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Fortress of Solitude

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This article is about the location featured in Superman comics. For Jonathan Lethem's 2003 book, see The Fortress of Solitude (novel). For other versions of the Fortress of Solitude, see Doc Savage.
Fortress of Solitude
Superman location
The Fortress of Solitude in Action Comics #846 (February 2007), art by Adam Kubert.
First appearanceAction Comics #241 (June 1958)
Created by
GenreSuperhero comics
In-universe information
TypeFortress
LocationsArctic
CharactersSuperman
PublisherDC Comics

The Fortress of Solitude is a fictional fortress appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Superman. It is the place where Superman first learned about his true identity, heritage, and purpose on Earth. The fortress functions as a place of solace/occasional headquarters for Superman and is typically depicted as being in frozen tundra, away from civilization.[1] Its predecessor, Superman's "Secret Citadel", first appeared in Superman #17, where it was said to be built into a mountain on the outskirts of Metropolis. By issue #58 (May–June 1949) it is referred to as the Fortress of Solitude, seems at a glance to be a freestanding castle, and is said to be located in a "polar waste".[2] When the Fortress reappears in 1958 and for the first time takes center stage in a story ("The Super-Key to Fort Superman", Action Comics #241), it is again an underground complex in a mountainous cliffside.

Traditionally, the Fortress of Solitude is located in the Arctic,[1] though more recent versions have been in other locations, including the Antarctic, the Andes, and Amazon rainforest. The general public is either unaware or at best only vaguely aware of the existence of the Fortress, and its location is kept secret from all but Superman's closest friends and allies (such as Lois Lane and Batman). A trademark of the Fortress is that it contains a memorial statue of Jor-El and Lara, Superman's Kryptonian parents, holding a large globe of Krypton.[3] Although Superman has living quarters at the Fortress, his main residence is still Clark Kent's apartment in Metropolis. The arctic Fortress of Solitude concept was first created for pulp hero Doc Savage during the 1930s.

Original version

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The Silver Age Fortress of Solitude, from Superman #187 (June 1966); art by Curt Swan and George Klein.

The concept and name "Fortress of Solitude" first appeared in the Doc Savage pulps in the 1930s and 1940s. Doc Savage built his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and retreated to it alone to make new scientific or medical breakthroughs, and to store dangerous technology and other secrets. The Golden Age Superman did not have an arctic fortress, but instead a "mountain sanctuary" which was located in a mountain range on the outskirts of Metropolis. Here, Superman kept a diary, oversized tools for various projects, and other equipment and trophies.

Superman's Silver Age Fortress, which debuted in 1958, was also located in the Arctic and served similar purposes. Built into the side of a steep cliff, the Fortress was accessible through a large gold-colored door with a giant keyhole, which required an enormous key to open it. The arrow-shaped key was so large that only Superman (or another Kryptonian such as Supergirl) could lift it; when not in use, the key sat on a perch outside of the Fortress, where it appeared to be an aircraft path marker. This was until a helicopter pilot followed the direction of the arrow straight to the entrance of the Fortress, forcing Superman to develop a cloak to camouflage the entrance and key (which now hung on brackets on its side beside the door) and to ensure the Fortress's secrecy.[4]

The Fortress contained an alien zoo, a giant steel diary in which Superman wrote his memoirs (using either his invulnerable finger, twin hand touch pads that record thoughts instantly, or heat vision to engrave entries into its pages), a chess-playing robot, specialized exercise equipment, a laboratory where Superman worked on various projects such as developing defenses to kryptonite, a room-sized computer, communications equipment, and rooms dedicated to all of his friends, including one for Clark Kent to fool visitors. As the stories continued, it was revealed that the Fortress was where Superman's robot duplicates were stored. It also contained the Phantom Zone projector, various pieces of alien technology he had acquired on visits to other worlds, and, much like the Batcave, trophies of his past adventures.[1] Indeed, the Batcave and Batman himself made an appearance in the first Fortress story. The Fortress also became the home of the bottle city of Kandor (until it was enlarged), and an apartment in the Fortress was set aside for Supergirl.

