Superman: True Brit
Encyclopedia
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
Elseworlds
Elseworlds
Elseworlds is the publication imprint for a group of comic books produced by DC Comics that take place outside the company's canon. According to its tagline: "In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places — some that have existed, and others...
first published in 2004
2004 in comics
-February:*February 6: Marvel Enterprises and Electronic Arts announce a multi-year agreement in which EA will develop a new generation of fighting video games pitting Marvel superheroes against a new, original set of EA heroes....
in the US, and by Titan Books
Titan Books
Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981. It is based at offices in London, England's Bankside area. The Books Division has two main areas of publishing: film & TV tie-ins/cinema reference books; and graphic novels and comics reference/art titles. The...
in the UK. Written by John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
and Kim Johnson, with art by John Byrne and Mark Farmer
Mark Farmer
Mark Farmer is a British comic book artist. He is best known as an inker, often working with Alan Davis.-Biography:Farmer got his start in the UK comics industry before becoming part of the British Invasion, the wave of UK creators that were an integral part of the DC Comics "new look" of the...
, it reimagines the origin of Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, by considering how Clark Kent's upbringing would be different if his spaceship had crashed in Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...
in England instead of the fictional town of Smallville in Kansas, America.
The story aims to poke fun at the apparent desire to conform embedded in the British psyche, as well as mocking the British tabloid press, in particular the Daily Star. Characters with similarities to Superman regulars Lois Lane
Lois Lane
Lois Lane is a fictional character, the primary love interest of Superman in the comic books of DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 ....
, Jimmy Olsen
Jimmy Olsen
Jimmy Olsen is a fictional character who appears mainly in DC Comics’ Superman stories. Olsen is a young photojournalist working for the Daily Planet. He is close friends with Lois Lane, Clark Kent/Superman and Perry White...
and Perry White
Perry White
Perry White is a fictional character who appears in the Superman comics. White is the Editor-in-Chief of the Metropolis newspaper the Daily Planet.White maintains very high ethical and journalistic standards...
make an appearance.
The book had a mixed reception from British critics, some of whom felt that the jokes and stereotypes used in the book were tired and no longer valid.
Plot
Kal-El, instead of landing in Kansas, was intentionally sent to England. He is found by the Clarks, who, viewing a headset video found with Kal-El, learn of his origins, but mistake 'Kal-El' for 'Colin' and name him Colin Clark. Being raised stereotypically British doesn't help Colin's self-esteem, being raised to believe in the philosophy of "What would the neighbours think." When Colin's powers begin to surface, each power causes a unique problem: when he learns to fly, he smashed the ceiling, and when he acquires heat vision, he accidentally burns his mother, and is given glasses made by his father out of the glass of his space ship to contain the heat. When Colin goes to college, he meets and falls in love with "Louisa Layne-Ferret" who ignores him completely. After a tragic cricketCricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
accident (the bowler was impaled by Colin's cricket bat, the bowler afterwards said, "it only hurts when I laugh"), Colin meets the British version of Perry White, who takes him under his wing to become a reporter for the British tabloids, because his parents hated it when he used any of his powers. After a heroic save of the "Rutles" Colin adopts the secret identity and garish costume to become Superman.