Grant Morrison's T-shirt and Jeans Superman Returns.

[Ascended]

Only I'm confused by people's comments? Superman is superman, I do not see any difference of the two.

It's just a Superman from a particular continuity.

Morrison's t-shirt Superman is slightly different from the Superman we currently have. The Superman Bendis is writing, that Tomasi and Jurgens wrote, has a lot of similarities to t-shirt Superman (Nuperman) and a few points of shared backstory, but differences too.

Just like the Donner Superman is different from the Snyder Superman, but both characters are still Superman.

[HeroVladimir93]

This might be an unfounded fear, but I don't want DC to make New 52 Superman a recurring presence in the DC Universe because it might get too confusing for readers to keep up with two Supermen.

[SuperCrab]

This might be an unfounded fear, but I don't want DC to make New 52 Superman a recurring presence in the DC Universe because it might get too confusing for readers to keep up with two Supermen.

I think most comic book buyers in this day and age are adult enthusiasts who could easily follow and understand the distinction. Marvel has about half a dozen versions of Wolverine running around, and that seems to work for them (Actually, they have two or more of a lot of their characters). If fans can understand stuff like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and Flashpoint, this should be a piece of cake if they go in that direction.

Besides, doesn't DC Comics currently have three or four versions of The Flash, two of whom are Wally West, running around? There are persistent rumors that they may evwn be adding another- Jay Garrick.

So, two Supermen would hardly be unprecedented or confuaing for the vast majority of fans. They are already used to similar situations with all the other comics they read that have differing versions of characters. They understood it back when the Earth 1 and Earth 2 Supermen existed side by side before the first Crisis.

The only reason people are confused about this Sideways cover is because they haven't read the story yet and right now the official line at DC Comics is that there is only one Superman and that the New52 Superman first died and then was merged into the main guy. If they establish that a version of N52 Superman lives and explain why, and give him a monthly title, people won't be confused. Its a common thing in comics.

Plus, Superman is high profile enough that it'd be well publicized in the comic world. If they can understand it when it comes to unpoplar characters that there isn't as much chatter about, they'll get it with Superman, where it'll be easier to find the explanation.

[Sacred Knight]

Yeah, it'd be no problem for people to adapt to the idea of more than one Superman. Hell I think it might be a stretch to say it would need any adaption period, period. It had been done regularly for three decades before the original Crisis. And in modern era, its something that came back to utilization more regularly across the lore spectrum 15+ years ago and has never really left since. The current end result is that its nothing odd to any currently active generation of reader anymore.

I just have little desire to see different versions of the same character running around the same reality. Keep them, for the most part, housed on their own worlds and its fine.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I am doing a re-read of the beginning and end of Morrison's Action Comics run and he makes it pretty explicit that Vyndkvx attacks Superman across all world's at all times. Add on to that Tomasi & Gleason's Multiverse Superman story and I think we're now dealing with a Superman who transcends any single incarnation of Superman these days. He's just meant to be Superman. Period. His origins and details are different across the Multiverse, but it's always the same man.

[Kuwagaton]

It's been that way since Zero Hour.

As it's been said though, I dunno if that's Kubert drawing Superman younger or not. Hope he does the interiors.

Only I'm confused by people's comments? Superman is superman, I do not see any difference of the two.

Best it can be said, frankly.

[Ascended]

I'd assume that the extra size and bulk we're seeing here is just Kubert's style. We could be looking at an older version of Superman who never stopped wearing the t-shirt (multiverse, after all) and I wouldn't put it past Morrison to do something like that, where it's our Nuperman but not really. But I'm betting this is just supposed to be Nuperman, as we remember him from Morrison's Action run, and Kubert just likes to draw his characters crazy ripped.

This is, after all, just a annual for Sideways. I doubt the origins of this alt-Nuperman are going to be overly complex or different from what we remember from the New52. It's not his book, and the more page time they spend explaining this Nuperman and any potential differences to what we know, the less time they'll have for Sideways to be quippy.

[Kuwagaton]

In that case, I guess a version who never graduated to a costume since this looks older than the one time Kubert drew a younger "t-shirt" Superman. But that's not to say his way of depicting the character can't just change on his whim.

[Lvenger]

Morrison has always written almost everything that's happened in comics as canon under his pen so it makes sense he'd be willing to bring Jeans & T-Shirt Superman back. It's not clear if that is the New 52 Superman Morrison wrote though. Could be a Dark Multiverse version of the character that is similar to Jeans & T-shirt Superman, we'll have to wait and see what the deal is beyond that cover. It's a shame Morrison doesn't write Sideways though, a dimension hopping teenage superhero who goes on adventures across the multiverse is right up Morrison's alley. Can't say I have a strong desire to see Jeans and T-shirt Superman history back in continuity though, I prefer a more classical Superman already in his costume and with a complete powerset when starting his career.