A detailed depiction of the Fortress and its contents forms the background to DC Special Series #26 (1981); "Superman and his Incredible Fortress of Solitude", in which Superman minutely inspects the Fortress, suspecting an enemy has planted an Earth-destroying bomb within it. Another noteworthy appearance of this version of the Fortress was in 1985's Superman Annual #11, a story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons titled "For the Man Who Has Everything", in which it served as a battleground for Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman against the alien would-be overlord Mongul. This story was adapted to animation in the 2004 TV series Justice League Unlimited.

In addition to Mongul, the Fortress has been independently broken into at various times by villains Lex Luthor and Brainiac (Action Comics #583 and Superman #423) and the Atomic Skull (DC Comics Presents #35), among others. According to Action Comics #261, Superman first established secret Fortresses in outer space and at the center of the Earth before settling on an Arctic location.[5]

Additionally, Superman established an undersea Fortress of Solitude – hollowed out of the side of an undersea cliff – in September 1958. The undersea Fortress, which is reportedly located at the bottom of the Sargasso Sea at 28 degrees North latitude, 50 degrees West longitude, is stocked with numerous exotic ocean relics and is equipped with sophisticated monitoring apparatus to enable Superman to keep abreast of events occurring throughout the seven seas. Superman later abandoned the undersea Fortress and the structure is now used by the mer-people of Atlantis as a showplace and a tourist attraction.

The original version of the Fortress of Solitude made its last appearance in the 1986 non-canonical (or "imaginary") story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". In this story, under constant attacks by returning foes, Superman goes to ground inside the Fortress, taking his closest friends with him for their protection. The villainous android Brainiac soon besieges the Fortress with various allies, surrounding it and the outlying territory with an impenetrable force field to keep Superman's fellow heroes from aiding him. Superman ultimately battles a newly evil Mister Mxyzptlk, who was behind the plot to destroy him. As Superman was forced to destroy Mxyzptlk, breaking his vow against killing, he exposes himself to gold kryptonite to permanently remove his powers and then appears to leave the Fortress to freeze to death in the Arctic cold. Superman is never seen again, although we find out in a "ten years later" wraparound segment set in 1997 that he survives as Jordan Elliot, husband of Lois Lane Elliot, and that they are the parents of toddler Jonathan Elliot, who has super-powers.[6][7]

Post-Crisis versions

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Superheroes gather inside the Fortress of Solitude in Justice, art by Alex Ross.

In John Byrne's 1986 Man of Steel miniseries, which re-wrote various aspects of the Superman mythos, the Clark Kent persona was described as a "Fortress of Solitude", in that it allowed him to live as the ordinary person he saw himself as and leave the world-famous superhero behind. This concept was often invoked in later stories, and one story featured Superman hiding his secret identity from a telepath behind a door identical to that of the pre-Crisis Fortress. By that time, however, a more physical Fortress had been reintroduced.

In Action Comics Annual #2 (1989), Superman, on a self-imposed exile to space, was entrusted with a Kryptonian artifact called the Eradicator, created by his ancestor Kem-El. Dedicated to preserving Krypton, this device built a new Fortress in the Antarctic as a precursor to recreating Krypton on Earth. Superman broke the Eradicator's control, but maintained the Fortress as a useful location for emergencies. The first appearance of this new post-Crisis version of the Fortress was in The Adventures of Superman #461 (December 1989).

It contained many artifacts from the post-Crisis version of Krypton, most notably a number of robot servitors (one of whom, Kelex, became a trusted confidant) and a battlesuit from the Third Age of Krypton.

Superman in the Fortress of Solitude on the variant cover of Action Comics #977 (June 2017), art by Gary Frank.

This Fortress was cast into the Phantom Zone as a result of a battle between Superman, Lex Luthor, and Dominus, a villain who played with Superman's mind and who was also trapped in the Phantom Zone. It did, however, serve as the template for the next Fortress, built by Steel, which was an extradimensional space accessed through a vast puzzle-globe. The now-mobile Fortress was relocated somewhere in the Andes.

In the DC One Million series (1998), Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the 853rd Century resides within a tesseract located at the center of Earth's sun. By this time, Superman has lived in self-imposed exile within the Fortress for over 15,000 years.

During the "For Tomorrow" story arc in 2004–05 Superman comics, Wonder Woman breached the Fortress in an attempt to confront Superman, causing the Fortress to self-destruct. Superman subsequently established a new Fortress in an ancient temple on a remote village in the Cordillera del Cóndor Mountains, on the border of Ecuador and Peru. This version of the Fortress is visually similar to the earliest "Secret Citadel" from Superman #17.

