DC Comics To Launch Superman: The Man of Tomorrow Collections For Late '80s Material

According to an Amazon listing — usually a reliable way to get information out there about upcoming collected editions of comic books and often the first fans hear of upcoming product — DC Comics will continue its reprinting of 1980s and '90s-era Superman stories with Superman: The Man of Tomorrow Book One.

We have reached out to DC Comics, who given past similar experiences are unlikely confirm or deny that the book exists. It appears as though the Man of Tomorrow series will pick up where the Superman: The Man of Steel series left off, with Volume 1 picking up immediately following the events of the Supergirl Saga and building to Exile.

Superman: Exile has been collected in the past, but in a heavily-edited form that left big pieces of the story out, and did not include a Lex Luthor backup story which represents some of the first Superman-related work by current Action Comics writer Dan Jurgens, who would come to The Adventures of Superman following the events of Exile and later head to Superman.

The book will feature work by a number of talents, most notably Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, and Terry Gamill. Dan Jurgens is listed as the primary "author" on Amazon, but it's likely given the dates and stories involved that his involvement is fairly limited and that he's simply listed because Superman collections with his name on them have historically sold very well.

Here's how Amazon describes the book, which is listed as a $39.99 hardcover that you can pre-order now:

In these tales from the late 1980s that led the way to the "Death of Superman" saga, the Man of Steel faces foes including Brainiac, Lex Luthor and Silver Banshee. While Luthor attempts to manipulate Brainiac into doing his bidding, Superman is forced to stop an assassination attempt on Luthor. And Superman banishes himself from Earth when doubts about his own sanity begin to take hold. Plus: the origin of of the mysterious Silver Banshee, and a battle royal between Metropolis crime-fighters Gangbuster and the Guardian.

The Superman: The Man of Steel trade paperback collection spanned the entirety of John Byrne's run on the Superman titles, starting with 1986's The Man of Steel #1 and ending with Superman #22 (plus work on The Adventures of Superman by Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway). It seems likely that the Superman: The Man of Tomorrow rebranding will help give retailers and readers more incentive to pick up the reprints by marking the jumping-on point with a new Volume 1. If it is, indeed, a hardcover collection it's also a different format than previous post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman collections and might help to differentiate the Superman: The Man of Tomorrow volumes from pre-existing collections of some parts of the post-Byrne, pre-Death of Superman era like the Exile and Panic in the Sky trade paperbacks.

At the end of The Supergirl Saga, Superman executed a trio of mass-murdering Phantom Zone criminals including General Zod, who had been rendered powerless by the effects of Gold Kryptonite but who insisted that they would find a way to get powered back up and come to terrorize Earth. They were, at that point, trapped on a dead world in a pocket universe with no hope of rescue, so Superman put them to death for their crimes. The result? When Superman: The Man of Tomorrow Vol. 1 picks up, the Man of Steel is going through a crisis of conscience as a result of his decision.