[SiegePerilous02]

Only I'm confused by people's comments? Superman is superman, I do not see any difference of the two.

Costume aside, there isn't really. It's a different interpretation of Superman, one specifically that is younger and more brash initially, but everything about him has his roots in the very creation of the character. The fact that so many Golden and Silver Age elements are present with him means that he is as traditional a Superman as it gets.

Again, aside from the costume. If he switched from t-shirt and jeans to his more iconic look, there would be much less solid ground to build criticisms off of.

Morrison has always written almost everything that's happened in comics as canon under his pen so it makes sense he'd be willing to bring Jeans & T-Shirt Superman back. It's not clear if that is the New 52 Superman Morrison wrote though. Could be a Dark Multiverse version of the character that is similar to Jeans & T-shirt Superman, we'll have to wait and see what the deal is beyond that cover. It's a shame Morrison doesn't write Sideways though, a dimension hopping teenage superhero who goes on adventures across the multiverse is right up Morrison's alley. Can't say I have a strong desire to see Jeans and T-shirt Superman history back in continuity though, I prefer a more classical Superman already in his costume and with a complete powerset when starting his career.

His reduced power set and t-shirt costume didn't last very long in the New 52 continuity. I don't think he'd been in Metropolis even a year before his powers took a leap and he got a costume. I don't think returning it to continuity would upset any apple carts, he'd obviously not behave the same way in the present (younger, just-starting-out Superman should not act exactly the same way as adult, married Superman who is a father) and they could just tweak it so he gets his more traditional costume instead of the New 52 armor when he first confronts Brainiac.

[Ascended]

Morrison has always written almost everything that's happened in comics as canon under his pen so it makes sense he'd be willing to bring Jeans & T-Shirt Superman back. It's not clear if that is the New 52 Superman Morrison wrote though.

I'm pretty sure it's not. Sideways is a character built from alternate reality stuff (the dark multiverse) and Nuperman, with one or two minor exceptions, no longer happened in continuity. So this is almost certainly a t-shirt Superman from some kind of Hypertime tangent or dark multiverse reality or World Forge bubble or something.

If the dark multiverse is where dead worlds go to be recycled, and reality was re-written during Reborn to merge Superdad and Nuperman, then what we're looking at is probably the "cast off" history that Reborn discarded.

[HeroVladimir93]

Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard, maybe this isn't the New 52 Superman, maybe it's a Superman that only looks like New 52 Superman but with enough differences to make him a different version of the character. He could be left in his own universe, having his own adventures without interfering in the life of the current Superman. He could be DC's answer to Ultimate Spider-Man.... if DC already had one in Earth One Superman.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Costume aside, there isn't really. It's a different interpretation of Superman, one specifically that is younger and more brash initially, but everything about him has his roots in the very creation of the character. The fact that so many Golden and Silver Age elements are present with him means that he is as traditional a Superman as it gets.

Again, aside from the costume. If he switched from t-shirt and jeans to his more iconic look, there would be much less solid ground to build criticisms off of.



His reduced power set and t-shirt costume didn't last very long in the New 52 continuity. I don't think he'd been in Metropolis even a year before his powers took a leap and he got a costume. I don't think returning it to continuity would upset any apple carts, he'd obviously not behave the same way in the present (younger, just-starting-out Superman should not act exactly the same way as adult, married Superman who is a father) and they could just tweak it so he gets his more traditional costume instead of the New 52 armor when he first confronts Brainiac.

Agreed. The jeans and t-shirt phase is just a visual shorthand for Superman being a young rough n' tumble social crusader who had the earliest power levels of the original Superman. It was only meant to represent a six month embryonic stage of Superman's career

[Kuwagaton]

The thing about that is if you would actually like Superman's career to have an embryonic stage, I guess. Even Superboy resisted "learning the ropes." But details aside I do think Morrison's story is infinitely stronger than SO and I wound't mind reading a Superman where that story was his official background.

[Ascended]

Agreed. The jeans and t-shirt phase is just a visual shorthand for Superman being a young rough n' tumble social crusader who had the earliest power levels of the original Superman. It was only meant to represent a six month embryonic stage of Superman's career

I still can't believe DC dropped that origin. It was amazing, worked perfectly well, had layers, provided the groundwork for future stories involving many aspects of the mythos, etc.

Though to quibble, I believe Clark ended up wearing the t-shirt for about a year before he switched to the armor full time.

Six months from his debut to the first issue of 52 Action (with the Zero Year hurricane happening towards the start of this period). At least a few weeks, if not a few months, during that full arc (Clark retired for a time in there too, once the public began to push back against his methodology) and then he spent some time wearing the t-shirt while in Metropolis, and wearing the armor only for big threats or when working with the League.