Superman is sent to Earth by his parents just as the planet Krypton blows up and is later raised as Clark Kent by a farm couple.

After his foster parents die, the Man of Steel heads to Metropolis under the bespectacled guise of Kent and joins the staff of the Daily Planet in order to be close to the news.

National Comics insisted on absolute control of the script and production, and the rights to Superman were already committed to the Paramount cartoon series.

He also tried to sell to Republic, but they claimed that "a superpowerful flying hero would be impossible to adapt"—despite having already successfully done just that with Adventures of Captain Marvel in 1941.

This was made even worse when Alyn came in for a screen test, sporting a goatee and moustache (as he was also shooting another project, a historical film).

Columbia's advertising claimed that it could not get an actor to fill the role, so it had "hired Superman himself", and Kirk Alyn was merely playing Clark Kent.

[1] The Superman costume was grey and brown, instead of blue and red, because those colors photographed better on black and white film.

Harmon and Glut consider this to be the weakest point of the serial, explaining that the effects created by Republic for Adventures of Captain Marvel were more convincing or more routine ones for the Superman TV series.

[1] A peculiar characteristic of the mix of animated and live-action footage is that Superman's take-offs are almost always visible in the foreground, while his landings almost always occur behind objects, such as parked cars, rocks, and buildings.

For example, one sequence showing Superman flying over a rocky hill (a shot of Stoney Point in Southern California's San Fernando Valley) was used at least once in almost every episode of the first serial.