Superman Projects That Almost Were

[godisawesome]

My point is that Didio being a “fan” of something doesn’t mean he wouldn’t reverse course if whatever he was a fan of was not measuring up to his standards. He proved that time and again.

If anything, his problem being too quick to judge things as not measuring up to his standards and reversing course. And unfortunately, while he was a genuine fan, he was a fan in his own peculiar way, and while he was a businessman, he was generally a stubbornly myopic and arrogant businessman.

[Jim Kelly]

Reading ACTION COMICS 424 (June 1973), in the "Coming Super-Attractions," I noticed the announcement of a new Supermen of America Club.



As far as I know, nothing came of this particular effort to revive the Supermen of America. I think I would have remembered if it had. Later on, they did start up a club with different chapters. I joined the Superman Club at that time--nothing much came of this, either, but I did get a few nifty items in the mail. So if I had been able to get in on Supermen of America, back in 1973, I would doubtless have made the effort.

[Matt Rat]

I loved it when they called stories 'novels'

[Vordan]

Reading ACTION COMICS 424 (June 1973), in the "Coming Super-Attractions," I noticed the announcement of a new Supermen of America Club.



As far as I know, nothing came of this particular effort to revive the Supermen of America. I think I would have remembered if it had. Later on, they did start up a club with different chapters. I joined the Superman Club at that time--nothing much came of this, either, but I did get a few nifty items in the mail. So if I had been able to get in on Supermen of America, back in 1973, I would doubtless have made the effort.

Oh interesting the Supermen of America was supposed to be a real life fan club? I remember them using that name for the end of Grounded where Clark was teased to be building a parallel organization to the Batman, Inc one Bruce had founded.




Of course it never happened because the New 52 reboot was coming. And then there was also that 90s Supermen of America team. Someone at DC must have either loved the name or been really disappointed it never happened in the real world lol.

[Jim Kelly]

The Supermen of America was an actual club that existed in the early days of Superman. It seems to have been started almost from the inception of the Man of Steel--proving Jerry and Joe's point that anyone can become a Superman (with healthy living). Other clubs like this existed, too--Captain Marvel and the Justice Society both had their own clubs. There were coded messages in comics that you could decipher with your decoder (such as a ring or a dial)--although these codes aren't hard to break for anyone who has read Sherlock Holmes.

Some form of the Supermen of America seems to have existed right up to the 1960s--since even early 1960s comics had coded messages. There was also a Superman Club of Great Britain, which I imagine I would have had to join, being Canadian, if I had been around back then.

[Myskin]

Already posted in another thread, but I'll add a couple of details.

It has been a while (at least 5-6 years), but I remember that at one point Kurt Busiek actually had vague plans for a Toymen war in his run, which would have involved Winslow Schott, Jack Nimball and the mechanical Toyman introduced in "Up, up and away". There is of course an unwritten version of the Brainiac saga by Busiek and Johns as well, which would have involved Kristin Wells, the "third Kryptonian" introduced by Busiek, a variation on the Superwoman theme.

I am also quite sure that at one point Jeph Loeb had similar plans for the Japanese Toyman and later Toymaster (Hiro something, a character whose reason to be I have never understood), which would have involved a Pokemon/Kaiju invasion. And speaking of it, we all know that the Russian Zod introduced by Joe Kelly was supposed to be an alternate version of Kal El gone crazy, but who was Ignition supposed to be?

Johns' run is a goldmine of unreleased stories.There was at least one Doomsday story planned as well as a Mxyzptlk one (they were announced somewhere with pulp-ish titles like "The Madness of Mxyzptlk!" or something like that).
Moreover, it is strongly implied in the Brainiac saga that Brainiac himself was responsible for the destruction of Krypton. Also: in Last Son they suggest that in this version of the story Kandor was supposed to be one of Krypton's MOON, not a city (evil Kryptonian Jax-Ur was thought to be responsible for its destruction). Lastly, in Secret Origins Bizarro was supposed to appear alongside Metallo and the Parasite (somewhere there is a version of Gary Frank's 6th cover of the series with Bizarro's silhouette, later changed into a Bizarro-less version). And in SO they also suggest that Luthor cutting his hand with a fragment of kryptonite when he was young would have been of some relevance, but that subplot was never followed (maybe was it the reason of his baldness?).

Last but not least, Waid has just reintroduced in World's Finest Dr Phoenix, the Abominable Snowman, introduced in Superman 266 (good issue, by the way). Well, apparently Grant Morrison had planned for the Snowman to appear in All Star Superman, even if he changed his mind later.

[marhawkman]

The Supermen of America was an actual club that existed in the early days of Superman. It seems to have been started almost from the inception of the Man of Steel--proving Jerry and Joe's point that anyone can become a Superman (with healthy living). Other clubs like this existed, too--Captain Marvel and the Justice Society both had their own clubs. There were coded messages in comics that you could decipher with your decoder (such as a ring or a dial)--although these codes aren't hard to break for anyone who has read Sherlock Holmes.

Some form of the Supermen of America seems to have existed right up to the 1960s--since even early 1960s comics had coded messages. There was also a Superman Club of Great Britain, which I imagine I would have had to join, being Canadian, if I had been around back then.

I wonder if that's why so many comics had readable kryptonian script in them?

[Alan2099]

Marvel asked Stan Lee to write a Superman vs the Hulk comic in the 90s. Stan wanted Mike Deodato, Jr. and arranged for him to work on the book before Marvel eventually shot the project down.

Several years later another Superman/Hulk comic would come out with a completely different creative team.

