Superman Through the Ages! Forum

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=107908

"I thought the trick would be that the Superman who was killed was actually the so-called “sand” Superman that fought the Man of Steel by taking on his form years before. The theory going around at the time, bolstered by an inexplicable DC reprint of the early “Sand” story, was that the Superman that won that battle was actually the villain, who believed he was Superman.

That would have paved the way for the return of the “real” Superman, who had been tucked away in a coma somewhere." - Mike Carlin

 

Good quote, but that's not Mike Carlin saying it.  That was Matt Brady's theory, and it's his quote.

Is time for the return of the REAL Superman. :)

Oops, am I bad; my mistake. I was too over enthusiastic about this possibility. I've only recently read 1992's Death of Superman and followups. I didn't find the overall story appealing but that's just me. There's got to be a better story in there, right?   

Superman in a coma for a long stretch = The Wizard

Bwahahahahaha!

Where was THIS when I was an undergraduate? Because there are certainly a few electives I could have blown on courses like "The Mythology of Hawaii 5-0."


This is what I like about Geoff Johns, is he ties everything together. In that TITANS arc, he actually provided an explanation for why death seemed to be a revolving door after Superman's return.


This, by the way, is not as unlikely as it now seems. You have to consider that, in the first five or six years of the Wolfman/Byrne/Helfer reboot, what was canon or not was STILL widely debated, especially with regards to Supergirl (did she perform the deeds ascribed to her, or was it another heroine?). MAN OF STEEL itself provided large gaps; remember, the mini itself took place over the course of YEARS, showing only brief episodes. People say Byrne eliminated things like Krypto and so forth, but MoS had phenomenal gaps; nowhere did he outright say that many things didn't exist, which left the possibility that it DID, somehow exist in modern times.

(I used Krypto as an example for a very real reason: unlike Superman-2 or Ultraman, Krypto never died "on camera.")

The idea that CRISIS for Superman was a "break" between two totally different histories is an idea that developed as the character took shape in the 1990s, not one that was immediately obvious in 1986.

It's very possible that a story like "Sand" Superman might have STILL happened to Superman even at that late date. Think of it sort of like how Steve Englehart revealed that Earth-1 Batman had similar episodes to Earth-2 Batman in his early career.

It might have been interesting to attempt, and it would leave the door open for other elements of Post-Crisis being "true."

Incidentally, why am I getting flashbacks to the Spider-Clone Saga here? The hero didn't "really" die, but was revealed to "all along" have been a duplicate?


As embarassed as I am to admit it, the Return of Superman is something of a guilty pleasure of mine, not unlike those HERCULES and XENA shows of the 1990s.

Who did I think was the REAL Superman at the time? I honestly thought it was both Superboy and Steel, with Superboy having Superman's rejuvenated body, and Steel having his "Katra."

We begin with the discovery of Superman's body being missing. Superboy escaping from Cadmus - a place we KNOW has Superman's DNA. The reason Superboy acted so materialistically later on was because he lacked a spirit and was really only matter.

And we have Steel, after Superman's death, suddenly inspired to talk and walk like Superman. Even Lois notes this.

I expected the resolution to be something like, both of them climbing the steps of Mount Khalisa on Vulcan to get Fal-Tor-Pan.

That's my understanding as well.  I thought I had read that Wolfman DID have an idea how the "blended" Earth would operate but it wasn't followed up on, and then Byrne had such a strong rep and definite ideas that he just went ahead.

What I don't understand is why more fans of the time didn't howl how this new simplified universe not only wasn't simpler, it wasn't even well DEFINED...

"The Mythology of Hawaii Five-O" - there's a course I would love to write a term paper for.

 I disagree with the idea that Krypto and the other elements from the pre crisis universe still existed in the post crisis universe, I think it was meant to be implied that things like Krypto never existed in the new timeline. I have an interview with Roger Stern from that time and he was addressing the issue of the Earth Prime Superboy coming of age and coming back and replacing Superman at that point. Apparantly some fans had suggested that as one of the options for Superman's replacement. He basically came right out and said that that Superboy never existed, even though he had been mentioned in the pocket universe storyline. I do agree that the "simpler" universe was anything but, though. The pocket universe story also showed Superman being surprised at the first sign of Krypto, so that sort of confirms that he never existed after Crisis. I think the crisis was really meant to get rid of everything that came before.     

yes, all of the good stuff