Superman General

Just how exactly has Post Crisis not been kind to Jimmy, if I may ask?

His role as 'plucky intrepid reporter' has been given to Lois, while he got her Pre-Crisis 'victim over their head' old shtick in return, for the most part. Which is great for Lois, don't get me wrong, but...

Jimmy had an appeal built on most of yhe whimsy that post Crisis excised. No other character was quite as dependent on Superman comics being utterly ridiculous.

Which just further supports my belief that Byrne threw the baby out with the bathwater. Granted, his more 'realistic&modern' take on Superman made the books viable sellers again, and his take on Luthor is arguably considered the definite portrayal of the character in the public consciousness these days, but a character as powerful as Superman, even the Post Crisis one, should be having all sorts of over-the-top and amazingly fantastic adventures, and not dealing with terrorists from a made-up country or the like.

Actually, it was Marv Wolfman's take on Lex Luthor. He created the evil billionaire businessman Luthor, Byrne was just the first one who got to use him. The Superman introduced in Byrne's Man of Steel mini-series was designed by a committee, not by Byrne himself like most people think.

I wouldn't say Lois inherited Jimmy's old role; I wouldn't say anyone did, really, as none of Superman's supporting cast has been turned into a giant turtle man, or traveled back to ancient Rome with a Beatles mop-top wig and sparked Beatle-Mania a thousand years too early (yes, Jimmy did that once). Jimmy and Lois under Byrne had the same roles they'd had since they lost their own titles back in the early 70's. It's the DC Implosion that did for Jimmy's status as "Superman's Pal."

There's a lot of Fridge Logic the comics try to justify about why there weren't other Kryptonians. I wonder why they didn't just use the explanation of "space travel was a new thing for them, Superman was sent in an FTL prototype". Hey, it's an alien culture, it doesn't have to advance in the way we did

There was a Silver Age explanation that the Kryptonians had a space program, but abandoned it after a particularly horrendous accident that destroyed a colonized moon. It was a fairly recent business, as Lara, Superman's mother, had apparently been an astronaut (something only women were allowed to do on Silver-Age Krypton, for some reason).

But sure, it wouldn't be hard to explain why even a technologically advance culture might not be interested in space travel. Maybe they're xenophobic. Maybe they have a situation similar to the planet Krikkit in Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy novels, where their planet exists in a space cloud that obscures their view of the stars, and so they've never been aware that there is a universe beyond their planet.

edited 26th Jun '16 9:48:35 PM by Robbery

xenophobia is the answer since post crisis.

So I'm reading Superman #258 and everything's going just fine as usual, at least until I get this little doozy:

Considering that the actual Harry Potter that everyone actually knows and loves was made decades after this comic, it's hard to imagine there's any real connection there, but it's still a hoot to imagine that at some point in his life, ol' Harry decided to hang up his magic wand and lead a life that was virtually an antithesis to everything he had learned and done up until that point. Oh, and Supes!Harry also has glasses. Coincidence? YOU MAKE THE CALL!

edited 28th Jun '16 8:32:34 PM by kkhohoho

New Jurgens Interview

Says Clark and Supes have been "on stage together" but claims the Mr. Oz mystery will take a while longer

In today's Action Comics Jon is becoming a fan of Lex, and the mystery Kent says Superman "put him in hiding", Superdad's all "huh?"

Going back to Superman's immortality...it'd be neat if we got some sort of possible future series about Superman dealing with that and living throughout the centuries

As long as his friends and family don't get murdered, everything should be okay. Would Kryptonians be considered practically extinct or critically endangered?

Critically endangered, I'd say. How many survivors are there now? There's Superman, Supergirl, and...what's the status on Kandor and Phantom Zone villains?

There's stuff from the Bronze Age that hints at him doing that. Elliot S. Maggin played with that particular idea a few times, with Curt Swan drawing him as a still pretty powerful looking figure with long white hair and beard. Maggin had it too that he eventually left Earth to explore the universe.

Didn't he show up in Kamandi once, or was that just his costume?

edited 20th Jul '16 10:19:47 PM by Robbery

They played with that a little bit in Superman Beyond and Justice League Beyond. Nearly a century had passed, as with the Batman Beyond timeline, and Superman was finally free of Starro's control. He basically woke up to a world where everyone he knew was dead or incredibly old. Worst of all, Lex Luthor had put trace amounts of Kryptonite into the water supply, filling the bodies of the citizens of Metropolis with Kryptonite so that Superman can never go home.

Grant Morrison also did it with DC One Million — once Superman has finished fixing the sun in the far future, he is reunited with a clone of Lois and they live happily ever after. Or something.

Comic Book Questions Answered – How Many People Has Superman Killed?

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2016/07/23/comic-book-questions-answered-how-many-people-have-superman-killed/#comments

Superman's immortality in the far future is also a plot point in John Byrne's Superman/Batman Generations.

edited 25th Jul '16 2:13:18 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Action Comics finally saw everyone move to a different location As Doomsday senses Jon and seeks him out in the outskirts of town. Jon and Lois drive to safety and Supes and Diana catch up to them. Diana is very accepting of Lois and Clark, saying it "feels true". We also get a refresher on Doomsday's 1990s origin from Hunter/Prey

RIP N52 Lois

...Wait, what? Isn't she supposed to be Superwoman now? How the heck is she dead?

Both Lois and Lana got part of Superman's powers, Lois with the traditional flying, super strength, etc, and Lana with the electricity powers. However, at the end of the issue, Lois got into a fight with new villain "Ultra Woman" and went nova and then turned into stone, similar to how Superman died. I'm hoping it's a fake-out, because the Lois and Lana friendship on the first issue was really good.

The kryptonian powers might shorten her life expectancy. I think they've done the "giving Superman's powerset to a human will be lethal" plot before a few times. Even though Batman has had the powers before and been fine. Except some stories have it be that Bruce might die from it.

That's super duper dumb. "Kill 'em, we have the old ones now." Also... electricity powers??

Before she dies, she apparently sees her Clark and says "Of course it all makes sense now" and then that's that

So there's at least some more insight, vague as it is, into the fate of N52 Superman