THE KRYPTON FACTOR (MAN OF STEEL)

Another summer, another rash of superhero movies.

Already we've had Tony Stark quipping his way through an orgy of destruction in California in 'Iron Man 3'.

Now it is Clark Kent's turn to save Kansas and New York, as the Superman franchise gets a 2013 reboot in Zack Snyder's much heralded 'Man of Steel'.

Ever since he was conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster while they were high school students in Cleveland in 1933, Superman has always been viewed as the quintessential American superhero.

Initially, Siegel (the storyteller) and Shuster (the animator) imagined him as a bald, telepathic villain intent on taking over the world.

But then, they reimagined him as a superhero who by day functioned as the mild mannered Clark Kent and by night, saved the world.

As they developed the character, they borrowed from popular culture and ancient mythology.

Clark Kent's look was modelled on the silent movie star, Harold Lloyd and his name was derived from two other big movie stars, Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.

Superman's dashing good looks were based on the screen heartthrob Douglas Fairbanks Snr.

But it would take five years before they would get their comic tales published and over that period, Siegel drew from Greek and Hebrew legends as he imagined a mythic back story about how Superman came to live on Earth.

Shuster, meanwhile, developed Superman's distinctive caped costume and the logo S.

After an initial appearance in Action Comics in 1938, Superman got his own series and a regular mass audience of 20 million between 1941 and 1966 through the McClure Syndicate of newspaper comic strips in the US.

As his popularity grew, there was much debate about his cultural significance and his origins.

For some critics, Superman symbolised the hard working, honest immigrant in the United States - forced to anglicise his name to live in a society he would give everything to defend.

Specifically Superman was hailed as a Jewish hero, with his real identity, Kal-El, resembling the Hebrew word for 'Voice of God'.

His back story mirrored the Biblical account of Moses, with his parents catapulting him into space to escape impending doom on the Planet Krypton just like Moses' Israelite mother pushing her infant son down the Nile to avoid him being slaughtered by the Egyptians.

Christians also claimed Superman, drawing parallels between the actions of the superhero and the self sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

For others, Superman was the embodiment of the liberal values of the era he was conceived in - President Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal. 

Superman is a champion of social justice, taking on corrupt businessmen like Lex Luthor and intervening when the more vulnerable in society are threatened.

The success of the newspaper strip inevitably led to a radio serial and then eventually, Hollywood.

In 1940, 'The Adventures of Superman', a production by New York's WOR hit the airwaves, with Bud Collyer in the lead role, and was syndicated to radio stations across the US by ABC. It ran successfully for 11 years.

Superman's first foray into cinema occurred in 1948, with Columbia Pictures running a 15-part serial, with Kirk Alyn as the superhero and Thomas Carr and Spencer Gordon Bennet taking up directorial duties.

In 1952, Superman got his first television series, with George Reeves stepping into the role for ABC and its corporate sponsor, Kellogg's.

The TV version of 'The Adventures of Superman' initially ran in black and white for two seasons and then in colour between 1954 and 1958. 

A new season was planned when Reeves was discovered in his Los Angeles home with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The circumstances of his death have been the subject of much speculation and in 2000 was the inspiration for Allen Coulter's acclaimed movie 'Hollywoodland' with Ben Affleck, Adrien Brody, Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins.

Superman has over the years made regular appearances on the big and small screens, most notably in cinemas between 1978 and 1987, with Christopher Reeve donning the cape four times for Warner Brothers for directors Richard Donner, Richard Lester' and Sidney J Furie in a series of successful movies.

Gene Hackman excelled in three of the movies as his nemesis, the corrupt magnate Lex Luthor.

During the 1990s, ABC enjoyed four seasons of the rather corny TV series, 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' with Dean Cain as Clark Kent/Superman and Teri Hatcher as his love interest, the reporter Lois Lane.

Not long afterwards between 1996 and 2000, Warner Brothers television produced 'Superman: The Animated Series' with Tim Daly voicing Superman and Dana Delany taking on the role of Lois Lane.

The series was a critical and commercial success and the studio soon scored another small screen hit in 2001 with 'Smallville' which focussed on Clark Kent and Lex Luthor's early years, with Tom Welling stepping into the main role. It ran for 11 seasons.

Following the success of his 'X Men' movies, director Bryan Singer was given the task of bringing Superman back to the multiplexes.

The resultant flick, 'Superman Returns' with Brandon Routh as the superhero, Kate Bosworth as Lois and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, picked up where the previous movie franchise left off, with Superman returning to Earth after a five year absence to save it once again.

Singer's movie earned decent reviews and cost $209 million. It raked in a handsome profit, taking $391 million at the box office.

However plans for a 2009 sequel were surprisingly shelved as Warner Brothers decided to go for a much darker reboot in the wake of the phenomenally successful Batman/Dark Knight franchise, turning to Zack Snyder (of '300' and 'Watchmen' fame) as the director and Christopher Nolan as producer.

The 2013 reboot is a frenzied blockbuster that will satisfy superhero addicts' appetite for destruction in the wake of Nolan's Batman movies and the brash 'Marvel Avengers Assemble' and 'Iron Man' series.