The final version of the post-Crisis Fortress was home to Krypto and his dog-sitter Ned (the last remaining Superman robot), and contained a version of Kandor, a portal to the Phantom Zone, Kryptonian and alien artifacts, and holographic images of Jor-El and Lara.[1] The caretaker of the Fortress was Kelex, a Kryptonian robot that was a descendant of the Kelex robot that served Jor-El.

Infinite Crisis

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Main article: Infinite Crisis

In Infinite Crisis, several survivors of the pre-Crisis multiverse – the Earth-Two Superman, Lois Lane of Earth-Two, Superboy-Prime, and Earth-Three's Alexander Luthor, Jr. – set up a base in the ruins of the Antarctic Fortress following their escape from the dimension they had been trapped in since the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths. It is revealed that Kal-L had a version of the Fortress of Solitude.

"One Year Later"

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In the 2006 story arc "Up, Up, and Away!", Superman recovered a piece of Kryptonian sunstone, which Lex Luthor had used to awaken an ancient Kryptonian warship. Superman learned that the sunstone had been sent with him from Krypton, and used it to construct a new Fortress in the Arctic in exactly the same manner as in the 1978 Superman film. He nevertheless plans to restore the Peruvian Fortress, even if compromised and no longer in a secret location, and plans more Fortresses around the world.[8] This version of the Fortress physically resembles the movie and television depictions, and Superman communicates with Jor-El via crystal constructs as in the Superman film and Smallville.[9]

The New 52

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The New 52 Fortress of Solitude

In The New 52 reboot of DC's continuity (launched in 2011) the Fortress of Solitude is first seen floating in space. It is later revealed to be the orbiting ship of Braniac which Superman had taken over after he physically reprogrammed the Collector of Worlds. This fortress is reported destroyed in the five years between the current Action Comics arc, and the New 52 present day,[10] with the current fortress once more in the Arctic.[11] In the New 52, Supergirl also has her own fortress, known as Sanctuary, and located in the depths of the ocean. This fortress first appears in Supergirl (vol. 5) #12 with its purpose explained in Supergirl (vol. 5) #13. In Action Comics (vol. 2) #15, Superman is revealed to have a fortress which he refers to as his "Yucatan base", a reference to his fortress in the Amazon rain forest in previous continuity.

Following the discovery of Superman's "Super Flare", Kal-El made his way to the Fortress via a stolen motorcycle due to burning out his powers. When trying access the Fortress, the A.I. was unable to recognize Kal-El due to his DNA changing and forcibly removed his Kryptonian armor. It was revealed months later Vandal Savage was the person responsible for altering Superman's DNA to draw Kal-El away from the Fortress. Savage later converged all of his forces on the Fortress itself and transported it to Metropolis. However, Superman was able to find a temporary 'cure' for his power loss by exposing himself to kryptonite as a form of 'chemotherapy' that burned away the radiation preventing his cells from absorbing energy. On the verge of death while trying to stop Savage, he is caught by the arm and shot in the lower abdomen. As he fell from the sky believing he was about to die, the kryptonite had finished burning away the radiation. The Fortress scanned Superman, confirmed that he is Kal-El, activated and opened up, caught Superman, restored his powers to their peak and returned his Kryptonian armor to him. After defeating Vandal Savage and his children, Superman moves the Fortress back to the arctic circle.

Several days after the crisis Superman uses the Fortress's medical equipment and A.I technology to do a full physical on him and discovers that as a result of Vandal's actions using Krytonite to burn out his infected cells that he is dying and has mere weeks to live.

Following Superman's death, the Pre-New 52 Superman was able to gain access to the Fortress as both he and the deceased Superman share identical DNA, even though they are from separate timelines. Superman takes his deceased counterpart to the Fortress hoping to use the Regeneration Matrix to revive him, as the Eradicator did to him in his native timeline. In the New 52 universe of Prime Earth however, no such technology exists. After burying his counterpart in Smallville he returns to the Fortress and uses his heat vision to create a statue of Superman of Prime Earth to honor his fallen comrade.

The Eradicator of Pre-New 52 eventually arrives on Prime Earth and takes up residence within the Fortress.

