A mainstay of myth and the Hero's Journey is the loss of the Wise Old Mentor, too.

Some stories play fast and loose with this, but do a good job of it. Tolkein managed to have Gandalf conveniently off-stage for criticial points of the story. In the Hobbit, he simply up and left for "other business." In Lord of the Rings, he was actually killed in Moria (he got better), and for Frodo's ordeal, he was busy somewhere else.

Superman, in the movies, was taught by intelligent responsive recordings of his Kryptonian parents. In the old comics I remember, Superboy was trained by a Kryptonian teaching robot. In the movies and TV series (Smallville), he pretty much feels his way along as he goes, but is helped by his Kansas parents who, incidentally, do not die in many versions of the Superman story.

Now that I think about it, Jonathan and Martha Kent are the key to the entire Superman myth. They managed to raise a being of almost infinite power with a moral code so well-developed that he does not become the monster almost anyone else would. Instead of an Emperor, you have a Kansas farm boy in tights. That's an accomplishment the couple never really gets enough credit for.

This has been touched on in some comics, showing "parallel" universes where Clark was raised in the U.S.S.R. or something like that. "Saturday Night Live" once did a skit on "Uberman," showing the world if Clark had landed in Nazi Germany instead of Kansas (actually a valid concept considering Superman's original date of origin).