Questions you want answered...

[superduperman]

What do you want to know about Superman's history and when do you think we're going to get them?

1) Are the Kents still alive?

2) Did he ever have the trunks (we may get the answer to this one sooner rather than later)?

3) Did he get a new origin?

4) If so, was he ever "Superboy"?

5) Was he a member of the Legion (I'm assuming the answer to this is "yes" even if he never was officially Superboy)?

6) Which stories "count" and which ones are out?

7) Was anything really salvaged from the New 52?

8) How much of the rest of the DCU was also changed (It's a pretty safe assumption that the Justice League origin is out too. Or at least happened differently than what we've seen)?

9) Will we get the answers to all of these before the anniversary?

Feel free to post your questions as well!

[Ascended]

I think we'll get a rough idea of what Clark's basic history is relatively soon. We already sort of have one with that page showing Clark's rocket, his marriage, Jon being born, etc.

I don't think we'll get a detailed history until Rebirth has run its course, if ever. DC might want to keep it vague so they can pretend it all happened. They did it once before, and its the same people in charge, so....Im cynical.

As for what I want.....

Are the Kents alive? If not, how did they die and when? These answers better have a healthy chunk of pre-Crisis in the mix.

Did Clark ever meet the Legion? Was he ever Superboy (even as a local myth)?

When did his powers manifest? Are we back to pre-Crisis/post-Infinite Crisis, or are we back to "they developed as a teen" to parallel Jon a little more?

What are Clark's power limits? That's a vague one, I know, but if they could narrow it down to "post-Lobdell New52" or "Byrne era post-Crisis" or whatever, that'd be nice. Also, did he ever have the solar flare power, did his powers develop gradually (ala Morrison's New52) or were they always basically as they are now?

How did the Death and Return play out? This impacts Steel's origin, as well as Superboy's, if he ever returns.

What are the big story points, beyond the Death/Return, marriage, and having Jon? I dont need to know if every story happened or not, or how the ones that did are tweaked and changed, but did he kill Zod and exile himself afterwards? Did Lex Luthor become President? Did For the Man Who Has Everything happen? Did he date Diana briefly during the early days of his career? Did he start out as an outlaw social crusader?

[Sacred Knight]

What caused the split? How did the split happen? If the answer to this is Superman Red/Blue then that essentially answers everything, but if not I want to know the when where why and how.

I'm about as confident one can be without confirmation that the Kents are dead, but that confirmation would be nice.

Are terrible stories like President Lex, New Krypton, and Grounded out of continuity? If not or unsure, can they be?

Was there any point to having a New 52 version of Hank Henshaw show up at the tail end of Reborn only to seemingly get assimilated into the new continuity as his proper self?

Did he or did he not ever date Diana? (A simple one-off line confirming one way or the other will do, it would be a personal favor not to have the current creative teams go out of their way to crap on it further).

[manofsteel1979]

How much wood could a kryptonian chuck if a kryptonian could chuck wood?


How many licks does it take to get to the Kryptonite center of a Lex Pop?


Who is Keyser Soze?


Or....Pretty much everything Acsended and Sacred Knight just posted,

[Sacred Knight]

One. Twohoohooooo. Three.

Three.

[superduperman]

In terms of when his powers developed, I hope they actually keep that one vague. This is kind of a contentious issue and the best way to deal with it is to side step it. Let the readers make up their own. If you want to believe he didn't develop powers until puberty, you have the freedom to do that. If you want to believe that he came flying out of the rocket on day one, you can do that too. Plus, it would make him the "Ultimate" Superman. Everyone sees in him what they want to see in him. They sort of tried this after IC but didn't stick with it. Unfortunately, I don't see them going down this road. They've already kind of hinted that Clark didn't have some of Jon's powers at his age. Not sure what that means yet or if they'll keep it.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

On the assumption that they'll bother to cover the basics rather than hiding essentials for a prolonged period based on a mistaken understanding of how to effectively build tension, what's particularly important to me is:

1. Was Krypton Byrne-level awful again, in spite of the aesthetics not matching up?

2. How'd his powers develop?

3. Did he straight-up wear the suit prior to his public debut? Which suit did he wear when he did?

4. Which origin is in play, assuming this'll be a previous one even if it's in the form of combining a few?

4a. How much of Morrison's Action is salvageable?