[Thor-Ul]

Marvel asked Stan Lee to write a Superman vs the Hulk comic in the 90s. Stan wanted Mike Deodato, Jr. and arranged for him to work on the book before Marvel eventually shot the project down.

Several years later another Superman/Hulk comic would come out with a completely different creative team.

Well, at least Stan had his chance to write Superman.

[dornwolf]

I vaguely remember during the era of the New52 Superman, that either in the miniseries where "SuperDad" was in hiding letting New52 Superman be the Superman of the DC Universe (Chronicled in a miniseries by Dan Jurgens IIRC correctly. SuperDad wore a black suit similar to the one from the Resurrection tank or whatever it was the post-Crisis Superman was in when he was resurrected after dying at the hands of Doomsday, and did some good work in secret, like stopping Tsunamis from hitting land by running under water), or somewhere early thereafter, that one or both of the Supermen (In those days, both variations on Clark Kent, not Clark and Jon), was noticing that his powers were slightly diminished (Not in the context of the New52 Truth arc, where they obviously were).

I think we discussed it here or elsewhere, and there was some discussion of "Well, maybe it's just SuperDad because he's getting a little older, and maybe his powers are declining a tad as part of the aging process in the same way athletes aren't usually as good at sports at 50 as they were when they were younger.", but someone found a similar reference from either the New52 Superman or Keenan Kong, both of whom were too young for it, prompting us to speculate if this was a planetary issue affecting Kryptonians, or with earth's sun (In the context of the DC Universe), that was going to come to a head later. And then it was dropped.

Ultimately, that may have just been a way of signaling that SuperDad and the New52 Superman were both half of a whole, building to the Superman Reborn story arc a couple years later, or that one of them was dying (Obviously, New52 Superman is the one who died, but maybe it was originally planned to be SuperDad), but I noticed in these 5g rumors, Clark Kent is said to be retiring to Africa after his powers diminish.

Is there any possibility SuperDad noticing his powers weren't quite what they used to be was actually an early seed for 5G (Which was planned but never happened)? Or am I giving them too much credit for long-term planning and foreshadowing?

I remember this being the pitch as well. It had nothing to do with 5G, it was really just going to be a cheap and lazy way to have superbro and Superbad both exist. They eventually, obviously, said screw it

[Myskin]

Another abandoned subplot...
In Loeb's and Kelly's run President Luthor finds out Supes' identity. It is later found out that the mastermind behind it was Manchester Black, who - in Ending Battle - is discovered to be also the reason behind Pa Kent's memory lapses. But Manchester's presence was a last-minute addition and it is clear that they had a different plan originally.
Well, I don't remember precisely what the outcome of the identity thing was planned to be, but there is one specific issue - maybe just after Our Worlds at War - in which they strongly imply that Pa Kent is starting to suffer from some form of dementia.
I don't know whether they were planning some sort of reveal here as well, but I have gotta say - if they were thinking of making Pa Kent dying from Alzheimer's or something like that it would have been incredibly risky, but also groundbreaking and heartbreaking as well.

[Bruce Wayne]

Fallout and rewrites from OWAW: apparently that crossover really screwed their sales.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/supe...ddie-berganza/

So Our Worlds at War was a kill fest. The teams lost the readers' faith. People who never read Superman suddenly hated the Superman teams. Sales dropped. As sales dropped, the writers lost clout and had pre-approved stories axed.

DC management was also changing. More on this in a second. But the Loeb teams had a multi-year arc approved by Jennette Khan and Eddie Berganza that went out the window around the time Loeb quit [in 2002, around the same time Khan left]. They just had Luthor discover Superman's identity and were told… NO. Can't advance that plot. Have to reverse it. This threw out years worth of planning while Loeb was dealing with his kid's cancer.

I remember the pre-publicity over OWAW, it really emphasized the deaths of Aquaman/Guy/Hippolyta. Probably turned off people.

[Stanlos]

Fallout and rewrites from OWAW: apparently that crossover really screwed their sales.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/supe...ddie-berganza/



I remember the pre-publicity over OWAW, it really emphasized the deaths of Aquaman/Guy/Hippolyta. Probably turned off people.

OWAW's failings for me (outside of pooping on some characters' power levels *insert interminable grunting and DBZ power lines here*) were that the main books (the Superman books) had the poorest writing.It was pitched as a war story but with superheroes. Scribes like PAD and Phil Jimenez not only got the assignment, they hit out of the solar system. I think Loeb relied too heavily on quotes from presidential speeches and war vets without having them connect with what was on the page. It was almost like having a standard issue of Archie but with heavy historical layered on top at random.

The other thing is that it is supposed to show off Superman as a leader and General but instead introduces a new cheese (Sun Dip, which caused a million message board posters a million million destroyed pants) and was implemented in a way that cartoonishly rendered everything that had gone before as trivial. A lesser complaint for me was the conclusion featured the Human Torch wearing a fire retardant Superman suit rather than the iconic Superman.

The last major issue the jobbing. Loeb even had Flash in OUTER SPACE just to job. Bruh. The less said about Darkseid here the better.

The good thing is that Loeb was receptive to feedback and did go on to improve. So there's that.

[Vordan]

One thing I remembered is that Jurgens said he had stayed on Action post 1000 he would have done a Conduit story next.

[Vordan]

Guess I’ll just add this here too, King talks at the start of this second part of yesterday’s WB interview that he wants to write Superman, and in fact he kept trying to get the book every time it opened up but he was always too late. Tomasi got it before he could for Rebirth, Bendis got it after, and Williamson got it recently.

For this at least I’m sure King will end up on one of the main Superbooks at some point.