"If you're starting at zero, you have a whole bunch of bits and pieces to pick from," said Byrne, whose new Superman was largely a synthesis of various elements that had appeared before, including a return to Siegel and Shuster's original idea that Clark Kent didn't put on the costume until he was grown. This meant that Superboy no longer existed, but instead Byrne had planned to present a hero who didn't develop his powers until adolescence. Byrne also hoped to present an adult Clark Kent who "was only just learning to be Superman." There wasn't time for either version of an apprenticeship, however, since Byrne was expected to get Superman up to speed in just six issues of a biweekly miniseries called The Man of Steel. Launched in June 1986, it proved to be a hit, although not as much of a shock to regular readers as Byrne had initially intended. His wildest idea had been to show that the rocket speeding from Krypton to Earth carried not a baby boy, but rather his pregnant mother Lara, who would give birth and then die from exposure to kryptonite. Jenette Kahn wasn't convinced the change would improve anything, and successfully argued that since kryptonite was synthesized only when the planet exploded, there couldn't have been any in the ship.
A more humane change that did get into print left Superman's adoptive parents, the Kents, alive to serve as his allies and anchors. Meanwhile, at the suggestion of Crisis writer Marv Wolfman, archenemy Lex Luthor was booted out of the mad scientist business and recast as a ruthless tycoon with limitless resources. Byrne also dropped the idea that Superman had led people to believe he had another identity. "Why would he ever do that?" he asked. Now Lois Lane wouldn't be compelled to spend so much time trying to figure out who Superman was, Byrne reasoned. "I wanted to change all that. I wanted Lois to be a three-dimensional character who had more to her than just wanting to nail Superman as the ultimate catch." Lois also became the comic book version of a modern feminist: a weight-lifting, gun-toting, fist-fighting fashion plate. Perhaps because she was often beating up the bad guys herself, the Superman side of our hero became somewhat less important, and consequently Clark could be cooler. "After all," argued Byrne, "Clark Kent was who he really was, who he'd been most of his life. Superman was just a red and blue suit he wore." When Byrne was a boy, the comics had emphasized the Kryptonian heritage of Superman, but now the emphasis was on how well he functioned as an inhabitant of Earth