In today’s issue of Action Comics, Superman spent some time looking back on his history. Nominally, he was looking for abnormalities in his personal timeline following the recent “Superman Reborn” storyline, but the practical effect of the issue was to give fans a sense for just what is officially canon in the current DC Universe.
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If you’re a big-time Superman fan, even the quick glimpses of his history that were seen this issue could tell you quite a lot.
Here’s a list of 12 stories, status quo changes, and other elements we know to be official parts of the Man of Steel’s backstory in the modern day.
You can order a digital copy here, or get a physical copy at your local comic shop on today.
Action Comics #978
(W) Dan Jurgens (A) Ian Churchill (CA) Andy Kubert
“Superman Reborn Aftermath” part two! Superman’s life has been changed, some good is back, but the bad is back as well-with a vengeance! As Superman’s allies gather to address the looming threat of Mr. Oz, another Squad seeks revenge against the Man of Steel-and you won’t believe who made the team!
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In Shops: Apr 26, 2017
SRP: $2.99
HIS ORIGIN
Clearly, Superman’s new origins are fairly influenced by Superman: The Movie and its sequels from Richard Donner.
The crystals, which played a big role in those movies and were used heavily during Geoff Johns’s The Movie-inspired run on the Superman titles, are out in force in “The New World,” and we see a version of Superman’s origin (and first meeting with Lois Lane) that’s very reminiscent of Superman: The Movie.
In today’s issue, the origin is the first bit we saw, and it’s the Donner movies, right down to the brown jacket Lois is wearing. Not that surprising, we guess, from a writer who last issue referenced Superman Returns.
EXILE IN SPACE
The fact that Superman is holding the belt which provided him with breathable air in space also indicates that Superman’s powers have continued to evolve throughout his life and that he couldn’t always breathe unassisted in space — if he even can.
The visual is a callback to “Exile in Space,” a storyline that happened just after John Byrne left the Superman titles he helped rebuild in the late ’80s.
On his way out the door, Byrne left his collaborators in quite a pickle: faced with the very real possibility of global human extinction at the hands of a group of villains from an alternate-reality version of Krypton, Superman put the trio to death using Kryptonite from their world.
While the Kryptonite had no impact on Superman, the emotional fallout from killing someone did. After a nervous breakdown and a minor break from reality, the Man of Steel worried that he might be a danger to humanity and exiled himself to space, ostensibly never to return (spoilers: he came back eventually).
Besides the Superman-with-oxygen-mask image, that Gladiator Hulk-looking Superman is also from Exile — it happened when Superman was plucked, floating, out of deep space and forced to do battle for the entertainment of the masses and the glory of Mongul. Given that Mongul (that story’s villain) and The Eradicator (which was introduced in the story) play a major role in the upcoming “Revenge” storyline in Action Comics, it’s probably no mistake that Jurgens and Barberi opted to keep that image in.
KRISIS OF THE KRIMSON KRYPTONITE
See that weird, bulky suit of Superman armor? That’s from “Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite.”
Unfortunate alliteration aside, that storyline saw Mr. Mxyzptlk take Superman’s powers away after exposure to a Fifth Dimensional simulation of Red Kryptonite.
The experience helped cement for Clark how important the Superman aspect of his personality was, and that he was driven to heroism even when he had no powers (an idea that would be explored again from time to time, particularly in the post-Flashpoint universe where the solar flare power would periodically leave him drained)…and at the end of the story was when he finally got up the nerve to ask Lois to marry him (she said yes).
DAY OF THE KRYPTON MAN
In 1990, there was fallout from the events of “Exile,” and Superman found himself possessed by The Eradicator, a Kryptonian artifact bent on destroying Earth’s environment and rebuilding it as a New Krypton, regardless of its cost to humanity (yes, like the plot of Man of Steel).
Along the way, Superman found himself duking it out with Draaga, a warrior he had previously defeated in gladiatorial combat on Warworld, as well as Maxima, the Queen of Almerac who hated Superman becuase he had spurned her advances.
During the period when he was under mind control, Superman took on a cold, calculating affect and began to dress like a Byrne-era Kryptonian, as seen in the image above.
THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN
To the surprise of no one, the best-selling DC story in the modern era, the Death of Superman, remains canon here, and looks to have played out pretty much exactly as it did before.
What’s worth noting here, more than anything else, is that Superman still talks about this as the day of his death. No quotes, not cutesy avoidance. In his mind, this was death. While over the years, some writers have tried to write it off as a coma, or a Kryptonian evolutionary phase, or something like that, as a character moment the idea that he had died — that he made that decision and ultimately he and his loved ones lived with the consequences — is important.
THE REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN!
After Superman’s death, he didn’t just waltz back out into the world stage; he was replaced by numerous pretenders, each of whom wore the “S” for different reasons, until he finally returned — powerless and with long hair. He regained his powers after an incident involving Kryptonite and The Eradicator, just in time to destroy Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who had destroyed Coast City and killed millions.
…But where is Superboy?
In the original comics, Kon-El was created as part of the four Supermen — one for each of the three monthly Superman titles at the time — who were vying for the title. In the flashbacks here, there’s no Superboy at all, only Steel, the Cyborg and the Eradicator.
