Question(s) about the Returned Heroes

[Gangbuster]

Re: the crystal barrier, Kal-L found it in the Kingdom. I tried to find the images on the Internet somewhere...but couldn't. He decided not to use it at that time, though.

So Mark Waid (surprise) initially set up the return of Kal-L. I think our conspiracy runs deep  

However, I just read Infinite Crisis #2 this morning....

[[[OMG SPOILER ALERT!]]]] [[[[OMG, RUN AWAY IF YOU'RE SCARED!!!]]]]







and I'm a little cynical and worried. Infinite Crisis #1 was completely pessimistic until the end, when Kal-L returned. Crisis #2 was the opposite; it represented our point of view, that the comics world is devoid of optimism and joy, that Kal-L should fix it, and Power Girl's Earth-1 memory was restored in this issue.

Yet the end of it seemed ominous. Kal-L explained that the current earth is Earth-2, with aspects of the others folded in. (I like to think of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" as the last Earth-2 story, but that's been re-retconned now. stinks to be me!) His solution? To bring back Earth-1. I have a scary feeling that Kal-L is going to take the same misguided path that Hal Jordan once took, try to restore his homeworld, and ignorantly spawn this new crisis. I really hope not, but despite all the optimism so far, "Crisis" is still in the title.

At the same time, Superman Chronicles is coming out next year. Why would they do that if there wasn't a market of people who wanted to catch up on Kal-L adventures? So I'm not afraid he's going to die. I'm afraid that the Crisis will be his fault, and he'll be tainted just like the others, which is a fate worse than death.

[nightwing]

This is a big reason I'm waiting to see how it all comes out before (maybe!) buying the TPB.

I'm a Hal Jordan fan, but I didn't celebrate like other fans when DC brought him back.  I'm an E-2 Superman fan, but I'm not dancing in the street over his return, either.  And I hope to high heaven they leave poor Barry Allen in his grave.

The bottom line is I'd rather have these characters in limbo or purgatory than subject to the whims of writers and editors in the modern DCU.  Even if E-2 Supes survives this series, I hope he escapes back into limbo where he's safe from mutilation.

[Gangbuster]

Oops. I made a mistake.

[Captain Kal]

I know I already gave a fairly complete rundown on why a yellow sun powered E-2 Superman isn't too far off canon.

Here's another point that I missed before:

Unlike most of the revived Silver Age heroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman never went out of print and were discontinued from the Golden Age to the Silver Age.  In a real sense, the same characters had the same continuity running from their GA to the Pre Crisis era.  It was an arfiticial retcon in itself to declare a point where GA Superman leaves off and SA Superman begins.  Schwartz himself noted that some of the adventures of the two Supermen probably overlapped and they shared them in their respective timelines.

Also, the real GA Superman spent most of his career working for the Daily Planet and Perry White.  The Daily Star and George Taylor disappeared early in the GA run.  This adds fuel to the fire that we could legitimately include some of the SA sun power aspects to the E-2 Superman since we have my old reasons on this thread and the unbroken continuity of the character in the first place.