Post-Crisis Superman Pitches That Didn't Require A Reboot?

[All Star Superman]

Does anyone have any specific information regarding the pitches for revamping Superman post-COIE that didn't involve a reboot? I've read that Moore, Miller, and Byrne pitched ideas that wouldn't have required the full reboot WB/DC ultimately decided on.

[TaliaJoy]

I didn't know this was even a thing. Now I'm curious too.

[Filbert]

Sounds like you're talking about Cary Bates' suggestion, discussed here:
https://www.cbr.com/superman-cary-bates-reboot/

[TaliaJoy]

Sounds like you're talking about Cary Bates' suggestion, discussed here:
https://www.cbr.com/superman-cary-bates-reboot/

Awesome - thanks for sharing! Doesn't sound like a bad idea, but as Cary mentioned in the article, it might have not been what DC was looking for.

[All Star Superman]

Sounds like you're talking about Cary Bates' suggestion, discussed here:
https://www.cbr.com/superman-cary-bates-reboot/

This is very interesting, but I don't think this is what I've read about. I'll do some more digging.

[superduperman]

There was also Chris Claremont's suggestion that the Earth 2 Superman should be the official one and his gray hair and wrinkles were just make up he wore to keep people from noticing his age.

[bat39]

Byrne himself originally pitched a soft reboot wherein MOS would be a 'Year One'-style miniseries revamping Superman's early years, while the bulk of Pre-Crisis continuity would more or less stay intact, barring a few cosmetic changes (basically what we ended up getting with Batman). It was DC/WB that was adamant that all Pre-Crisis continuity had to be thrown out and that MOS had to lead directly into the relaunched Post-Crisis Superman titles.

Another one of Byrne's early ideas was that a pregnant Lara came to earth in the rocket and gave birth in the presence of the Kents in their barn...before succumbing to poisoning from a shard of kryptonite lodged in the rocket. DC vetoed it because it deviated too much from the established mythos.

There was also Chris Claremont's suggestion that the Earth 2 Superman should be the official one and his gray hair and wrinkles were just make up he wore to keep people from noticing his age.

Yeah, I've watched an interview with him describing it.

Ironically, this is pretty much what happened with Superman Reborn, and the Post-Crisis Superman taking over from the New 52 Superman

[Doctor Know]

Bi-Polar DC editorial office struck again. Byrne explains that he was told he would be able to restart Superman from day one and rebuild everything up gradually. He was told, "get rid of everything, but don't throw anything away".

Once the contracts were signed however, DC reneged. Byrne was to write a fully realized Superman from the jump after his six-part MOS mini-series. Crisis changes be damned! DC directed Byrne was to write Superman as if Crisis and the reboot never happened. There was no Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis Superman to the powers that be. They were the same character. Something that Byrne chaffed under as you can imagine.


1. Byrne wrote and penciled the character, but DC was still promoting the Pre-Crisis Jose Garcia-Lopez model of Superman for the advertising.


2. "Get rid of everything, but don't throw anything away". Post-Crisis Supes = Pre-Crisis Supes. But the things DC didn't want undone still applied. Like Superman being the Last and ONLY survivor of Krypton. A rule they didn't break until 2004 with Jeph Loeb's Superman/Batman: Supergirl Saga.

No Super Pets. No Clark Superboy. No Legion History. No time traveling descendants (Kristin Wells Superwoman and Laurel Kent on Legion). The Super powers were to remain scaled down. The Kents were to remain alive. The old personalities and nature of the supporting cast (Lois, Lana, Perry, Jimmy) were not to return from Pre-Crisis. Batman was no longer Superman's genuine friend like in the Silver and Bronze Age. DC following Frank Miller's interpretation from TDKReturns and his input on relaunching Superman with Byrne.

3. Who's Line is it Anyway?: The Post-Crisis was infamous for referencing Pre-Crisis events. When they couldn't have happened at all. Chief example would be Superman being a founding member of the JL. When The JL Detroit is the first League in this continuity. Followed swiftly by the JLI. You have Superman say repeatedly on his own book (written by Byrne), in Legends (written by Ostander), and on JLI (Giffen and DeMattis) that Superman is not a team player and has never thought about joining such an ensemble. With the caveat that if the League would ever need him. He would be there.

