Superman
What Could Have Been in this franchise.Comic Books
The first drawing of Superman.
- Siegel and Shuster conceived of two early versions of Superman before the famous one. The first was an ordinary man who gained mind control powers in an experiment and became a supervillain until his powers faded (too bad he killed the scientist who gave them to him in the first place) though this was a One Shot. The second version was a nonpowered colorfully attired strongman who went around beating up bullies. This second version eventually became the then mildly popular Slam Bradley (who didn't wear a costume, but otherwise looked a lot like Superman). In this case, Executive Meddling worked for the better, forcing the creative team to create the third wildly popular version of the character and define an entire genre of fiction.
- There was yet another version conceptualized for Superman's newspaper strip: Just like in Superman: Red Son, Supes would have been a child sent into the past by the last man on earth, his father, to save him from the earth's destruction. Superman would have powers due to being on a higher Evolutionary Level than present-day humans, and would struggle to find acceptance due to his powers making him different from everybody else. This version truly would have been a "Man of Tomorrow".
- It's well known among comic book geekdom that Kryptonite originally appeared in an episode of the old Superman radio show called "The K-Metal From Krypton", before migrating to the comics. What's less well known is that it was adapted from an older Golden Age comic, "The K-Metal from Krypton", that never got published. At the time the script was written, Superman's established origin was that, instead of being raised by a loving foster family, he grew up in an orphanage, concepts such as Smallville, Lana Lang, the Kents and other now standard aspects of his backstory simply did not exist. Siegel decided early on to have Lois learn Superman's Secret Identity. In what would have been a massive shake-up of the status quo, Lois and Clark would have discovered Kryptonite and that Superman was an alien, Lois would have learned his secret identity and Superman would decide to carry on at the Planet as Clark, while Lois was furious at him for not letting her in on it earlier. If that comic had been made imagine how the Superman mythos, and by extension the very concept of a superhero and popular culture in general would have changed. We'd be down a trope, and we'd have missed out on some good stories and several TV shows. A reconstruction of the comic can be found here
. - World's Finest (1941) #323 (January, 1986), wherein Batman angrily breaks off his partnership with Superman, was the book's final issue, but it was supposed to be a temporal cancellation as the higher-ups at DC Comics revamped the concept. However, the new continuity created by Crisis on Infinite Earths later that year led to both characters being rebooted by writers who believed Superman and Batman to be too different to get along, let alone want to hang out together, making a team-up book impossible for a while.
- Mark Millar, Mark Waid, and Grant Morrison's infamous Superman 2000 pitch, which among other things would have erased the Superman marriage via Lois being mindwiped after Lois is infected with a brain disease that threatens to kill her (on top of Lois being put on a bus out of the country by the three writers, to soften fans up for the purging of the marriage and restoration of the love triangle - this element proved controversial enough that it was eventually booted from a later version), Lex Luthor and Brainiac returning to their Silver Age roots (with the addition that Lex being revealed to be a world-class sculptor who finances his crimes via his art, which also double as a hiding place for his weapons of mass destruction), and the resurrection of the original Fortress of Solitude. However, the pitch caused a communication breakdown among DC editorial, when one editor decided to accept the pitch without bothering to tell the Superman offices, and in the crossfire, it was outright rejected, with Millar and Waid officially blacklisted from ever writing the main Superman books after they went public with their rejection (though they were later allowed to do non-canon Superman stuff in the form of Red Son and Birthright, both of which used elements of the original pitch). Grant Morrison didn't burn their bridges so badly however, and was later allowed to write All-Star Superman, which was a semi-sequel to their Crisis Crossover DC One Million and probably the closest thing to what 2000 would have been. The original pitch eventually made it online, and can be read here. The post-Flashpoint DCU reboot used some concepts from this proposal (namely Superman having no red trunks, both Jonathan and Martha Kent being dead, and Lois and Clark's marriage being nonexistent). The new direction proved unpopular with fans, and the post-Crisis Lois and Clark were subsequently brought back.
- Originally, Stephanie Brown was supposed to be Nightwing in the Smallville comics but Executive Meddling stopped this from happening.
- An odd case in the 1980s: According to Jim Starlin, back when the AIDS scare was the big thing, DC decided to have one of their characters be infected with the virus and die from it and set up a voting booth of sorts (Jim jokes that he stuffed it full of Robins). In the end, Jimmy Olsen was chosen to be the victim. However, when someone pointed out that Jack Larson, the actor who played Jimmy on the 50's live-action show was gay, DC quickly got cold feet and scuttled the entire idea.
