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Daily Planet
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Daily Planet 003

The Daily Planet is a popular broadsheet newspaper circulated throughout Northern America, with it's main headquarters known as the Daily Planet building in Metropolis. The building itself is notable for the giant planetary globe atop the building.
The Daily Planet is a thoroughly modern news operation, including operating an Internet news web site in addition to the paper. The Planet's reporters also have access to the best modern equipment to aid their work, although Perry White has often been shown as still favoring his manual typewriter. Clark Kent also uses a typewriter largely due to his kryptonian powers causing minor interference in regular desktop computers.

The Planet's major competitors in Metropolis include the tabloid newspaper the Daily Star, WGBS-TV, and Lex Luthor's various media operations.

Dailypic

The Planet began publication in 1775; George Washington wrote a guest editorial for the first daily edition.

After Luthor became a successful businessman, he begins diversifying his holdings in his newly-founded LexCorp company to enforce his public image as a wealthy benefactor, which included buying every media in Metropolis, including the Daily Planet. However, Luthor soon sells it after deciding to pursue technology and television investments instead and began taking bids for the Planet.
Perry White convinced an international conglomerate, TransNational Enterprises, to buy the paper. They agreed to this venture with the stipulation that Perry would become editor-in-chief with Franklin Stern, an old friend of White's, becoming the Daily Planet's publisher.

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From the onset, the Daily Planet had always condemned Luthor's actions and his company. As a result, when Clark Kent was first inducted into the Daily Planet, the newspaper had no advertising money and was almost bankrupt due to Luthor's mechanicians. Dilapidated and unable to afford new reporters, the Planet hired Kent inspite of his lack of experience.
Fortunately, when Superman debuted in Metropolis soon after, he only granted exclusive interviews and photographs to Planet journalists Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, and the paper's circulation increased.
However, the paper's refurbishment was interrupted when the United States Army, led by Lois' father, General Sam Lane, forcibly shuts down the business while attempting to force Lois Lane to reveal to them everything she knows about the superhero after he fled a military interrogation. Eventually, Superman is able to clear his name and turn the public to his favour. This turn of events further enabled The Daily Planet to become the top selling paper in Metropolis and a dominate player in the city's media scene.

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The Planet has had violent worker strikes and the building itself, along with most of the city, was destroyed during the "Battle for Metropolis"; later restored through the efforts of various superheroes. The Planet building later sustained further damages after Doomsday's rampage.

Later, Franklin Stern decided to put the paper up for sale. Lex Luthor, disliking the paper's heavy criticism of himself and his company, purchased the Daily Planet and subsequently closed the paper down. Luthor fired every employee of the newspaper save for four people: Simone D'Neige, Dirk Armstrong, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane. As a final insult, Luthor saw to it that the Planet globe was unceremoniously dumped in the Metropolis landfill.
In the Planet's place emerged "LexCom," a news-oriented Internet website that primarily catered to Luthor's views of "quality journalism."
Eventually, after Lois Lane made a deal with Luthor where she would kill one story of his choosing at some future date with no questions asked, Luthor sold the Daily Planet to Bruce Wayne for the sum of one dollar. The paper was quickly reinstated, rehiring all of its old staff.

During the "Y2K" attack by Brainiac 13, the Daily Planet building was "upgraded" along with the rest of Metropolis, and a holographic globe replaced the physical one. Eventually due to temporal instabilities caused by the B13 Virus, Metropolis and the Daily Planet building were restored to their former states.

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In a plan to disable Superman during the Final Crisis, the Daily Planet building was subject to an explosion triggered by Clayface. Lois Lane is severely injured in the explosion while several other staffers, including Perry White, are injured and maimed; at least one dies. Near the end of the crisis, the newspaper survives via a printing press kept in Superman's Fortress of Solitude; the press was used to print the final edition of the Daily Planet, containing the story of the Final Crisis and the death of Batman, which was sent along with other icons including a Bat Signal and Superman's cape on a time capsule that would eventually land on Earth near the Batcave in the prehistoric era.
The Planet and the rest universe would be returned to normal following Superman's creation of the Miracle Machine and the defeat of Darkseid.

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Trivia[]

  • The Daily Planet first appeared in Action Comics #23 (April, 1940).
  • The Daily Planet building's original features were based on the AT&T Huron Road Building in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • The building is located at the corner of Fifth Street and Concord Lane in Metropolis.
  • When Superman first appeared in comics, Clark Kent worked for a newspaper named the Daily Star. Superman co-creator Joe Shuster named the Daily Star after the Toronto Daily Star newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, which had been the newspaper that Shuster's parents received and for whom Shuster had worked for as a newsboy. When the Superman newspaper comic strip appeared, the newspaper's name was changed to the Daily Planet to avoid a name conflict with real newspapers. It was declared that the Daily Star was the workplace of the Earth-2 versions of Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, while the Daily Planet was the workplace of the Earth-1 versions of Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen.
  • When she was 15, Lois had impressed Perry with her persistence in trying to get employment at the newspaper (by lying about her age).
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