Jor-El (or Jor-L in the Golden Age) is a fictional character appearing in titles published by DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, he first appeared in a newspaper comic strip in 1939 with Superman.
A Kryptonian, Jor-El is Superman's biological father, the husband of Lara, and a leading scientist on the planet Krypton before its destruction. He foresaw the planet's fate but was unable to convince his colleagues in time to save the inhabitants. Jor-El was able to save his infant son Kal-El (Superman) by sending him in a homemade spaceship towards Earth just moments before Krypton exploded. After constructing his Fortress of Solitude, Superman honored his deceased biological parents with a statue of Jor-El and Lara holding up a globe of Krypton.
Physically, Jor-El is usually portrayed as closely resembling his son Kal-El/Superman.
Shuster and Siegel first introduced a character named "Jor-L" in 1936, more than a year before the first Superman story was published. The original "Jor-L" appeared in New Adventure Comics, a re-titled issue #12 of the previous New Comics, which would be re-titled again to become the 45-year-long Adventure Comics series after issue #32. Featured in the four-page Shuster and Siegel strip "Federal Men", this "Jor-L" was not an alien, but rather an "ace sleuth" in the service of "Interplanetary Federation Headquarters", who battles against "Nira-Q", the space-faring "bandit queen", in the year 3000 A.D. The 1936 "Jor-L" exists as part of a story within a story, as Shuster and Siegel's strip presents the tale of Jor-L as a forecast of future crime-fighting as told by a scientist to the contemporary 1930s-era G-man heroes of "Federal Men".