Superman Controversy: Muslim Superhero Replaced With Dog Story

Even when DC Comics tries to avoid controversy with Superman, they wind up just creating more Superman controversy. Back in Action Comics #900, DC Comics published a backup story where Superman threatened to renounce his U.S. citizenship, and many outraged fans thought DC had gone too far in publishing that story. Now, DC Comics is catching grief over the Superman story that they didn’t publish.The big buzz in the comic book world is how the contents were changed in Superman #712, which arrived in comic book stores today. Superman #712 was originally solicited as starring a Muslim superhero called Sharif. The original description by DC Comics read, “Meet Los Angeles’s newest super hero in the latest Chapter of Grounded: Sharif! But Sharif discovers that in today’s current cultural climate, some people don’t want his help – they just want him gone. Can Superman aid Sharif and quell a prejudiced public, or are there some problems too big even for the Man of Steel to solve?”However, when Superman #712 arrived in comic book stores, it instead featured a story about Krypto the Superdog. On the first page of the story, there was a editor’s note that said, “Sorry for the Grounded delay, but in the meantime, please enjoy this lost classic, set shortly after Superboy died in Infinite Crisis and Superman went missing.” DC Comics also sent an email to retailers informing them that the change was made because “DC Comics determined that the previously solicited story did not work within the Grounded storyline.”