4b. Are Jonathan and Martha alive? If not, when did they pass?

5. Given he debuted over 10 years ago now, was he around long before the rest of the heroes, or have their 'premieres' been moved up too, which changes a lot?

And most importantly, how many empty spaces are left to give creators room to define the past as they want to, and how much is solidly locked down as inviolate? I recall that when talking MOS in '86 for instance, Byrne mentioned that while he wasn't bothering to actively wipe out all the Silver Age adventures, he was trying with what he set down to make as clear as possible that there was no space in his universe for anything like Comet the Super-Horse or Terra-Man to have ever existed. With Jurgens at the helm, I'm worried that a lot of this is going to end up "an origin happened, and then the 80s and 90s happened, and then *everything not by or approved of by Geoff Johns from the 00s to mid-2016 is - if not outright explicitly, still very clearly - wiped out*, and then Reborn". As in, they won't say that he never fought Super-Doomsday or met Baka, but the timeline and his world is defined as such that there's no way they could have reasonably fit in. Given all evidence points to the merger being pure lip service, this strikes me as a very real possibility.

[Buried Alien]

Same question I've wondered about since 1986.

What REALLY happened to the Pre-COIE Earth-One Superman (Silver/Bronze Age Superman)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Miles To Go]

New Superman's issue out next week makes reference to a 2015 FCBD issue, I don't think I read it, but someone here said it was set during "Truth", so a version of whatever battle Supes had in that may have still occurred

I want to know how much of Supermans pre-Jon history is condensed let alone allowed to continue as canon. Think Marvel sliding timescale rules

[bat39]

Same question I've wondered about since 1986.

What REALLY happened to the Pre-COIE Earth-One Superman (Silver/Bronze Age Superman)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Technically, he simply became the Post-COIE Superman, much like every other Earth One character became a Post-COIE character.

What do you want to know about Superman's history and when do you think we're going to get them?

1) Are the Kents still alive?

2) Did he ever have the trunks (we may get the answer to this one sooner rather than later)?

3) Did he get a new origin?

4) If so, was he ever "Superboy"?

5) Was he a member of the Legion (I'm assuming the answer to this is "yes" even if he never was officially Superboy)?

6) Which stories "count" and which ones are out?

7) Was anything really salvaged from the New 52?

8) How much of the rest of the DCU was also changed (It's a pretty safe assumption that the Justice League origin is out too. Or at least happened differently than what we've seen)?

9) Will we get the answers to all of these before the anniversary?

Feel free to post your questions as well!

1) That's the big one they have to answer one way or the other. As much as I'd love at least one of the Kents to still be alive, I'm almost certain they're both dead now. The real question is, how long were the Kents around and when and how did they die? Because the answers to those questions kinda determine how much of Post-COIE and Pre-Flashpoint continuity still applies.

2) We'll get the answer to this one next week. There are layers to this as well - did he have the trunks when he started as Superman? As Superboy with LOSH? While operating in Smallville?

3) There's talk about Secret Origin being reinstated as the official origin. Personally, I'd prefer to wait and watch. We'll get a condensed origin next week most likely. After that, I dunno if DC will be doing an official origin miniseries or even a dedicated one-shot or not. Chances are they will at some point - if only to have that one story people can point to and say "THIS is Superman's origin story in comics TODAY".

4) I doubt they'll reinstate the Superboy years the way they were Pre-COIE. But chances are he will have been 'Superboy' as a myth in Smallville or with the Legion - kinda like the Secret Origin or Morrison take on the subject.

5) Pretty sure, yes.

