Mt. Olympus and Krypton could be combined into one thing to add a more mythological twist to Superman's origin.
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Maybe he is, and maybe we do.
Here's a writer on CBR arguing the case:
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According to Bob Hughes, the image on the cover of Action #1 likely wasn't drawn for the issue, as Superman's costume is different to the version in the issue's interior. Mr. Knowles may be right to argue that the angles at which the figures are leaning show that Shuster used Pollaiolo's work as a reference, but it seems to me there's room for fudging the angles - the line could be taken from a slightly different point on the face, to a slightly different point on the rear foot - so I don't know that he proves his case.
I am a bit biased because I love the idea of linking our 4-colour heroes to a deeper 'pop culture' than just the Western 20th Century. Superman is the 'gateway' character, in that if we can show that he has this elevated geneology, then all his spandex clad 'descendents' are similarly 'ennobled'. I like this theory also, because it gives a good answer to the puzzle of where Superman's cape comes from.
That the cover precedes the production of the contents of the comic by some years, strengthens Knowles argument for me, rather than weakens it. Here we might have an intermediate step between Hercules and Superman.
You've pinpointed the differences between the Palliolli Hercules and Action #1, but the pose on the comic does look very similar to the other classical portraits of Hercules. Maybe there are only so many ways of drawing someone being strong, but 70 years of Superman covers alone would dispute that.
I must admit the idea of two teenaged mid-western proto-geeks studying classical artistic/mythological poses for their new super-strongman is hard for me to take on board, but the articles argue that I'm doing them a disservice to think of them like that.
Certainly, I can't imagine where they'd do their research for this new kind of pulp hero other than amongst the mythological strongmen.
I’ve not read nearly as many elseworlds stories as some of my fellow Legionnaires. I suppose they have to both capitalise on their relationship to the original series, and their differences from it. The elseworld might twist the characters’ personalities as well as the feature’s premise/hero’s origin, or not. It might introduce parallels and references to the original series beyond those that follow from its premise, or not. “Clever” referencing of the original feature - having the Superman-analog live in a street called Lois Lane, say - doesn’t by itself make a good story.
The twist on the hero’s origin might be along the lines “What if this had happened differently?” (“What if Superman had been exposed to gold kryptonite on his way to Earth?”) Larfleeze’s idea changes Superman’s origin more than this. If think to be satisfactory as an elseworld the story would have to balance the ways in which it departs from the original feature by cleaving to it in other ways.
I’m enjoying myself imagining an imaginary story from the 60s with Larfleeze’s premise drawn by Curt Swan and George Klein. This Superman is just like the Superman of the period, except he doesn’t wear the same costume. He saves people from monsters from mythology, and the story is based around his quest to learn his real parentage. If Weisinger and co. had really done something like this, the villain might've been a sorcerer who looked like Lex Luthor.
Alternatively, the story could be set in the present, with a Superman who, being the son of a god, is arrogant and pre-modern in his attitudes. I think the Daily Planet cast would have to all be the same to compensate.
Replace Supe's parents with Zeus and Hera.
Superman could be the last of the Olympians.
I suppose what you'd need to do is come up with clever replacements for such elements as the Bat-signal and the Batmobile. The key might be avoiding doing the obvious things, like making the villain the Joker: or at least, just doing the obvious things.
Elseworlds mainly showed you that no matter where you started you'd end up with a revenge-seeking dark knight for Batman, and a bright noble benevolent Sun-god for Superman.
Some of DC's Silver Age imaginary tales are simply great stories that would have ended the comics series by doing them 'for real' eg the one where Superman trusts Lex Luthor and ends up dying for it.
Other imaginary stories just show that everyone would have met each other and played out their lives similarly no matter how different the starting point was (like the elseworlds stories.)
Most are redundant, in my view. Why bother? Alan Davis' Nail comics took a great starting point - DC without Superman - and showed what would happen - Superman would show up. Er ... Huh?
Arguably, every time someone invents a new superhero, they are thinking 'its like superman, but he can't fly, he's from earth, she zaps ice from her hands, she kills people' or whatever. Arguably each new superhero is an elseworlds Superman.
He mightn't be the historic prototype, but he's just about the archetype from which all others diverge. Batman himself was created to be 'like Superman, but different', as was Wonder Woman, and a heck of a lot of others. Spider-man's name looks similar, except with a hyphen!
I tend to describe What If Vol. 2 this way:
It doesn't matter what the story is about. It could be, "What if Peter Parker had grown a Grizzly Adams-style beard and called himself the Bearded Spider?" Whatever the story was, it always seemed to end with, "...and then Jean Grey went crazy and destroys the universe."
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