Kirk Alyn was an American actor, best known for being the first actor to play the DC Comics character Superman in live-action for the 1948 movie serial Superman and its 1950 sequel Atom Man vs. Superman, as well as fellow DC Comics characters Blackhawk from the Blackhawk movie serial in 1952, and Lois Lane's father Sam Lane in 1978's Superman: The Movie.

Superman is a 1948 15-part Columbia Pictures film serial based on the comic book character Superman. It stars an uncredited Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. Like Batman (1943), it is notable as the first live-action appearance of Superman on film, and for the longevity of its distribution. The serial was directed by Thomas Carr, who later directed many early episodes of the Adventures of Superman television series, and Spencer Gordon Bennet, produced by Sam Katzman, and shot in and around Los Angeles, California. It was originally screened at movie matinées, and after the first three scene-setting chapters, every episode ends in a cliffhanger. The Superman-in-flight scenes are animations, in part due to the small production budget.