Superman and Wonder Woman's New 52 Romance Erased From Continuity

While the recent 'Superman Reborn' storyline merged the pre-Flashpoint Superman timeline with the [...]

By Russ Burlingame

While the recent "Superman Reborn" storyline merged the pre-Flashpoint Superman timeline with the New 52 version in such a way that most fan-favorite stories from both eras will remain intact, there is at least one major exception to that rule: the Man of Steel's romance with Wonder Woman is no longer canon.

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(Photo: DC Entertainment)

That's according to a tweet from Dan Jurgens, writer of Action Comics and the man who most clearly laid out some of the big story elements that do still count in the Rebirth era during the two part "The New World" mini-arc.

The pair started up a relationship at the end of the first year of The New 52 era, and it lasted until the death of the New 52 Superman. During much of that time, they co-headlined Superman/Wonder Woman together, a title which ended when DC Universe: Rebirth reshaped the publisher's superhero line last May.

The romance was controversial among fans of both characters; both Superman and Wonder Woman have long-term love interests who readers felt were being pushed aside for the story, and there were other reasons as well.

The idea of Superman and Wonder Woman having a romance is nothing new; it's been explored, discussed, or flirted with for decades. Shortly after the previous big Superman reboot, in the mid-80s, John Byrne wrote Superman as having developed a crush on Wonder Woman shortly after they met. It blossomed into a first date, in Action Comics #600, after which Superman realized that the two were wrong for one another; while Wonder Woman was fundamentally of the gods, Superman was fundamentally a mortal man. There would be nothing to stop Wonder Woman dating a human man, but one like Superman, who is so often seen as a god, created a disconnect neither of them could quite get past.

The idea of Superman and Wonder Woman ending up together "happily ever after" was explored in Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Kingdom Come, although it was one of a few things that Waid has said he did not ever intend to join the main DC Universe.

"We weren't saying Lois should die and Superman and Wonder Woman should together for ever and ever," Waid told ComicBook.com. "That wasn't the point of the story; that was unintended consequences. Every once in a while somebody will make a choice and defend it as, 'Well, it's the way it was in Kingdom Come,' to which you just want to go, 'No!'"

Most of the events of The New 52 are still understood to have happened in the post-"Superman Reborn" timeline, but Jurgens singled out the relationship as something that has not occurred. Given that Jonathan Kent is now ten years old and his parents were married before he was conceived, many fans noted that any relatively recent relationship with Wonder Woman would have had to be either an illusion created by Mr. Mxyzptlk, or an affair -- the latter seeming very unlikely considering who the players are.

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