Veteran Superman artist Jerry Ordway worked on a Man of Steel prequel comic with writer David S. Goyer, ComicBook.com has learned. Brian Miller and Hi-Fi will provide the colors.

"I can confirm that I drew the 40 pages comic, plus a cover image, for the Man of Steel Wal-Mart promotion," Ordway confirmed in the comments below. "It's a great story, and it was really fun to do."

The cover at right, provided by Wal-Mart as part of their Man of Steel ticket presales, clearly shows Ordway's name on the art. Fans can buy tickets starting tomorrow at 8 a.m. for 7 p.m. showings the day before the movie opens. Wal-Mart has promised that these special Wal-Mart-exclusive screenings will be the earliest showings for Man of Steel at the theaters in question.

In addition to movie tickets, fans will be able to pre-buy Blu-Ray copies of Man of Steel--and as part of the presale, will get a digital code giving them access to special features including Superman cartoons and an exclusive digital comic. It had been previously noted that the writer of the comic would be Goyer, but until now it was not clear who the artist was.

Marvel and Wal-Mart did a similar promotional deal with Iron Man 3 the week it hit theaters; the presale code gave fans access to some of the home video's special features and sneak previews of upcoming, animated Marvel projects. It also reserves an Ultraviolet copy of the movie in your account which will be unlocked when the film is released on home video. They also recently pre-sold Blu-Ray copies of The Walking Dead season three, including a digital code that allowed you to redeem some of the disc's special features ahead of time.

When the first art debuted this morning, it was not only revealed that the story revolves around Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El (Supergirl), but it also seemed obvious from the style of art that it was Ordway. None of the previous pieces featured a signature, though, and so ComicBook.com reached out to both DC Entertainment and to Jerry Ordway to confirm his involvement. DC has not yet responded, although as noted above, Ordway commented below to confirm our assumptions.

Ordway made headlines recently by publicly blogging about his lack of paying comics work, in spite of being widely regarded as a living legend in comics and in spite of having an exclusive contract with DC. The publisher responded to inquiries at that time by saying that Ordway had work in the pipeline.

Ordway has previously drawn movie tie-in comics based on 2011's Green Lantern and 1989's Batman.