It's worse for WW. She was introduced late to the Post-Crisis Universe. Using the Robin's as an anchor. Jason Todd was Robin and Dick was Nightwing when Diana made her debut to the world in Legends. On JLI and JL Europe, you have characters like Ralph (Elongated), Wally, Carter and Sheira, Hal, Guy and others constantly referencing the Satellite Years, as if any of that could've happened. No way Diana could be a founding member of the League the aforementioned characters make reference to.
Vixen and J'onn did infrequent references to the Detroit years.


Apply the nonsense we saw happen with the New 52, to the Post-Crisis reboot and you'll know what the score is. No one is to blame more than DC editorial. DC mandated a hard reboot of Superman and they did almost everything they could to undermine the people (chiefly Byrne and Wolfman) they directed to make it happen.

[bat39]

Bi-Polar DC editorial office struck again. Byrne explains that he was told he would be able to restart Superman from day one and rebuild everything up gradually. He was told, "get rid of everything, but don't throw anything away".

Once the contracts were signed however, DC reneged. Byrne was to write a fully realized Superman from the jump after his six-part MOS mini-series. Crisis changes be damned; to DC, Byrne was to write Superman as if Crisis and the reboot never happened. There was no Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis Superman to the powers that be. They were the same character. Something that Byrne chaffed under as you can imagine.


1. Byrne wrote and penciled the character, but DC was still promoting the Pre-Crisis Jose Garcia-Lopez model of Superman for the advertising.


2. "Get rid of everything, but don't throw anything away". Post-Crisis Supes = Pre-Crisis Supes. But the things DC didn't want undone still applied. Like Superman being the Last and ONLY survivor of Krypton. A rule they didn't break until 2004 with Jeph Loeb's Superman/Batman: Supergirl Saga.

No Super Pets. No Clark Superboy. No Legion History. No time traveling descendants (Kristin Wells Superwoman and Laurel Kent on Legion). The Super powers were to remain scaled down. The Kents were to remain alive. The old personalities and nature of the supporting cast (Lois, Lana, Perry, Jimmy) were not to return from Pre-Crisis. Batman was no longer Superman's genuine friend like in the Silver and Bronze Age. DC following Frank Miller's interpretation from TDKReturns and his input on relaunching Superman with Byrne.

3. Who's Line is it Anyway?: The Post-Crisis was infamous for referencing Pre-Crisis events. When they couldn't have happened at all. Chief example would be Superman being a founding member of the JL. When The JL Detroit is the first League in this continuity. Followed swiftly by the JLI. You have Superman say repeatedly on his own book (written by Byrne), in Legends (written by Ostander), and on JLI (Giffen and DeMattis) that Superman is not a team player and has never thought about joining such an ensemble. With the caveat that if the League would ever need him. He would be there.

It's worse for WW. She was introduced late to the Post-Crisis Universe. Using the Robin's as an anchor. Jason Todd was Robin and Dick was Nightwing when Diana made her debut to the world in Legends. On JLI and JL Europe, you have characters like Ralph (Elongated), Wally, Carter and Sheira, Hal, Guy and others constantly referencing the Satellite Years, as if any of that could've happened. No way Diana could be a founding member of the League the aforementioned characters make reference to.
Vixen and J'onn did infrequent references to the Detroit years.


Apply the nonsense we saw happen with the New 52, to the Post-Crisis reboot and you'll know what the score is. No one is to blame more than DC editorial. DC mandated a hard reboot of Superman and they did almost everything they could to undermine the people (chiefly Byrne and Wolfman) they directed to make it happen.

Well, to be fair, the Post-Crisis idea was that most of the Silver/Bronze Age JLA stories did happen, but with the Trinity no longer being members. (Later, this was re-retconned such that Superman and Batman were members, albeit not founders, before IC just restored the Trinity to their founder status).

