Superman Reborn - What the heck did I just read?

[Slimybug]

So, I fell off of DC Comics around 2011, when it was rebooted. But I've read a handful of New 52 books, and have heard about how Rebirth was sort of, but not really, but kind of, another reboot. I also read about how the New Earth Superman was actually in the New 52 continuity for a while after Convergence. That's what I wanted to learn more about, so I was told about Superman Reborn, which I guess has to do with the whole Rebirth saga, and that's when the New Earth Superman was somehow fused with the New 52 one. So I thought I'd check it out. I had no idea I'd be so confused. This was like reading a Grant Morrison comic book!

So....who's this guy with a scythe, and what's he trying to do?
Mxyxptlk is trying to get back at lark for forgetting about him, so I puts his son in a trap and says Superman has to fly up there to save him. Superman does, and then....he's the NEw 52 Superman, back to life, and doesn't remember Jon. And then, without any further explanations, these ghosts-of-the-NEw0EArth-Supes-and-Lois come and latch on to them, and suddenlt yhe hwole universe is changed to be a merging of New Earth & New 52? Um....what? What happpened? Is htere any beter explanation.

Also, is this the gist of REbirth? Is this mini the catalyst that leads to the whole thing? I'm so confused...

[Kuwagaton]

So look, I usually try to be optimistic but the most sincere thing I can say is: it kinda sticks as a landing or doesn't. I imagine it appeals a little more to me but I can't say from the death of the New 52 Superman to the beginning of the Reborn era, that it was really coherent. I can tell you who the guy with the scythe is, but then I almost promise it'll make things weirder.

Claremont had this problem on X-Men: maybe you read the story and like it, maybe it just seems off in a bizarre way. But then attempts to hash it out just makes things complicated. Fortunately action Comics #977 just moves right along into a new status quo that doesn't require much of a backlog. The scythe guy will be revealed in full and you might not be happy at all, like I wasn't, but it wasn't the hardest thing to take in stride

[seismic-2]

There's no good explanation for it, with the whole "Mister Oz" nonsense etc. The reason for it, however, is clear - the New 52 Superman and Lois exploded and were replaced by the Superman and Lois from the Convergence Dome, who came from the previous timeline. So Mxy and Kryptonian technology and who knows what all else were invoked to make everyone forget that the "replacement" Superman and Lois were from a different reality. In time, even they forgot it. So now new readers (are there any new readers of comic books these days?) don't have to know that backstory - they can just assume that everyone in the comic has always been in the current reality, except of course for all the characters who are explicitly from other universes. Anyway, Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman are now all part of the same universe and always have been, insofar as they know, but of course they're wrong about that.

[Slimybug]

There's even some nonsense about Superman having been "split in two," and those two parts combining. Obviously, that never happened. There was ONE Superman from the N52 timeline and ONE from the New Earth timeline that simply hopped universes in a, well, convergence. There was never one Superman that was split in two. Gosh, this book is frustrating!

Also, were the events here the main impetus for "Rebirth." Like, was this merging the thing that made that reset happen?

[superduperman]

All you really need to know is that the New 52 Superman wasn't very popular and they wanted to bring back the old version as quickly as possible so "merging" them was the quickest way. And, yes, it messed up a lot of things that were in the works at the time. Like the Superwoman book. Which was originally the New 52 Lois after that version of Superman "died". The whole Rebirth thing was a mess from the jump because they were just trying to undo the New 52 as quickly as possible. Wonder Woman's history circa 2016-17 was a mess also because they were also trying to undo that relationship. Basically they wanted to throw out anything New 52 and it messed up a lot of people's histories.

[Kuwagaton]

There's even some nonsense about Superman having been "split in two," and those two parts combining. Obviously, that never happened. There was ONE Superman from the N52 timeline and ONE from the New Earth timeline that simply hopped universes in a, well, convergence. There was never one Superman that was split in two. Gosh, this book is frustrating!

Also, were the events here the main impetus for "Rebirth." Like, was this merging the thing that made that reset happen?