- Superman: For Tomorrow and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel were actually supposed to be part of a massive storyline running through four different books. The main gist of the "Superstorm" storyline was that Luthor was planning to build a Spire in Metropolis that would end up killing Superman when completed. The story would have went through four titles: the aforementioned For Tomorrow storyline, the aforementioned Lex Luthor: Man of Steel mini-series and two mini-series starring The Question and Vigilante respectively. However, the writer for the Vigilante mini, Micah Wright, got into trouble with DC and, when he was dropped, For Tomorrow had just started, forcing them to drop the "Superstorm" thing (it didn't help that there was a lot of Right Hand Vs Left Hand going on as the idea and The Question parts had been originated from the Wild Storm offices on the West Coast, and there were issues with keeping the East Coast-based DC offices in sync). Little pieces of it, though, were still found in The Question mini.
- Before The Man of Steel, Cary Bates' proposal for a reboot would have Superman clinically die and be brought back to life... only to discover he had been 'de-powered' and had partial amnesia, in essence "erasing" much past of his past history (at least from his mind, anyway). This is to keep the all the Weisinger stories in then-ongoing continuity.
- "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" was scheduled for publication in in fall 1977, but numerous delays moved the release date to spring 1978, after Ali lost his World Heavyweight Champion title to Leo Spinks.
- "For the Man Who Has Everything": In his "Alan Moore's Writing for Comics!" essay, Alan Moore revealed the story was supposed to feature Supergirl in Wonder Woman's role, but he wasn't allowed to use the former due to her impending death: "...I originally wanted to use Supergirl but then Julie Schwartz informed me that she'd be popping her bright red clogs during Crisis on Infinite Earths and suggested that I use Wonder Woman instead."
- During the late nineties, Adam Warren came close to writing and drawing a Superman/Dirty Pair crossover, and even published a promo piece of art for it, which was published in Wizard magazine at the time. The project apparently was axed due to publishing budget constrains.
- The New 52-era almost saw the debut of a new villain named the Masochist, a blatant Lisbeth Salander Expy with an S&M theme. Due to some backlash, she was renamed "Anguish" and had all of the fetish elements removed from her design.
- New Super-Man was originally going to star a Chinese teenager named Kenji Kong, but the character was renamed Kenan Kong to avoid the perception that DC didn't realize the difference between Chinese and Japanese names.
- Even before Crisis on Infinite Earths, there were proposals for a revision of Superman from various writers. Regular Superman writer Cary Bates's proposal would still keep the then-ongoing continuity as it was; while Marv Wolfman, Frank Miller, and Steve Gerber wanted to restart from scratch. While each of the latter three's approach was different, they all agreed on the same things: getting rid of Clark's career as Superboy, cutting down Superman's powers, changes in Lex Luthor's character, and Superman as the only survivor of Krypton. All of these are ideas John Byrne would use in his own 1986 reboot of the character, The Man of Steel.
- Superman and the Authority and Superman: Space Age was meant to be part of the new history of the DC Universe due to the 5G Initiative with Space Age meant to be a prologue to Crisis on Infinite Earths. When that was tossed out along with Dan DiDio, The Authority was repurposed into a lead in to the current storyline running in Action Comics while Space Age was made non-canon.
- In 2017, Kurt Busiek revealed on Twitter that he and Alex Ross were preparing to do a crossover with Star Wars, likely the Dark Horse comics run. Alex Ross even did a concept cover, showing the Man of Steel squaring off with Darth Vader. He also did a concept piece for crossover between Star Wars and the Justice League as well. Sadly, corporate disagreements scuttled the plan.
Supergirl
- Peter David planned to continue his Supergirl run past issue #80 with Blonde Justice, a team book, with Kara Zor-El as Supergirl, Linda Danvers as Superwoman, and Power Girl.
- Supergirl (2005): Writer Nick Spencer had big plans for Supergirl before he left partway through his first issue. He was planning on setting Kara up as a leader like her cousin Kal and would have led to the creation of a new Young Justice. The story plans go that the villain would have been the Luthor-Brainiac clone and, to deal with it, Kara would gather a team comprised of Static, Blue Beetle, the Damian Wayne Robin, the Stephanie Brown Batgirl, Miss Martian and the Iris West Impulse (with hopes to include Aqualad). The pinnacle of Kara's evolution would have had Iris running away in a panic and Kara stopping her, convincing her to keep going. Most of the team, minus Kara, would have ended up getting captured and, with advice from Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, would have made a second team to rescue them. The story would have concluded with the dance party of the Flyover app's premiere, with one scene showing Iris dragging Damian out onto the dance floor. The Jaime/Damian/M'gann team (but none of the others) made it into James Peaty's run, but the details of the storyline were completely altered, along with Alex's true identity (Kryptonian-Dubbilex hybrid clone), it wouldn't be until the Young Justice cartoon that Static, Blue Beetle, Stephanie (as her Spoiler identity), and Miss Martian would become members of the Young Justice, with Stephanie also added as a reserve member of the team in their relaunch under Brian Michael Bendis.
