a safer place for everyone. He was instrumental in bringing down Cyborg-Superman, and unlike the other imposters, he never claimed that he was the original Superman reborn. He was only interested in doing whatever good he could.
The thing limiting John Henry isn’t so much his ideals, as it was with the first two entrants, but his limitations. At the end of the day, Steel is still only a man. He can craft armor and weapons that let him duke it out with the best of them, but he can’t escape the fact that he’s very human underneath it all, physically and spiritually. He can lose himself to pettiness or anger in rare moments much more than Superman ever should, and there’s only so much he’s capable of stopping, even with all his intellect and technology. Steel has limits, while Superman doesn’t.
2) Conner Kent
The final new Superman to take the name during the “Reign of the Supermen” was none other than the clone himself, Conner. The young man was created in the Cadmus labs by combining Clark and Lex Luthor’s DNA, artificially aged and made to replace the dead Superman, but wound up released onto the streets with none of the control measures put in place. He declared himself the new Superman, although everyone else called him Superboy. He fought to defend Metropolis as his predecessor had, but really, he also fought for the glory and attention.
That’s exactly what stopped Kon-El from being the next Superman when he took the name. He was a naive airhead who saved lives in a way that looked good for the camera, even when it was bad for everyone else. Superboy was a definite gloryhog first and foremost, and that kept him from being the hero he should have been. Superman should never care about how many people like him over actually saving the day, and while Conner did the work, he was also easily distracted by chasing girls and TV contracts.
1) Jon Kent
Out of everyone here, Jon was the hero to serve as Superman for the longest time, still using the name, although he predominantly goes by his own identity of Tomorrow Man now. He took the mantle when his dad traveled to Warworld to free Mongul’s captives, seemingly leaving forever, entrusting the planet he loved so much to his son. During that time, Jon proved that he was just as much Superman as his dad. Unlike everyone else on this list, Jon was selfless, heroic, and embodied the ideals that Superman is meant to show the world. He saved the world in ways even his dad couldn’t.
The thing that stopped Jon from being an even better Superman than his dad wasn’t anything he did or didn’t do, but something entirely outside his control: editorial. Jon was set up as the main new Superman, only to lose that position immediately, leaving his character no niche of his own. He had nowhere to go and no stories of his own, leaving him to languish in comic book limbo. Jon couldn’t fill his father’s shoes because he lost the chance before he could come into his own, and he hasn’t had the chance since.
There have been a surprising number of Supermen over the years. Which of the Men of Steel is your favorite, not including Clark?
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