But with Superman, the Post-Crisis timeline was a mess. MOS was very much a 'Year One'-style series in terms of its actual plot and structure, but because of the stricture that MOS # 6 needed to lead into the relaunched Superman title, it was set over the span of about 3 years (Lois erroneously mentions 5 years at one point). So Superman's entire career was 3 years...which didn't line up at all with the rest of the DCU (Batman had been around at least a decade due to Dick's age, for starters). But more than the number of years, you had a weird situation where Superman was first meeting the likes of Metallo and Brainiac in the 'present-day' at a time when you had the JLI and New Teen Titans around.

[superduperman]

Stuff like this is why I tend to see things like Batman Year One as a stand alone story. Superman is referenced in it directly at least twice. Which means he would have to have been around at the same time as Batman. If we're doing the math, that means that MOS took place either ten years in the past or over a span of a decade. Which means Lois's five years statement might be accurate for that story. The post-Crisis timeline doesn't work on it's face.

[All Star Superman]

Byrne himself originally pitched a soft reboot wherein MOS would be a 'Year One'-style miniseries revamping Superman's early years, while the bulk of Pre-Crisis continuity would more or less stay intact, barring a few cosmetic changes (basically what we ended up getting with Batman).

Do you have any more info on this? I'm curious as to what could have been done to revamp Superman's early years that would have also allowed for a soft reboot. Are we talking what Byrne did with Spider-Man Chapter One? I'd have preferred a soft reboot so that Clark's time as Superboy and some Kryptonian mythology was preserved.

[superduperman]

I think he said he would have been willing to keep Superboy so that he could get training in his early years and not to mess up the Legion stuff. But what form that would have taken is anyone's guess.

[Filbert]

Byrne has said on his website that he ditched Superboy so he could write Clark learning the ropes, like post-Crisis Wonder Woman. But it was decided that Superman had been around for 5-10 years anyway, so it was moot. He knew this would mess with the Legion and was told not to worry because they had a plan for that (they didn't until after Byrne left).

[Filbert]

You might be thinking of the 1998 Superman 2000 pitch by Mark Millar, Mark Waid, Grant Morriso, and Tom Peyer. You can read about it here:
http://theages.superman.nu/History/2000/

[bat39]

Do you have any more info on this? I'm curious as to what could have been done to revamp Superman's early years that would have also allowed for a soft reboot. Are we talking what Byrne did with Spider-Man Chapter One? I'd have preferred a soft reboot so that Clark's time as Superboy and some Kryptonian mythology was preserved.

Its been ages (like at least a decade) since I've read some of this stuff, so unfortunately I don't remember all of the details. I'm guessing he'd have basically redone the origin, and then skipped ahead to the present-day, with all the Silver/Bronze Age elements (Krypto, Phantom Zoners, Red Kryptonite etc.) now 'off-screen' but having still once existed, leaving the bulk of past continuity intact.

I think he said he would have been willing to keep Superboy so that he could get training in his early years and not to mess up the Legion stuff. But what form that would have taken is anyone's guess.

Byrne has said on his website that he ditched Superboy so he could write Clark learning the ropes, like post-Crisis Wonder Woman. But it was decided that Superman had been around for 5-10 years anyway, so it was moot. He knew this would mess with the Legion and was told not to worry because they had a plan for that (they didn't until after Byrne left).

Yeah, he's said that he wished he'd retained Superboy after DC/WB forced him to have Superman as an established hero by the end of MOS.

That's where this strange tension in MOS (and even some of the early issues of Superman vol. 2) comes from, where on the one hand we're dealing with an established Superman, and on the other hand it still feels like this is a 'Year One' story. I mean, Superman meeting Lex Luthor for the first time, fighting his first real 'supervillain' in the form of Bizarro, and discovering his Kryptonian heritage, feels like 'Year One' stuff, and yet in-universe all this happened after he'd been around for a few years (probably many years if you account for the wider DCU timeline). If you pick up an early issue of Byrne's Post-Crisis Superman run today, its weird to think that this stuff was supposed to be set in the then-present DCU, rather than being a 'flashback' story!