- One of the early issues of Supergirl (2011) series was supposed to introduce a radically redesigned version of Maxima, with her appearance changed from that of a Human Alien to a Humanoid Alien with Pointy Ears. This was scrapped at the last minute and the design was instead recycled for a Suspiciously Similar Substitute named Reign. When Maxima was finally reintroduced in the New 52 several years later, she sported a slightly younger version of her classic appearance.
- At the beginning of Red Daughter of Krypton, Tony Bedard started several interesting subplots up, but he had not the chance to develop them. A while later he explained his plans in detail during an interview:Anj: You sowed the seeds of future plotlines which may never come to fruition. Can you tell us what you were planning with Blaze? Siobhan? Michael? Shay Veritas?
TONY: I was going to have Blaze create a trio of henchgirls called the Furies. Remember Siobhan’s roommate and her two friends? They were all orphaned in superhero battles and had sworn themselves to finding a way to make super-people pay. They were going to beat Supergirl and take her back to Blaze’s home dimension. Hilarity would ensue. I wanted to get Siobhan in there more, to make her and Kara a team. I had one issue where the newly Red Lanterned Kara fights Silver Banshee, and I contrasted their fight with flashbacks of Kara and Siobhan just having fun roommate moments. That remains one of my favorite things from the run: just letting her have a friend. Michael returns in my final issue, and we’ll see if they do anything with him after that. If not, it was enough that Kara met a guy who had every reason to hate life and yet retained a positive outlook. He was in many ways a good role model for her, and he didn’t want to trick or use her, which is nice for a change. And Shay I wanted to keep playing sort of mysterious. Is she really a friend to Supergirl, or does she view her as another science project? Shay’s still a bit of a cypher to me, which is okay if she’s played for mystery. But I liked doing scenes of her staff at the Block talking about what it’s like being stuck there, having to wear her face, alternating between admiration and resentment. It gave the whole Block set-up a little complexity. - Geoff Johns had wanted to include Supergirl in the "One Year Later" Teen Titans roster, but since she was going a Darker and Edgier route at the time and Johns wanted a "naïve, fun alien chick", Miss Martian was created as a substitute, though Kara was finally allowed onto the team in 2007 later.
- Sterling Gates had at least two plans to use Linda Danvers in Supergirl (2005) after she'd vanished from the DC Universe:
- Gates and artist Jamal Igle originally wanted Linda to be the Kandorian hero Flamebird while Nightwing was going to be Conner Kent brought back from the dead. At some point their identities had to be changed, so Flamebird became Thara Ak-Var and Nightwing was now an older Chris Kent.
- Gates' hypothetical 75th issue would've featured Kara dying, as was alluded in the annual issue where she traveled to the future. The story would've gone on to reveal Kara was trapped in Hell thanks to Lord Satanus. Lana Lang needed to team up with soul of Kara's mother Alura to rescue her, but to do that they needed to seek out Linda Danvers to get them into Hell.
- Supergirl Adventures Girl Of Steel: According to the solicits, the trade was supposed to include The Superman Adventures #52. When the book finally came out, that issue had been swapped with Justice League Unlimited #16.
Superboy:
- As a status quo shake-up for Superboy (2011), Kon-El was going to be captured by N.O.W.H.E.R.E., brainwashed and reprogrammed into an emotionless "living weapon", and tasked with hunting down the Teen Titans. When it was decided to reboot DC's continuity with the New 52, this concept was reworked into Kon-El's new origin story in his relaunched comic book, with N.O.W.H.E.R.E. now having created him in the first place.
- Conner Kent almost became a trans woman. According to Magdalene Visaggio, creator of Kim & Kim and Vagrant Queen, the story would have seen Conner take a deep dive into his past and ultimately come to realize that most of his problems stem from not being his true self, ultimately deciding to make this big change, transitioning to female and taking up the name "Skyrocket". A few seeds were already planted in Action Comics #1057 with Conner adding in a red streak to his hair and starting a relationship with Miss Martian (although that particular detail has prior basis), but the full idea was rejected by DC.
