When did Superman first learn his real name, Kal-el, in the comics?
I did a Google search and got the following but I was hoping for confirmation from an actual person. Thanks.
Which raises a second question: how did readers learn it?

https://www.supermanhomepage.com/sup...and-first-use/

This says it was Superman 113, though Kal-l was used in the comic strip before that.

Action Comics number 1 shows how Superman is sent to Earth in a space ship (hence readers knew) so I guess Superman himself didn't know this until later.

Unfortunately DC Universe Infinite only has Superman 43, then it skips to 76 then 122 so I can't check the individual issues online.

Action Comics #1 (1938) simply tells us Superman was sent to earth in a space ship.
Superman #1 (1939) tells us the name of the planet - Krypton
The Superman newspaper strip tells us Superman's birth name is Kal-L (no "e") in its second strip in January 1939.
The spelling Kal-el came in a 1942 spinoff novel by George Lowther (he also first spelled Kal-El's dad's name Jor-el and changed his mom's name from Lora to Lara).
The first comic book to feature the name “Kal-El” was Superman #113 in May 1957.

Originally *everyone* on Krypton had "super strength" type powers, later X-Ray vision and others were added, and the lower gravity of Earth boosted Superman's making him even stronger. The "power from the yellow sun" came when Supergirl was asking Superman how they got their powers in December 1959's Action Comics #262, in a back-up story by Otto Binder and Jim Mooney. Superman explained to her that it was part gravity and part the Earth's yellow sun that gave them super powers.

I have a question for you, Superman:
What's your deal, Superman?!"

I had a quick look at #61. Superman does learn he came from Krypton in the issue. It's also the first appearance of Kryptonite, but the name Kal-el is never mentioned.

Edit: I see Bob already gave us the origin of Kal-el.

I was just watching the Fleischer cartoons and their initial credits in 1941 mention how Kryptonians were a super-advanced, super-strong race of humans. I know a few Elseworlds have tried backdooring Kryptonians into some forebear of the human race.

Unless the Kryptonians were xenophobic (which is the reason DC used for why the Daxamites didn't expand into space), there's no reason there wouldn't be a ton of survivors (and descendants) once Krypton exploded though, since they could presumably just fly into space and explore prior to Krypton's demise, especially since there would have been no Kryptonite at the time, anywhere.

I swear that around 30 years ago there was a storyline (maybe even a couple frames) where it was explained that Kryptonians had a genetic link to the planet, meaning if they left then they'd die. This would mean that Jor-El had to also do some gene-splicing to make it possible for Kal-El to be sent to Earth.

Simply saying that Kryptonians believed in the Dark Forest Theory would be a fine explanation, too.

Yeah, around the '80s DC realized an entire race of Supermen and Superwomen should have conquered the galaxy so you started seeing reasons why Kryptonians, despite being a highly advanced scientific civilization, never expanded beyond Krypton in great numbers. They have tried several different excuses, most flimsy. It's honestly the dangling plot thread I think that ignited Kirkman's Viltrumite backstory for Invincible.

It kinda feels like Kirkman based it on Dragon Ball... though maybe that was a factor in Toriyama's original inspiration.

But yeah as I referred to earlier you kind of see it with the Daxamites in something like Invasion or Great Darkness Saga. Yes, they're vulnerable to lead, but there had to be a reason they weren't like the preeminent force in the galaxy.

Still waitin', Supes.

Exactly.

Sounds like some needs to read some Superman. Here... I just saved you 30 bucks per Supes himself!

Man, I loved those 80 Page Giants when I was a kid!

For me it was those smaller but thicker digests you could beg mom to buy because they were right next to the checkout at the grocery store. What a sweetheart deal they had (I believe Archie kept that alive the longest before finally phasing out completely). As a kid I didn't even care they were reprints.

I used to get some kind of Archie Digest every time I was home sick (during school or summer). I loved those things.

I am also ashamed to say that I stole quite a bit of them during my shoplifting days from 5th grade through 7th grade. Eeek!