June 12th is Superman Day. What’s that?! There in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s the Man of Tomorrow! Superman has gone by many names over the years, but one thing has remained the same. He has always stood for what’s best about humanity, all of our potential for terrible destructive acts, but also our choice to not act on the level of destruction we could wreak.

Superman was first created in 1933 by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the writer and artist respectively. His first appearance was in Action Comics #1, and that was the beginning of a long and illustrious career for the Man of Steel. In his unmistakable blue suit with a red cape, and the stylized red S on his chest, the figure of Superman has become one of the most recognizable in the world.

Superman has been through a lot of changes since his initial creation, his original Golden Age incarnation actually being a villainous character that bears absolutely no resemblance to our current hero. Superman as we know and love him today didn’t appear until Action Comics #1, published on April 18, 1938. Such was his success that he got his own comic in 1939, and the world has never looked back since.

Since that time, our boy in blue has seen appearances in every form of media the world has to offer. Comic books, video games, movies, novels, stickers, T-shirts, there isn’t a place that the Man of Steel hasn’t made an appearance. He’s even been represented in more than one TV show throughout the years, most recently “Smallville”, which retells his time as a youth in the town he grew up in. Examining the Man of Steel during his developmental phases shows him in a rarely seen state of vulnerability, living through the turbulence of adolescence.