Superman on screen

Man Of Steel is the eagerly awaited Superman reboot, so it's time to look at the screen versions of the DC comic superhero that have gone before and the mysterious 'curse of Superman'.

The first Superman comic book from 1938. Courtesy Action Comics

This weekend, with its release in UAE cinemas, it's Superman's turn for a makeover, with The Tudors and Immortals star Henry Cavill swooshing his red cape in Man of Steel.

Fans of the curse overlook the fact that the next two outings for Superman – both on the small screen – were actually successes. The TV drama Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman ran for four seasons from 1993, focusing as much on the relationship between Lois and Clark as on Superman's adventures (they even get married once Lois finally figures out that Clark is Superman), while the teen drama Smallville ran for an impressive 10 seasons, with Clark at high school in the town of Smallville where he is friends with a young man named Lex Luthor.

Hopefully, the supposed curse won't affect Man of Steel's Henry Cavill. Having previously been dubbed "the unluckiest man in Hollywood" by Empire magazine after he lost the roles of James Bond and Twilight's Edward Cullen earlier in his career, surely becoming Superman in a blockbuster produced by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) and directed by Zack Snyder (300) is a good sign that there's no such thing as the curse.

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