Superman: Secret Identity #1

History

The conceptual DNA of Secret Identity stretches back nearly two decades before its January 2004 publication date: Busiek has stated that his seed idea came from DC Comics Presents #87 (1985), written by Elliot S. Maggin and drawn by Curt Swan, which introduced Superboy-Prime — a Clark Kent living in a world where superheroes were fictional. Busiek wanted to explore what that premise could become, but Earth-Prime and its hero were off-limits for years after Crisis on Infinite Earths; the project only moved forward when Superman editor Joey Cavalieri reached out asking for pitches, at which point Busiek deliberately avoided mentioning Superboy-Prime in his proposal, framing the concept as an original creation. Stuart Immonen handled not just pencils but inks and colors on the series, developing a photorealistic style informed by the palette sensibility of 1950s advertising — a choice that gave the book its distinctive warmth — while Todd Klein provided the lettering throughout all four prestige-format issues.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published January 14, 2004 by DC Comics (cover-dated March 2004); the series ran monthly through April 2004, with each issue in 48-page prestige format.
• Written by Kurt Busiek, with art, inks, and colors by Stuart Immonen, and lettered by Todd Klein — Immonen serving as his own colorist using a visual palette influenced by 1950s advertising design.
• The story is set in a world where Superman exists only as a comic-book character; the protagonist is Clark Kent of Picketsville, Kansas — a real person who spontaneously manifests Superman's powers as a teenager, with no Kryptonian origin.
• Issue #1's chapter is titled 'Smallville' and covers Clark's adolescence: his discovery of flight on an overnight hiking trip, his initial attempts to avoid bullies with his powers, and a Halloween carnival incident in which reporter Wendy Case attempts to expose him.
• The series was not published under DC's Elseworlds imprint, though it is treated as a non-canonical, standalone story outside of DC Universe continuity.
• The Clark Kent of the series meets a love interest named Lois Chaudhari — an Indian-American woman who shares the joke of being perpetually set up with men named Clark — a notable departure from the traditional Lois Lane dynamic.
• The four-issue series was collected in a 208-page trade paperback and reprinted as DC Comics Presents: Superman – Secret Identity #1–2 (2011), a Deluxe Edition hardcover (2016), and translated into multiple languages including French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
• Busiek later described the series as a story about hope and optimism — not darkness — and it directly inspired his spiritual companion miniseries Batman: Creature of the Night (DC, 2017, art by John Paul Leon).

Full credits