(And yes — if you look hard, you can see that Superman with the long hair is represented!)
TOYMAN
This is an odd one, becuase with the long hair and the fractured glasses, one would assume tht the Toyman image here is meant to evoke the period in time where the character got “dark,” with the most significant story from that era being Superman #84, where he kills Cat Grant’s son Adam.
That story, “The Toyman Plays for Keeps,” is one that has been hugely controversial over the years, and DC honcho Geoff Johns once wrote an Action Comics tale to essentially write it out of continuity and explain how that wasn’t the “real” Toyman anyway.
Writer Dan Jurgens, who wrote not only Superman #84 but also Action Comics #978, has said in the past that if he had it to do over again, he wouldn’t have written the story. So is this an indication that with the rewritten history, a story has been “kept in” that neither Jurgens nor Johns particularly seemed to want?
THE DEATH OF CLARK KENT
There’s an image of Conduit, the architect of “The Death of Clark Kent.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a reference to Conduit; in fact, at one point, we speculated that he might be key to the secret of the “mystery Clark Kent” that turned out to be Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Conduit was Kenny Braverman, a friend of Clark’s from childhood. Growing up in Smallville, Kenny could never seem to measure up to Clark Kent. Whether it was athletics — in the post-Crisis, pre-Birthright DC Universe, Clark’s powers didn’t fully manifest until he was an adult, and so he participated in athletics — or academics, Kenny was no Clark Kent — something that his domineering and abusive father used to impress on him regularly.
“My friends, like Pete Ross, Kenny Braverman, and Lana Lang…” begins Clark as he extols the virtues of Smallville in today’s issue of Action Comics.
So…Kenny Braverman is a character who exists in this version of Clark’s past.
In the post-Crisis timeline, Kenny grew up, and eventually developed Kryptonite-based powers as well as physical disfigurement. At first he was content to work for the government, using his powers to benefit American military interests, but eventually he washed out of the military and the CIA due to mental problems and became a supervillain.
Kenny had been irradiated essentially at birth. Born the same day as Superman, Kenny was delivered while a meteor shower passed overhead, never knowing until much later that it was in fact Superman’s rocket falling to Earth in Smallville.
Blaming Clark for all of his problems, he set out to kill the mild-mannered reporter…which turned out surprisingly difficult to do, since Superman was always nearby, ready to lend ol’ Clark a hand. Eventually, Shadowdragon would provide Conduit with the information necessary to connect the dots, and Conduit lost it. Convinced that Clark had been using his powers to cheat Kenny out of his hard-earned victories for all those years, he became even more enraged and set about trying to ruin Superman’s life, making attempts on the lives of Lois Lane and the Kents, burning the Kent farm to the ground, and kidnapping Jimmy Olsen.
All of this built to a climax where Conduit forced Superman to fight him to the death inside of a replica of Smallville, complete with realistic automatons that looked like their childhood friends and cheering section made up of robots of Kenny’s father.
SUPERMAN — REBORN!
Twenty years ago last month, Superman #123 by Dan Jurgens and Ron Frenz hit the stands and reinvented the Man of Steel as an energy-based superhero with a one-piece outfit, blue skin, and electric powers.
It was a few months later that Superman was split into two distinct characters in a reinvention of an old story called “Superman Red/Superman Blue,” elements of which have recently been reused in Superman and Action Comics.
The story was at the time — and continues to be — controversial, often mocked, and beloved by many of the dedicated audience who were reading the Superman titles at the time, many of whom had been on board since 1992’s The Death of Superman, some even since John Byrne’s The Man of Steel reboot in 1986.
Timelines are a bit skewed. If the splash page is meant to be read chronologically, it would imply that the 1997 story took place before Superman’s death and his 1996 wedding. No telling whether that was the creators’ intent or if getting all the “variant Superman” looks together in one corner was the real motivation and it had little to do with the timeline.
Still, the fact that “electric Superman” is depicted on here at all indicates that, yes, that story actually happened in the modern continuity.
OUR WORLDS AT WAR
A mini-event that took place within the JLA family of titles in 2001, “Our Worlds at War” is the likely reference made given the presence of Imperiex on the page.
The crossover, which occurred mainly through the monthly Superman titles, Wonder Woman, and a series of character themed one-shot specials, dealt with the heroes of the DC Universe facing the threat of the cosmic force known as Imperiex, who attacked Earth for the purpose of using the planet as the staging ground for the “hollowing” of the entire universe.
WHAT’S SO FUNNY ‘BOUT TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND THE AMERICAN WAY?
This one is definitely a stretch, as there’s nothing specific to indicate that the presence of Manchester Black is a reference to this one particular issue — except that issue’s popularity among the fans and critics.
The presence of Manchester Black likely means that Action Comics #775, the story later adapted to the animated movie Superman vs. The Elite, is officially in-continuity.
SUPERMAN: LOIS & CLARK
The Superman: Lois and Clark miniseries didn’t play out just as it was seen, but the introduction of Blanque, a new villain we met there, as well as Lois and Clark’s life in California, with Clark operating off the radar and Lois acting as Author X, all happened.
That’s going to play out in a big way starting next issue, when Blanque joins Henshaw (also seen in that story) for the “Revenge” storyline.
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Images courtesy of Marvel Studios and DC Studios
