Ultraman | |
---|---|
Antimatter Clark Kent as Ultraman.
|
|
Publication information | |
Publisher | DC Comics |
First appearance | Justice League of America (vol. 1) #29 (August 1964) |
Created by |
Gardner Fox Mike Sekowsky (based upon Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) |
In-story information | |
Alter ego | El-Kal Clark Kent Clark Luthor Kal-ll (New 52 Earth 3) |
Team affiliations | Crime Syndicate of America (Earth-Three) Crime Syndicate (Qward) Crime Syndicate of Amerika (Anti-Matter Earth) Crime Society of America (Earth-3) |
Abilities |
Superhuman Strength Superhuman Speed Cosmic Power Invulnerability Heat Vision Accelerated Vision X-Ray Vision Telescopic Vision Dimensional Vision Immortality Flight |
Ultraman is the name of several fictional characters, who are supervillains appearing in stories published by DC Comics. The characters are all evil or corrupted alternate-universe counterparts of Superman. Ultraman first appeared in Justice League of America #29 (August 1964).
Ultraman first appeared as the evil counterpart of Superman on the original Earth-Three. Having created the worlds of Earth-One, containing Silver Age superheroes, as well as Earth-Two, containing the Golden Age ones, DC Comics decided to expand the universe to include various themed universes. The first of these was Earth-Three, in which there were villainous counterparts of DC's heroes as well as heroic counterparts of DC's villains. The first Ultraman was killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths and Earth-Three was destroyed by an anti-matter storm and then wiped from continuity at the end of the series. This original Earth-Three Ultraman has reappeared briefly both in the 1980s Animal Man series and the later Infinite Crisis mini-series.
Since Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC has returned to the concept of Ultraman, creating two different characters with that name, often appearing only for a single issue in a story arc. There have been several appearances by both characters. The first version was an anti-matter version of Ultraman, created for Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel. This version has appeared several times and was slain at the conclusion of the Final Crisis series. Another version, closer to the Silver Age original Ultraman, appeared on the New 52 universe's Earth-3. Based on comments by Grant Morrison, this Earth-3 universe is not the pre-Crisis Earth-Three, making this a new character unrelated to previous versions.