The Man of Steel had appeared on the big screen before, in the black-and-white fifties TV show where he was played by the tragic George Reeves, but those low-budget Adventures of Superman didn't really have the resources or the technology to properly adapt the high-flying adventures from the comic book. Mainly he just jumped through a lot of plasterboard "walls". The first time audiences saw a real superhero on the screen was in Richard Donner's 1978 classic Superman film, starring Christopher Reeve as the titular hero and employing then-ground-breaking technology to convince the viewers that a man could fly. Superman once again solidified the character in the public's collective consciousness, some forty years after he first appeared in the comics, thirty years after his radio debut, twenty years after the TV show. To many, this is still the definitive Superman, the bumbling Clark Kent/superheroic secret identity dichotomy rarely bettered, and Gene Hackman's megalomaniacal Lex Luthor as influential on the comics as they were on him. Along with bringing Superman, and his comics, back into popularity, the 1978 film also set the standard for the comic book movies that clutter our screens nowadays. It was a huge box office success, spawned multiple sequels, and included some of the best special effects hitherto seen in films. It drafted in huge stars like Hackman and Marlon Brando. It's safe to say that without Superman, our multiplexes would look very different nowadays. There would probably be even more Fast and Furious films, somehow.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
