Discarded Superman Continuity You Still Accept as Canon

[magha_regulus]

Outside of any regular continuity, but I really liked the idea that Lex Luthor pencils in his eyebrows as depicted in all-star superman.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Outside of any regular continuity, but I really liked the idea that Lex Luthor pencils in his eyebrows as depicted in all-star superman.

Oh, that's been canon for me the moment I read it. In all continuities and media.

[Sacred Knight]

As vain and perfectly fitting as it is I just think he looks so much cooler when drawn with natural red brows.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

As vain and perfectly fitting as it is I just think he looks so much cooler when drawn with natural red brows.

Those are lab-grown eyebrows designed to look indistinguishable from real eyebrows. He is the world's smartest man, after all

[marhawkman]

Those are lab-grown eyebrows designed to look indistinguishable from real eyebrows. He is the world's smartest man, after all

Hahaha, that is great.

[phantom1592]

For me it would always be teenage Superboy adventures. As was said, DC be damned, but that's part of MY superman canon and kryptonians always get their powers immediately in a yellow sun. None of this stored up energy nonsense.

[Rod G]

I stand by my theory that this is not the "real" Jor-El.

Agreed.

He may yet turn out to be an alternate Jor-El.

[Jim Kelly]

The real Jor-El would not be caught dead with that haircut.

[Sacred Knight]

To be fair his choices are rather slim with half his head burned.

[Soubhagya]

For me it would always be teenage Superboy adventures. As was said, DC be damned, but that's part of MY superman canon and kryptonians always get their powers immediately in a yellow sun. None of this stored up energy nonsense.

Pardon me but either you or anyone here plz clear my doubt. It is a really cool image to see baby Kal lift up huge weights surprising everyone. But i see taking care of such a child is difficult. Superman can take care of himself. For him all world is made of cardboard. He is extra careful. But a baby Kal-El may simply break the hand of Martha Kent. It is somewhat difficult to imagine a baby as powerful as Superman taken care of by the Kents. Children are moody and easily displeased. Such powers can be injurious or life threatening.

Was there an explanation for that? Or simply accept it or no deal. It is more a trivia. To enjoy Superman i don't exactly need to know how he flies. If there is an explanation i am eager to hear. If not it is fine by me. Maybe Kal-El was a really nice kid. He never threw tantrums. It is fine for me.

[superduperman]

Pardon me but either you or anyone here plz clear my doubt. It is a really cool image to see baby Kal lift up huge weights surprising everyone. But i see taking care of such a child is difficult. Superman can take care of himself. For him all world is made of cardboard. He is extra careful. But a baby Kal-El may simply break the hand of Martha Kent. It is somewhat difficult to imagine a baby as powerful as Superman taken care of by the Kents. Children are moody and easily displeased. Such powers can be injurious or life threatening.

Was there an explanation for that? Or simply accept it or no deal. It is more a trivia. To enjoy Superman i don't exactly need to know how he flies. If there is an explanation i am eager to hear. If not it is fine by me. Maybe Kal-El was a really nice kid. He never threw tantrums. It is fine for me.

New 52 actually tried to address this. It was just one caption box but it basically said that even as an infant he had enough empathy to understand that when he broke Martha's finger (yes, that actually happened) it was wrong. The explanation being that because he was from an advanced species, even as infants they have greater empathy then humans. Elliot S! Maggin's novels also said something similar. Smallville kind of touched on this but never went into any detail. My "middle ground" solution would be something like he has all his powers from day one but they are at a low ebb. So he can fly as a toddler but only for about 30 seconds. As he gets older, his powers grow. So by age 8 he can fly for maybe 30 minutes before he slowly floats down like a balloon. Ditto with all his other powers. So he can lift a tractor over his head with both hands by 8 or 9 and by 12 he can lift it with one hand. I also thought this would be a good origin for the comics just because it's a good combination of pre-and-post crisis versions. It's also about the only variation that hadn't been done before.

