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.

The effective material found to create Superman's suit, along with being blue and silver, was also courtesy of Lex Luthor.

The logo also appeared in the first episode of the series, when the students captured Clark by giving him a kryptonite necklace (which they didn't know was a weakness) and tied him to a cross-like beam in a cornfield and painted a red 'S' on Clark's chest (standing for Scarecrow, which was what he was meant to be as part of a high school hazing tradition) as a reference.

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 as it was Brando's idea to have Jor-El wear the "S" as a family crest, from which folklore spun off.

The symbol 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 and was supposed to represent a snake, an animal held to possess healing powers by the tribe (implying that, by wearing this symbol, Superman was a metaphorical healer).

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.

In Supergirl (TV series, 2015) Season 1, episode 2 Kara states that the Kryptonian symbol stands for her family's motto, "Stronger together."

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.

As designed by artist Curt Swan, their uniforms were similar to that of Superman save for the 'S' on their chests which resembled the early version, the 'S' and border in red on a yellow field, but in an elongated triangle.

In the television series Smallville, an octagonal silver metallic key is used in the Kawatche caves, as well as in a transport device used to travel to the Fortress of Solitude.

In the season 9 episode "Rabid", Clark mentions while talking to Oliver Queen that the mark "gives people hope.