LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) - He still leaps tall buildings in a single bound, but he no longer does it in tights.
The latest version of "Superman," debuting this fall as the WB network series "Smallville," will still have the beloved comic-book superhero flying faster than a speeding bullet. But he will be wearing a work shirt and jeans, not the tight-fitting costume and red cape of yore. The WB is a unit of AOL Time Warner, which also owns CNN. In addition, AOL Time Warner owns DC Comics, which publishes the Superman comic books.
Writer-producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar said Tuesday that they had reconceived the popular icon as a geeky high school student. "It's difficult to sympathize and really connect to someone who is wearing underpants (over his) tights," Gough said.
Millar added: "For us, we wanted a new interpretation. It added a cheesy element when he was a young man. We thought, strip it away, and you could really get inside Clark Kent." None of this "It's a bird! It's a plane!" stuff for these two.
The coming television "reinterpretation," which will chart Superman's growth as a teen, has fans of the Man of Steel on the verge of taking kryptonite in protest.
For example, the Los Angeles Times quoted Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal, who has the Superman logo tattooed on one of his massive arms, as saying: "My question is, how can people determine who Superman is (without the costume)? That's crazy."
Screenwriter and director David Mamet told the paper, "I am a big fan of anyone who can make his living in his underwear."
Transcending comics
Superman's logo and costume have practically been institutions in the United States since the comic book was launched in 1938, and they have been spread through the film and television projects that nurtured his myth.
The suit has flown over the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, been on the cover of Time magazine and been painted by Andy Warhol.
Bradford Wright, author of "Comic Book America," told the Times that it transcended the comics and adaptations.
"Nothing really compares to that costume," Wright said. "Not Santa Claus' red suit or the Elvis jumpsuit -- nothing is as recognizable."
The new series is set in the present day, in the town where the superhero's spacecraft landed: Smallville, Kansas.
Clark Kent is just another teen-ager, looking to date girls, keep his acne in check -- and, oh, use his superpowers to save the world. "He does things surreptitiously," Gough told Reuters. "People don't know that he's going around saving people."
The series, which stars Tom Welling as Clark Kent, will mix Superman lore with the sci-fi spookiness of "The X Files."
"We've never seen Clark Kent as a real person," Millar said. "Let's get to the heart of Clark Kent. You have teen alienation. He's like a freak. It's puberty with superpowers."
As for his old outfit, Superman may recover it later. But for now, he is just another Smallville resident.
"Yes, he wears his regular clothes," Millar said. "The beauty of Superman is that he doesn't need his suit to have his powers. The suit is more of a function of his dual identity when he goes to Metropolis."