Since my Superman was defined by things like the movies and eighties cartoons, it feels "unnatural" to me for him not to have some powers from day one. Not exactly unbiased, I know. I think for this reason I've been a bit unfair to things like TAS which never really "took a side", so to speak, but leaned towards the "no powers til puberty" rule. Which I don't really blame them for given the attitudes at that time.

[Sacred Knight]

That's a fantastic issue by the way. One of Greg Pak's many homeruns with the mythos. Totally dedicated to Superman's mothers Lara and Martha for once instead of the usual focus of either Jor-El or Jonathan. Definitely something that will remain in canon to me. Very touching issue. But yeah, if this is still in continuity, and it totally should be, then baby Kal-El knows from that moment on that he can hurt his mommy being too forceful, and probably never utilized that kind of strength with either mom or dad again.

[superduperman]

The revoking of the New 52 origin is one of the things I disagree with the most about Rebirth. It seems like the only thing they kept from it was the one thing I didn't like, the death of the Kents.

[Jim Kelly]

Pardon me but either you or anyone here plz clear my doubt. It is a really cool image to see baby Kal lift up huge weights surprising everyone. But i see taking care of such a child is difficult. Superman can take care of himself. For him all world is made of cardboard. He is extra careful. But a baby Kal-El may simply break the hand of Martha Kent. It is somewhat difficult to imagine a baby as powerful as Superman taken care of by the Kents. Children are moody and easily displeased. Such powers can be injurious or life threatening.

Was there an explanation for that? Or simply accept it or no deal. It is more a trivia. To enjoy Superman i don't exactly need to know how he flies. If there is an explanation i am eager to hear. If not it is fine by me. Maybe Kal-El was a really nice kid. He never threw tantrums. It is fine for me.

Baby Kal-El was shown to be a bit older when he arrived on Earth in the Weisinger era stories--somewhere between 3 and 5 years old I'd say. And also he had super-intelligence--although he spoke the same dialect as Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan--and he had super-memory. So that might explain why he was easily mollified. I'd also add that he had a good heart. There are some stories where Ma and Pa mistake his actions for delinquency when in fact he's trying to prevent some great wrong.

If his super-brain powers and great empathic connection to others is not enough of an explanation--then I'd retcon the rocketship a bit and say it had an A.I. on board that's highly advanced--maybe it even took the form of a puppy-dog--and Kal-El was always interacting with it on his space-ride to Earth. And then it continued to be involved in his upbringing throughout his time with the Kents--so Ma and Pa had this Kryptonian baby-sitter to help handle the child. Sort of taking "The Super-Teacher from Krypton" idea and back-dating it to Kal-El's arrival on Earth.

A lot of Superboy stories had junk from Krypton arriving on Earth over the years--I'd corral all the worthwhile bits of junk and put them on board the rocket with Kal-El so there's one neat explanation for how this technology got to Earth.

[Adekis]

I always assume that Kal's brain developed as normal for a Kryptonian child - he should be reading Twain by age three, Joyce and Faulkner by age eight, etc, straight Bronze Age style - but I wouldn't ascribe him more than "merely" tremendous strength until his teens, and I wouldn't ascribe him his ability to fly until adulthood. Certainly none of this "infant picks up a tractor" stuff. He's got to be at least thirteen before he can do that - and if Action Comics # 5 is any indication, putting on the banks' roof to mess with cruel bankers at his father's behest!

I always loved that.

Here's an aspect of Kal-El's past that isn't concrete enough - in general, if a version of Superman's origin has a gap in it where Lar Gand can be inserted, I assume some variation of Monday happened to Clark growing up. No reference to it in Morrison's Action? Or the comparatively ill-defined "Reborn" retcon timescape? Mon-El lives in the cracks in the narrative.

Granted, I'm rather of the opinion that continuity is ephemeral and probably not the all-important god that some make it out to be, but characters are more important than continuity. This is why I prefer to think that Superman kept his jeans-and-t-shirt phase even in the Reborn retcon- losing it changes who Superman is, and the version of Superman who used to be that guy is more interesting than a version of Superman who never was. Similarly, the brotherhood between Kal-El and Lar Gand is too good to lose.

I'm really on a Mon-El kick today; for some reason like three of my comments have been about him. Wonder why.