Who is the current Superman?

[Patrick Gerard]

Hopefully his memories are borked. Either that or its just classic poor collaboration in the Superman office. The imagery in Superman better be the real deal one way or another. The last thing we need is Johns/Donner influences coming back. I don't get why Johns just can't go away when it comes to Superman. There's plenty of other characters he likes more and gets better to mess with.

The guy had a Superman symbol painted on his wall as a kid. I doubt that Superman isn't one of his favorites. I just think he's stretched too many different directions to sit down and articulate his take, which I found to be pretty good the last time I thought his full attention was on Superman.

[brettc1]

I know this may seem redundant but it really isn't, as while we've had a ton of discussion focusing on whether New 52 Superman will come back and what he is, I don't recall a single thread dedicated to the new/old Superman and just what his secret is. He purportedly has one that he doesn't know about according to Mr. Oz, so, I guess I wanted a go-to place for theories on what that secret is and what he really is.

My guess is right now that he and New 52 Superman are the same person. New 52 Superman didn't die, he got pulled into the timestream and was lost there. He's the being that Wally felt lost in the time stream with him for a brief moment before being pulled out for the Saturn Girl scene in Rebirth Special. I also am of the mind that Superwoman is going to be a planned finite minseries, slated to end at a particular point in time, probably 12 issues. The end of her story will see her disappear as well, also lost to the timestream via some sort of plot device. The result being, that Lois will find Superman who is lost as well. Together, they find a way out and end up on some alternate Earth. It is here they stay, reconnect, and eventually become lovers. All this while Lois still has the powers she got from the initial power surge on Superman's "death". What this does is negate the Kryptonian/Human incompatibility and they end up conceiving a child together. As the fetus grows, Lois's powers begin to wane. They're being "fed" in a sense to the baby. Eventually, by the second trimester or so, Lois is technically a completely normal human again. Also around this time, the Earth that they are on has a portion of it bottled by Brainiac Prime with Lois and Clark present at the time. They are bottled on Telos and Superman loses his powers. For some reason, these two in particular are experimented on by Brainiac, and have their memories wiped, and are transferred to a bottle of the post-Crisis Gotham City, their memories re-wired to make them think they are the Clark and Lois of that reality. After the events of Convergence, Clark, Lois, and baby Jon (who has both his father's powers and the artificial powers of his mother, which will cause oddities later in life), are returned, albeit older, to the Earth they originated from, all the while not even knowing it.

If superman is the new52 time clone, how does he remember the pre-flashpoint history?

[Sacred Knight]

To me the catalyst is the time stream, and the effect it has on memories as shown in Rebirth Special. When Wally was stuck in the timestream he regained his pre-FP memories. My guess is that this is where Superman ended up when he "died" (Lois too just recently), and like Wally he got his pre-Flashpoint memories back while there. Unlike Wally, he did not return to Earth-0 right away ("right away" being relative to the individual's personal interpretation of the passage of time there). He and Lois escaped somewhere else (an alternate Earth perhaps, that was the real origin of the bottled Gotham City we saw in Convergence, erroneously thought to be their home world via Brainiac and Telos trickery), thus perhaps that reversed the effects as we are seeing with Wally once he was restored on Earth in Titans. Where Wally has currently lost his pre-FP memories all over again and became ensconced in the Rebirth world, Superman kept his pre-FP memories and lost his New 52 memories, since he re-emerged on another world. By the time he finally made it back to his world, albeit in the past, too much time had gone by and the memories simply remain dormant, and like everyone else his reversed lost memories will have to be forced out.

[Kevin Street]

A question for fans of Superdad, Lois and John. Would you keep buying the books even if they stayed as not being the originals of this universe? 'Real' characters, originals from another Earth, integrated, but not really the originals of this universe?

That's an interesting question. I don't think it will be the case, since there's clearly something going on with the duplicate Supermen and Lois Lanes, but if it was and things remained as they are now...

I think I'd keep reading if the stories were well done, since this is a Superman that feels familiar. But if he stayed as a visitor from a parallel Earth it would gut the supporting cast, because this Clark and Lois aren't connected to the New52 Daily Planet. This Jimmy and Perry aren't their friends, and this Metropolis isn't their city. And on the other side of the fence, this Supergirl isn't related to Superman, and this Superman has no preexisting relationships with the Justice League. This Superman and Batman barely know each other. It is a lot to give up.

[Chris24601]

That's an interesting question. I don't think it will be the case, since there's clearly something going on with the duplicate Supermen and Lois Lanes, but if it was and things remained as they are now...

I think I'd keep reading if the stories were well done, since this is a Superman that feels familiar. But if he stayed as a visitor from a parallel Earth it would gut the supporting cast, because this Clark and Lois aren't connected to the New52 Daily Planet. This Jimmy and Perry aren't their friends, and this Metropolis isn't their city. And on the other side of the fence, this Supergirl isn't related to Superman, and this Superman has no preexisting relationships with the Justice League. This Superman and Batman barely know each other. It is a lot to give up.

It would also be a lot to build from. There's a lot of story potential in having to start over. In the "Everyman turned up to 12" sense its the story of a family moving to a new place because of Dad's job and having to rebuild a life there. Except its not "cross-country" its "another universe."

