SuperM: The Beginning (2019)

SuperM (Hangul: 슈퍼엠) is a South Korean music group formed in 2019 by SM Entertainment and Capitol Music Group. The group consists of seven members from four SM boy groups: Taemin from Shinee, Baekhyun and Kai from EXO, Taeyong and Mark from NCT 127, and Ten and Lucas from WayV. On October 4, 2019, the group made their debut with their first mini album.

All the members of SuperM were gathered from existing boy groups in SM Entertainment. Taemin debuted as a member of Shinee in May 2008. Baekhyun and Kai debuted as members of EXO in April 2012. Taeyong, Ten, and Mark debuted as members of NCT in April 2016. Lucas debuted in February 2018 as a new member of NCT. Taeyong and Mark later debuted in NCT 127 in July 2016, while Ten and Lucas debuted in NCT's Chinese sub-unit, WayV, in January 2019.

In 2019, before the official announcement of SuperM's debut, there were rumors that SM Entertainment was planning to debut a "Super Boy Band K-pop." On August 7, 2019, Capitol Music Group Chairman Steve Barnett and SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man officially announced the group as SuperM at Captain Congress 2019. The "M" in SuperM stands for both Matrix and Master, with each member already being a star in their own respective groups. Teasers revealed the members of the group, each showcasing their performance, singing, and rapping abilities. Lee Soo-man described the group as the "Avengers of K-pop," with a focus on music performance. SM A&R Executive Director Chris Lee stated that the group would promote for about a year and drew inspiration from the Avengers because, according to him, "Each Avenger has their own movie, Iron Man has his own movie and Thor has his own movie, but together, they create a collective power, so the members will pursue their own careers and groups but also participate as a group."

There have been mixed opinions from audiences and fans about this project. Some fans enthusiastically supported the band's debut after the release of the first introduction at Capitol Congress 2019, while others expressed concerns about SM Entertainment prioritizing their newly formed group over the Exo members who have not had solo debuts before mandatory military service and the group's debut in the US instead of Korea. Writing for MTV News, Caitlin Kelley believed that "the most concerning thing is that it's not easy to combine the power of multiple fandoms" and felt that the group's structure could be complicated for the American audience, although she believed that "the reality is that SuperM has the potential to create a hot trend worldwide. The level of debate among fandoms is the broad public's interest - now it's just a matter of shifting public opinion." Kate Halliwell of The Ringer wrote, "Many people support some groups in K-pop in general, and it makes sense when their idols are in the same group... but the competition between fandoms and fans only will make the fandom lack unity." She added that the group's debut once again demonstrated the intense reaction of fandoms.

SuperM promoted their first mini album in both the US and Korea, with eight different versions. Several teasers of the group were posted on SuperM's various social media channels. The group filmed their first music video in Dubai in August 2019. The group's music video was released on October 4, with the instrumentals of one of the album's songs, "I Can Stand the Rain," released on August 28. SuperM released only one MV, 'Jopping'. The mini album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart, selling 168,000 equivalent album units in its first week as of October 10.

SuperM held their debut concert in Los Angeles on October 5 and made their television debut on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on October 9. The group is currently embarking on their first tour, We Are the Future Live, with ten dates in North America from November 2019 to February 2020.

SuperM was announced as global ambassadors for Korean Air in November 2019. On November 4, the group appeared alongside SM's BoA in Korean Air's video, which was advertised on all Korean Air flights on the same day. The song in the video, "Let's go everywhere," was released on November 18, and the proceeds from the song will be donated to the Global Poverty Project's campaign of the Global Citizen project.