Superman logo

The Superman shield, also known as the Superman logo, Superman symbol, or Superman S, is the iconic emblem for the DC Comics superhero Superman. As a representation of one of the first superheroes, it served as a template for character design decades after Superman's first appearance. The tradition of wearing a representative symbol on the chest was followed by many subsequent superheroes, including Batman, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and many others.

In its current form, the logo is a red capital "S" inside a pentagonal yellow stylized shield with a red border. In earlier Superman stories, "S" was simply an initial for "Superman", but in the 1978 film, it was portrayed as the family crest of the House of El, the family of Superman.

Evolution of the symbol

In its original inception in Action Comics #1, Superman's symbol was a letter S with red and blue on a yellow police badge symbol that resembled a shield. The symbol was first changed a few issues later in Action Comics #7. The shield varied over the first few years of the comics, and many times was nothing more than an inverted triangle with an S inside of it.[1]

Representations

Initially, the S-shield had one meaning: S for Superman. One of the first alternative meanings was presented in Superman: The Movie, in which it was not an S, but rather the S-shaped Coat of arms of the House of El. Marlon Brando, who portrayed Jor-El, conceived the idea of the "S" being a family crest, from which folklore spun off. In the Superman reboot story The Man of Steel, the logo was designed by Jonathan Kent and derived from an ancient Native American symbol. It was featured on a medicine blanket given to an ancestor of the Kent family by a Native American tribe after he helped to cure them of a plague. The symbol was supposed to represent a snake, an animal held to possess healing powers by the tribe, and thus would imply that, by wearing this symbol, Superman was a metaphorical healer. This origin was also included in the 1997 Superman encyclopedia.

In 2004, Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright series stated that the S-Shield is the Kryptonian symbol for "hope" and Superman believes it may have begun as a coat of arms for the House of El. Later, writer Geoff Johns confirmed it was indeed a coat of arms, as well as a symbol for hope. In the 2013 film Man of Steel, Jor-El mentions that the symbol represents the House of El and means "hope", and Superman later also specifies that it is not an "S" when Lois Lane asks what the "S" was short for. Superman further explains that the design is based on a river in the 2017 film Justice League.

In Supergirl, Kara Danvers states that the Kryptonian symbol stands for her family's motto, "Stronger together."

House of El

Marv Wolfman's novelization of the film Superman Returns depicts the symbol as belonging to one of the three primary houses of Krypton that brought peace to the planet after a civil uprising, a serpent coiled inside a shield, a warning not to return to the ways of violence and deception. The shield has since been taken as a coat of arms, resulting in Jor-El's continued presence in the council despite his "mad" findings. The other two are merely described, including Pol-Us' eye of vigilance and Kol-Ar's open hand of truth and justice.

Cape

For decades, almost all versions of Superman's red cape had an all-yellow version of the logo, with a thin black line separating the areas. Since Superman: The Animated Series, where the logo was absent from Superman's cape due to the difficulty in animating the S, subsequent comics and adaptations have varied from using the yellow logo to using a plain red cape.

Variants

In the 1960s the tiny bottle city of Kandor, the miniaturized capital city of the planet Krypton, resided in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Originally, certain inhabitants resembling Kal-El formed the Superman Emergency Squad and would, on occasion, leave the bottle, enter the Earth's atmosphere and gain super powers to aid Superman.

publisher	DC Comics
debut	Action Comics #1 (June 1938)
creators	Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster
type	Emblem
supports	Superman
subcat	DC Comics
sortkey	Emblem

Evolution of the symbol

Symbol evolution

Representations

House of El

Cape

Variants

Diamond and eight shield

References

Wearers of the shield