When you're just starting out in that new place you go looking for new friends and social groups in places similar to where you met your old friends and even find people who remind you of those old friends, but no matter how many similarities your new friends might have to your old friends, they aren't your old friends (which doesn't mean you can't build something as good or even better, just that it won't be the same). Turned up to 12 for a story you've got doppelgangers of Perry, Jimmy, Lana, the Justice League that both Clark and Lois are going to be working around, but along with the similarities, make no bones about the differences as well (ex. Jimmy's parents being insanely wealthy... even if he did supposedly give almost all the money away is a very different Jimmy Olsen from the one Lois and Clark knew in their old home).

How both Clark and Lois deal with this could actually be fodder for some really good stories. Heck, if you leave out the specifics, the Superfamily's short-form origin is still basically "rocketed from a dying world" and "fights for Truth, Justice and the American Way" Superman origin... just the 'rocketed' was more 'moved quickly' and 'dying world' was the Post-Crisis Earth."

Regardless, just like "Heroes Reborn/Return" over at Marvel and various other universe shufflings, even if this Superman and Lois aren't natives to this universe, enough story development will happen where it won't matter anymore, Lois and Clark will be back at the Daily Planet and have formed friendships with Jimmy and Perry and Superman will have formed friendships (or at least working partnerships) with the rest of the Justice League.

The only time them NOT being natives of the universe would even need to come up is if this somehow made them immune to in-universe changes in any inevitable future cosmic shake-ups (because changing the current universe's past wouldn't change their past prior to their arrival in this universe... they always arrive from outside the current universe ten years ago with an infant son and memories of the Post-Crisis universe as a starting point for what actions they take next). Indeed, Clark, Lois and Jon should essentially be universal constants in the sense that you can't erase/change their origin because its already been changed/erased.

And now I'm imagining some supervillain trying to wipe out Superman by going back and killing him as an infant... only Superman is still around and the villain can't figure out why (because in the new timeline formed by the villain Post-Crisis Clark, Lois and Jon arrived in a world without a Superman, so Clark immediately takes on the mantle of Superman and gets himself a job at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent, because Clark Kent doesn't exist in this timeline either obviously).

[Patrick Gerard]

A question for fans of Superdad, Lois and John. Would you keep buying the books even if they stayed as not being the originals of this universe? 'Real' characters, originals from another Earth, integrated, but not really the originals of this universe?

How would you even do that? No childhood friends? No neighbors or family or even dentists? Not even a flashback without a discussion of alternate universes? For them to be full characters, they need to be integrated with the world they're in.

[manduck37]

A question for fans of Superdad, Lois and John. Would you keep buying the books even if they stayed as not being the originals of this universe? 'Real' characters, originals from another Earth, integrated, but not really the originals of this universe?

Yes, I would. I've enjoyed the stories and dynamic enough that I would keep reading about them. I really don't care where they come from. It's all just a variant of the original origin anyway, just bumped up from doomed planets to doomed universes. Ultimately, if the story is good I don't care where the characters come from. It all fades into the background anyway. I say that as a fan of both Nuperman and Superdad. If Nuperman comes back and the stories are good, I'll gladly read those too.

[manofsteel1979]

To answer Dumbduck's question,yes I likely would, but I think eventually that scenario ultimately runs out of steam and once the novelty of a stranger's in a strange land wears off,then you are left with a Superman and family without meaningful history or connections with the universe they are in. The stories will Likely suffer as a result eventually. I think there is no question that eventually Superdad and family are indeed going to become native to this universe.

[bat39]

Superdad (I hate using the term, but I'm using it here just because I'm too lazy to type Post-COIE Superman) could have worked as the 'alternate universe' Superman if they were going for an 'E2 Superman' kind off scenario...wherein he's the older Superman from another universe, someone whom the 'mainstream'/E0/E1 version could potentially become like someday. They already tried doing that with the Kingdom Come Superman, briefly, some time after IC. And it would have been an intriguing story, seeing this Superman integrate himself into this world and deal with alternate universe versions of his old friends and fellow heroes. But that is a status quo that by definition wouldn't last indefinitely and some day you'd have to have the return of the REAL mainstream Superman.

Which is why, if Superdad is to be Superman moving forward, he has to somehow become the Superman of the post-Rebirth universe. Period.

And I haven't been entirely up too date with recent comics, but from the facts that I'm aware of, here's one simply way to explain it which doesn't require piling too many retcons on top of retcons.

Its simple.

Superman and Lois were abducted from the Post-COIE Earth by Telos. Along with Parallax and Pre-COIE Flash, they went back in time to alter the outcome of COIE (another story which has never been satisfactorily explained but leave that aside for now) Shortly thereafter, Flashpoint occurred, along with Doc Manhattan's tampering. Now, when the Post-COIE Earth was remade into the New 52 earth through the 'stolen ten years' and stuff, Superman and Lois were missing. But the universe needed Superman, and so, in the simple act of reinventing Earth 0, time itself created a 'new' Superman and Lois to fill the gap. This 'new' Superman and Lois were every bit real and part of E0 and its timeline and they had a tweaked history to match the 'new' E0.

In the meantime, the 'unaltered' Superman and Lois, with Post-COIE memories intact, ended up returning to E0. Except that E0 had changed so they didn't recognize it as their earth. They lived for years on this earth underground (and the whole 'them existing in the past' thing can be chalked up to mismatched timelines due to Manhattan's tampering).

But now, with Wally West's return, and the seams of the New 52 universe starting to come apart, the New 52 Superman and Lois's existence became precarious as the universe began to accept Post-COIE Superman and Lois as the 'real' versions returned. And so, time itself resolved the paradox by leading the New 52 duo to their deaths and beginning the process of fully integrating Post-COIE Superman and Lois into the final 'Rebirth' universe that mixes elements of both timelines.