There was a vague series of backdoor plot threads that tied together with other loose ends. So in the Morrison run of Action Comics there was a Superman Red and Blue, and part of that represents a separate life that he wouldn't have. There was also the scythe guy lurking about in the Geoff Johns run of Superman and a few other shadowy figures like Pandora going back to the beginning of the New 52. The causation of the Reborn status quo was essentially a tossed salad of ideas to work out what superduper was saying: the New 52 was unpopular enough to get repealed as even Johns, its chief architect, realized that it just wasn't the classic DC that he and other people loved.

I gotta say "scythe guy" feels like a band-aid that someone ripped off. I'd say avoid it but it's kind of impossible if you read Superman comics from 2014-2021. You just won't believe the way it plays out.

[ducklord]

Those were some weird stories weren't they? To be honest, though, they can be safely ignored. Going forward, here's what you need to know about Superman in the main DCU:

- He's been around for about 20 years.
- At some point he married Lois, and they had a kid.
- That kid got aged up because of <a bunch of stories they don't really want to reference any more>.

And that's about it. The New 52 Superman as a separate entity never existed in the current main timeline, and will likely never be referenced again aside from knowing metatextual winks - his entire version of the DCU Metaverse, as per Doomsday Clock, has been "archived," much like the pre-Crisis Metaverse.

[bat39]

Yeah, the execution of it all was all a mess, even though Rebirth as a concept was pretty promising. The general idea was to reverse the New 52 and bring back something akin to the 'classic' Post-Crisis DCU. The conceit was that someone (namely Doc Manhattan) messed with time to create the New 52 reality. But Wally West returns, having regained his memories of the Post-Crisis timeline due to being trapped in the Speed Force, and that was supposed to set the stage for the heroes discovering what caused the New 52, and having a showdown with Dr. Manhattan (and other Watchmen characters) to restore what was lost.

Except...that the whole plan was never executed to the fullest. Doomsday Clock was delayed massively and was shunted off to quasi-canon status. Dark Nights: Metal, and its sequels, became the focal point of DC multiversal sheningans. Continuity became a mess again, and aspects of the Post-Crisis DCU were restored piecemeal and in an inconsistent manner, to the extent that we don't really know how things stand right now.

Superman was another big piece of the puzzle that complicated things even further. Unlike the other characters, where making them like their Post-Crisis versions meant restoring their memories, or 'organically' bringing them closer to Post-Crisis status quos, in the case of Superman and Lois they literally physically brought back the previous versions of the characters, along with a kid whom they never actually had in the original reality, but did in the Convergence version of the Post-Crisis DCU (who then grew up in the New 52 timeline). And they wanted to make this version the main Superman again...while not totally negating the New 52 Superman and Lois either by dismissing them as 'fakes'. So what did they do? A convoluted plotline wherein we're told that Superman and Lois were 'split' in two at some unknown point in the past, and they're now 'merged' together again, restoring a version of Superman's Post-Crisis history to the New 52/Rebirth timeline, albeit with Jon's birth and upbringing shoehorned in. And supposedly, we were going to get answers on how and why the Supermen were 'split', but those were never really forthcoming. And in the end, the New 52 Superman and Lois were effectively erased anyway, barring a flashback scene post-Reborn where we see Post-Crisis Superman briefly wearing the New 52 uniform before Jon's birth.

The whole mess becomes messier if you consider Mr. Oz who SPOILERS...

...was revealed to be Jor-El, saved by Doc Manhattan from moments before Krypton's destruction! Except...which Jor-El was he, given that Mr. Oz existed during the New 52 continuity, at a time when the two Superman were supposedly 'split'? And how was he involved in his son being 'split'?

I mean, the stories were fun to speculate on, but in the end, it was a total mess.

[godisawesome]

All you really need to know is that the New 52 Superman wasn't very popular and they wanted to bring back the old version as quickly as possible so "merging" them was the quickest way. And, yes, it messed up a lot of things that were in the works at the time. Like the Superwoman book. Which was originally the New 52 Lois after that version of Superman "died". The whole Rebirth thing was a mess from the jump because they were just trying to undo the New 52 as quickly as possible. Wonder Woman's history circa 2016-17 was a mess also because they were also trying to undo that relationship. Basically they wanted to throw out anything New 52 and it messed up a lot of people's histories.

