The Superman universe: characters, places and villains

Superman's universe spans more than eighty years of comics, films, television series and animation, and it has been rewritten several times. The same character can have three different origins depending on whether you are talking about the golden age, the 1986 reboot or the current continuity. The same planet can explode for reasons that change from one decade to the next. That is what makes the reading absorbing, and it is also what makes it confusing when you arrive through a single page found at random. These cards exist for that: to give you the context before the detail.

How the cards are sorted

The cards are sorted into five families — the characters, the allies, the villains, the places and symbols, and what exists on screen — because that is how the universe is organised, not alphabetically. They all follow the same outline, so that two cards can be compared without effort, and each one says which version it is talking about: the golden age, the 1986 reboot, the current continuity or a specific adaptation.

What you will not find here

We invent nothing. When a piece of information is not established — a release date that has not been announced, a casting rumour circulating without confirmation, an intention attributed to an author — we write it as such or we do not write it. When a source contradicts itself from one edition to another, we say so instead of deciding in its place. And when a subject depends on a specific version, we say which one.

You will also find, in some cards, links to our departments. They are there because an article about the cape or the shield leads naturally to the object, not to turn a read into a sales pitch. The cards stay readable from end to end without ever clicking on a product.

Where to start

If you are new to the character, start with Clark Kent, then Krypton: one tells you who he is day to day, the other where he comes from. If you came for the adaptations, the “on screen” family covers every incarnation, from George Reeves to David Corenswet. And if the subject you are after has no card yet, the rest is in all our Superman articles, one per subject.