Immigrant convenient store owners Martha and Jonathan Kentivich blow a tire coming back home from a visit to Martha's sister in Smallville. While changing the tire, the couple are witness to the arrival and appearance of a cloaked alien escape pod. Within the pod, a small humanoid child. With the ship dissolving the moment he is removed, the Kentivich's decide to adopt and raise the seemingly abandoned child. They name him Clark.
He is raised in the urban environment of Metropolis, becoming an introspective man with strong ties to the neighborhood he calls home. During puberty, superior physical and mental resilience begin manifesting. With his internal organs arranged nearly identical to humans, the Kentivich's family doctor can only guess that he is simply "growing up". Once Clark's symptoms reach beyond human limits (his skin can no longer be physically separated), the family decides they can no longer trust anyone else with his condition and begin creating excuses for him when accidental public displays occur. Clark grows up carefully during his teen years, always holding back. Allowing others to win the basketball game. Always coming in second in any competition or struggle. By fifteen, he begins wearing fake reading glasses, to further emphasize his act of weakness.
With his adoptive parents succumbing to their elder age by his eighteenth birthday, Clark sells the store and goes to college. While studying Journalism, he meets and has a one-night stand with a sophomore named Lois Lane. One night only, as the next morning upon sobriety they both find they cannot stand one another. They will, however, continue to find their lives intertwined on many levels, though not necessarily romantic.
Finding a passion in writing, Clark becomes a freelance novelist and part-time columnist for TheDailyPlanet.Com (a site whose editor happens to be college flame-meets-adversary Lois Lane). He changes his publishing/pen name to "Clark Kent", in hopes of maintaining a slightly separate or "secret" ID between his public persona as a known writer and columnist, and the kid from the streets of Siegel Parks.
It's during research for his stories (mostly focusing on the urban decay of Metropolis) that Clark begins to understand the city's needs. Begins to truly see the corruption, crime, and decay that purveys his landscape. He realizes that someone, somewhere, needs to take a stand. Against criminals. Against corruption. Against social injustice. Against all the sins the world tries to ignore. To reclaim the streets of Metropolis for its people.
Clark Kent can leap a mile-at-a-time. Running speeds of up to 250-mph. Vision that can excite atomic structures, or penetrate them with x-ray radiation. A hide that can be penetrated by nothing less than a Hydrogen Bomb. And a benchpress of up to two-tons.
He must become more than a man. The city needs a hero. A champion. A protector. A super-man.
Action Comics #1
Written by Pro M. Etheus
Art by John Cassiday