I think it would be more accurate to say "The new 52 superman's origin was far, far more popular than the rest of his stories and status quo, which had some warily interested support at first then devolved into frustration at things self-destructing again as time went on, and Superman editorial remained weirdly slash-and-burn-happy about changes instead of just doing the obvious thing and using a time-skip - again - and proceeded to again fail yet another Superman."

Superman editorial has a freakishly high body count of timelines and variations, and most of it under the same toxic chief editor.

Just goes to show how much of the comic world's upper crust is a boy's club rather than a functioning business.

[kingaliencracker]

I think it would be more accurate to say "The new 52 superman's origin was far, far more popular than the rest of his stories and status quo, which had some warily interested support at first then devolved into frustration at things self-destructing again as time went on, and Superman editorial remained weirdly slash-and-burn-happy about changes instead of just doing the obvious thing and using a time-skip - again - and proceeded to again fail yet another Superman."

Superman editorial has a freakishly high body count of timelines and variations, and most of it under the same toxic chief editor.

Just goes to show how much of the comic world's upper crust is a boy's club rather than a functioning business.

Respectfully, I don't know how accurate it is to say his New 52 origin was "far, far more popular", especially if you're saying it as some statement of fact and not just your personal opinion.

[superduperman]

I think it would be more accurate to say "The new 52 superman's origin was far, far more popular than the rest of his stories and status quo, which had some warily interested support at first then devolved into frustration at things self-destructing again as time went on, and Superman editorial remained weirdly slash-and-burn-happy about changes instead of just doing the obvious thing and using a time-skip - again - and proceeded to again fail yet another Superman."

Superman editorial has a freakishly high body count of timelines and variations, and most of it under the same toxic chief editor.

Just goes to show how much of the comic world's upper crust is a boy's club rather than a functioning business.

The throwing out of the New 52 origin is probably the thing that angers me the most about that time. There were ways to "merge" them properly and keep the popular stuff from New 52, like the origin, but the attitude at the time was very much "New 52 sucks! Get rid of all of it!" But because Johns was in charge, it was his mediocre origin that got kept. Which bolsters my argument that one person shouldn't have that much power. The New 52 origin is probably the best comic origin he's ever had. With maybe the exception of the pre-Crisis one.

[godisawesome]

Respectfully, I don't know how accurate it is to say his New 52 origin was "far, far more popular", especially if you're saying it as some statement of fact and not just your personal opinion.

I think the Morrison run is the only consensus-liked story of the New 52, which is why I used that; the "present" era of the New 52 often vacillated between different creators signing on and being pushed off the book through divisive creative ideas, before the Truth arc pretty clearly hit an unpopular nadir for the era.

New 52 Superman *had* fans of his "present" era, most vocally in regards to the Superman/Wonder Woman pairing and to Scott Lobdell's brief run... but those was always highly divisive at their best; Lobdell being a highlight is a red flag all on its own, considering his best work in this century is as a solid but unexceptional journeyman... and his main reason for getting the book was being a "yes-man" to editorial's whims.

it might be hyperbolic to say Morrison's arcs were much, much more popular... but not by much at all.

[The Frog Bros]

Those were some weird stories weren't they? To be honest, though, they can be safely ignored. Going forward, here's what you need to know about Superman in the main DCU:

- He's been around for about 20 years.
- At some point he married Lois, and they had a kid.
- That kid got aged up because of <a bunch of stories they don't really want to reference any more>.

And that's about it. The New 52 Superman as a separate entity never existed in the current main timeline, and will likely never be referenced again aside from knowing metatextual winks - his entire version of the DCU Metaverse, as per Doomsday Clock, has been "archived," much like the pre-Crisis Metaverse.

Was exciting for one hot minute when he showed up in Sideways.

riik994.jpg

[exile001]

Oh, and let's not forget that the Superman: Rebirth book, that had the remaining Superman explaining a chunk of the new status quo, is so poorly crafted that it read like the Rebirth Superman is a villain. Or it was intentional for a planned storyline that was immediately dropped.

[manwhohaseverything]

Was exciting for one hot minute when he showed up in Sideways.

riik994.jpg

Man!!! i miss the dude...#moremysuperman