Other versions

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All-Star Superman

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In the out-of-continuity series All-Star Superman, the Fortress is once again located in the Arctic. Superman has replaced the giant key with a normal-sized key which is made from super-dense dwarf star material and weighs half a million tons, restricting its use to those with immense superhuman strength. It has a team of robots working on various projects. The Fortress itself contains the Titanic, the Space Shuttle Columbia, and a baby Sun-Eater, as well as larger-than-life memorabilia, similar to the objects found in the Batcave. It has various scientific facilities as well, including a time telescope that can receive brief cryptic messages with reception of limited quality from the future.[12]

Earth One

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In Superman: Earth One graphic novel series, the Fortress of Solitude was built by Superman's Krytonian ship's AI, using the Arctic's cave system.

Other media

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Television

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Animation

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  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in the Super Friends franchise.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in series set in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU). This version contains an alien zoo housing alien life-forms saved from the Preserver's ship and some computer equipment as well as a sphere stolen from Brainiac that contains information about Krypton.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in the Legion of Super Heroes episode "Message in a Bottle". This version is maintained by a robotic version of Superman (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) who resembles Cyborg Superman.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in Young Justice.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in Justice League Action.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in My Adventures with Superman. This version is created from the ship that brought Superman to Earth.

Live-action

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Film

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Superman Returns (2006) concept art.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in Superman (1978) and two of its three sequels. This version is created from a crystal that Jor-El enclosed in Kal-El's spaceship.
  • The Fortress of Solitude appears in films set in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). This version is a Kryptonian scout chip that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago.[14]
  • The Fortress of Solitude will appear in Superman (2025).[15][16]

Video games

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Jimenez, Phil (2008). "The Fortress of Solitude". In Dougall, Alastair (ed.). The DC Comics Encyclopedia. New York: Dorling Kindersley. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-7566-4119-1. OCLC 213309017.
  2. ^ Schelly, William (2013). American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1950s. TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 186–187. ISBN 9781605490540.
  3. ^ Greenberger, Robert; Pasko, Martin (2010). The Essential Superman Encyclopedia. Del Rey. pp. 98–102. ISBN 978-0-345-50108-0.
  4. ^ Fleisher, Michael L. (2007). The Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Volume Three: Superman. DC Comics. pp. 331–344. ISBN 978-1-4012-1389-3.
  5. ^ Superman and his Incredible Fortress of Solitude; Summer 1981; DC Special Series (vol. 5) #26.
  6. ^ "GCD :: Issue :: Superman #423 [Direct]".
  7. ^ "GCD :: Issue :: Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? [First Printing]".
  8. ^ Johns, Geoff, Kurt Busiek (w), Woods, Pete (a). "Up, Up, and Away! Finale: The Adventures of Superman" Action Comics, no. 840 (August 2006). New York: DC Comics.
  9. ^ Johns, Geoff; Donner, Richard (w), Jiminez, Phil, Andy Lanning (a). "Secrets of the Fortress of Solitude" Action Comics Annual, no. 10, pp. 22–23 (March 2007). New York: DC Comics.
  10. ^ Supergirl (vol. 5) #12
  11. ^ Action Comics (vol. 2) #14
  12. ^ Morrison, Grant. All-Star Superman #2 (February 2006), DC Comics
  13. ^ Rifat, Ahmed (2022-03-11). "Real World Location of Superman's Fortress of Solitude — The CW's Superman and Lois". rifatahmed.com. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  14. ^ Man of Steel Prequel
  15. ^ Andersen, Elise Rønnevig (March 5, 2024). "Spiller inn ny Supermann-film på Svalbard" [Shooting a new Superman movie in Svalbard]. Verdens Gang (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on March 5, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024. – via Tinoco, Armando (March 5, 2024). "James Gunn Starts Filming 'Superman' In Norway & Teases Scene With Hero Fleeing To The Fortress Of Solitude". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 6, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  16. ^ Badasie, Charlene (March 5, 2024). "James Gunn Reveals Fortress of Solitude Plans for Superman". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on March 6, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  17. ^ Eisen, Andrew (September 29, 2013). "Fortress of Solitude - Scribblenauts Unmasked Guide". IGN. Retrieved December 6, 2024.
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