ABSTRACT
The Superman myth stands as one of the most successful examples of the slippery possibilities of serial and cross-media storytelling. As Roberta Pearson and William Uricchio (1991) have explained of Batman, multiple narrativisations have sprung up from, and across, a variety of media that are based on this same fi gure. Like Batman, the success of Superman lies very much in the capacity of the adventures of this character to branch out in a
variety of different directions. For example, in addition to the wealth of comic book serials that erupted after the fi rst appearance of Superman in Action Comics in 1938 (Action Comics, Adventures of Superman, Superman, The Kents, Man of Steel, Smallville, Superboy, Supergirl, Superman: The Man of Steel), his story continued across fi lm and animated serials in the 40s and 50s (Superman, Atom Man vs. Superman, Superman and the Mole Men), television series from the 1950s-2000s (Adventures of Superman, Superboy, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Smallville), blockbuster fi lm sequels in the 70s and 80s (Superman I-IV), animated TV series (The New Adventures of Superman, Superman, Superman: The Animated Series) and the recent high concept manifestation (Superman Returns, 2006). Supported by a densely conglomerated entertainment industry with transmedia economic interests,4 these examples barely scratch the surface in mapping the layered and intersecting narrative dimensions that comprise the Superman mythos.5 In all these variations, the Superman narrative is expanded and extended beyond the confi nes of a single comic book or a single television series. With each Superman addition across a variety of narrative-series and media, the phenomenon that is the tale of Superman is transformed, altered, and often contradicted. As such, the story is never stable and closed but is more like a delicate yet indestructible web that extends its sinewy narrative threads ever outwards.