Snyder takes his audience back to the origins of Superman, with his biological parents Jor-El (Russell Crowe in a sombre mood) and Lara Lor-Van (Israeli actress, Ayelet Zurer) helping their infant son Kal-El escape to Earth during an attempted coup on the Planet Krypton by the megalomanic General Zod (a scowling Michael Shannon).

Krypton is a dying planet and they dispatch their son to Earth in a spacecraft incorporating a spaceage Moses basket. The boy carries DNA which could restore a new Krypton civilisation on another planet.

Jor-El is murdered by Zod as the boy escapes but the General's coup fails and he is banished with his co-conspirators by Krypton's rulers to a black hole.

The General, however, is freed when Krypton, unable to withstand the depletion of its resources, suddenly explodes, killing Lara Lor-Van and the ruling council.

And so Zod begins his quest to find Kal-El and extract his DNA in a bid to revive the Krypton race on Planet Earth at the expense of mankind.

Cut to Kal-El (played by Channel Islander Henry Cavill from Jersey), who is now an adult working on a fishing trawler on a storm tossed sea. He is immediately called into action, carrying out the dramatic rescue of workers from a blazing oil rig.

In the early section of the movie, Kal-El assumes various identities as he tries to piece together his back story and through a series of flashbacks, we see how he struggled to cope as a child and a young adult with his superhero powers.

Under the guidance of his adopted parents on Earth, Kansas farmer Jonathan Kent (a wrinkly Kevin Costner) and his wife Martha (Diane Lane) Kal-el or Clark, as they have renamed him, is urged to suppress his instinct to use his superhero powers.

As he shows him the space pod that brought him to Kansas, Jonathan tells Clark he believes he was sent to Earth for a reason but thinks the world is not yet ready to accept his extraordinary powers.

Kal-El/Clark's quest to connect with his biological parents brings him to a Polar Army camp where he traces Jor-El to an abandoned spacecraft but he also encounters there the feisty Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane (Amy Adams).

He has to use his superhero powers to rescue her when she is seriously injured from a potentially fatal wound. This means at least one person knows his identity on Earth.

In unlocking the mystery about his biological father, Clark/Kal-El not only receives the Superman armour that Jor-El believes will enable him to fulfil his destiny but inadvertently alerts General Zod to his whereabouts on Planet Earth.

Zod responds by dispatching his spacecraft to Earth, hacking into the world's TVs, smartphones and computers to deliver a Bin Ladenesque warning that the human race has 24 hours to hand over Kal-El or face the consequences.

With Lois the only person who knows the real human identity of Kal-El/Clark, Snyder's film hinges on whether she will turn him in or risk the destruction of mankind.

'Man of Steel' is a dizzying addition to superhero genre, seeking to revamp the Superman franchise in much the same as Christopher Nolan did with 'Batman Begins'.

Snyder is not a subtle filmmaker and he carpet bombs his audience with explosions, punch ups and jet propelled action - much like Joss Whedon's 'Marvel Avengers Assemble' and Nolan's Batman movies.

But while 'Man of Steel' truly is a cinema of attractions - elevating bombastic spectacle over all other elements - the major difference between this and the Marvel superhero movies is there is the semblance of an intriguing plot.

The director is helped by a decent script by David S Goyer that bravely reconstructs the Superman myth and does enough to keep you engrossed amid all the mayhem.

Laughs are hard to come by in this much darker reworking of the Superman story but, when they do come, they are memorable because the tone is so relentlessly foreboding.

At times, the impressive visual effects and Hans Zimmer's blaring musical score are so overwhelming that you feel by the end of the movie you have gone 15 rounds with a heavyweight boxer.

With his muscular frame, Henry Cavill, the first non American to play Superman, does look like a heavyweight boxer and he makes a charismatic superhero - even if it initially takes a while to warm to him.

As the film progresses, Cavill grows into a star making role and benefits from the experienced and dependable supporting cast assembled around him.

There are stirring performances from Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, 'The West Wing's' Richard Schiff as a scientist, German actress Antje Traue as the villainess Feora and Laurence Fishburne as a more streetwise Daily Planet editor, Perry White.

Michael Shannon also makes a suitably pompous villain as General Zod. 

However it is Amy Adams - one of the most versatile actresses currently operating in Hollywood - who really impresses.

Lois Lane has always been a bit of a limp character but Adams give her some brains, some wit and some steel.

Iranian cinematographer Amir Mokri and the visual effects team deliver many striking images - most notably in the early sections of the movie. 

However sometimes the impact of those imaged is lost amid all the frantic action taking place onscreen.

Meanwhile, the editing by David Brenner is top drawer.

As reboots go, 'Man of Steel' gets the revamped Superman series off to a good start and it will be a shock if it does not soar at the box office.

But if Snyder and his cast are to scale the heights of Nolan's Batman trilogy, they will have to in subsequent sequels go into deeper, darker allegorical territory that can resonate with audiences in these difficult economic times.

('Man of Steel' opened in The Movie House and other cinemas in the UK and Ireland on June 14, 2013. This review originally appeared on Eamonnmallie.com)