6) Don't think we'll ever get an 'official' 100% answer to this one. I think we can safely say that certain major stories like 'Death and Return of Superman' and 'The Wedding' happened in some form. My guess is that Superman continuity will be run kinda the same way Batman continuity was in the New 52. The stories and events happened, but some details will have changed.

7) I seriously doubt it. Other than the Morrison origin, the New 52 didn't even have any particularly memorable or unique stories.

8) That remains to be seen. The upcoming WW annual will address the first meetings between the Trinity, which will definitely contradict some aspects of Justice League Origin. Also, the very fact that everyone remembers Clark and Lois being married and possibly knowing Jon all his life will naturally change stuff. DC might hold off on giving any concrete answers until the entire Rebirth story is done with. We don't know if there are or aren't going to be any further continuity changes in the offing.

9) I think we should, ideally. They already drew out Reborn for a year. I don't think we should wait too much longer for at least the Superman-centric stuff to be clarified.

[superduperman]

Same question I've wondered about since 1986.

What REALLY happened to the Pre-COIE Earth-One Superman (Silver/Bronze Age Superman)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Stuff like this is why I have a problem with reboots because what you are basically saying is that a person's history is interchangeable and they are still the same person. I don't buy that. Pre-and post-Crisis Superman had completely different histories. One had full powers from day one and the other didn't. One was a costumed Superboy and the other wasn't. One had a flying dog for a pet and the other didn't. One had parents that were still alive into his adulthood and the other didn't. They may have similar personalities but they are not the same person. Barring some other universe out there in the multiverse, pre-Crisis Superman is essentially dead.

[superduperman]

On the assumption that they'll bother to cover the basics rather than hiding essentials for a prolonged period based on a mistaken understanding of how to effectively build tension, what's particularly important to me is:

1. Was Krypton Byrne-level awful again, in spite of the aesthetics not matching up?

2. How'd his powers develop?

3. Did he straight-up wear the suit prior to his public debut? Which suit did he wear when he did?

4. Which origin is in play, assuming this'll be a previous one even if it's in the form of combining a few?

4a. How much of Morrison's Action is salvageable?

4b. Are Jonathan and Martha alive? If not, when did they pass?

5. Given he debuted over 10 years ago now, was he around long before the rest of the heroes, or have their 'premieres' been moved up too, which changes a lot?

And most importantly, how many empty spaces are left to give creators room to define the past as they want to, and how much is solidly locked down as inviolate? I recall that when talking MOS in '86 for instance, Byrne mentioned that while he wasn't bothering to actively wipe out all the Silver Age adventures, he was trying with what he set down to make as clear as possible that there was no space in his universe for anything like Comet the Super-Horse or Terra-Man to have ever existed. With Jurgens at the helm, I'm worried that a lot of this is going to end up "an origin happened, and then the 80s and 90s happened, and then *everything not by or approved of by Geoff Johns from the 00s to mid-2016 is - if not outright explicitly, still very clearly - wiped out*, and then Reborn". As in, they won't say that he never fought Super-Doomsday or met Baka, but the timeline and his world is defined as such that there's no way they could have reasonably fit in. Given all evidence points to the merger being pure lip service, this strikes me as a very real possibility.

This is exactly what I'm worried about too. One or two people making the long term creative decisions on their flagship character based on their personal likes and dislikes. At least when the reboot happened in 1986, it was a company wide investment. Byrne wasn't free to do whatever he wanted. He still was accountable to Jeanette Kahn and others. This is how you end up with things like BND on Spider-Man where one person in a position of power decides to turn a character into their own personal fan fiction. I fear SO is cannon again for a couple reasons: 1) Johns wrote it so if he's making a lot of the calls on Superman, he's obviously going to go with the version he personally wrote and 2) It's just easier than coming up with yet another origin in five years. I didn't like SO for a number of reasons. It was exactly the kind of convoluted mess I was hoping New 52 was getting away from.

[seismic-2]

Lois mentioned that they had survived Mxy's "strange attack". What do they think happened in that incident, since they don't remember Fake Clark, Red Nuperman, or dead SuperLois? Was the "attack" simply Mxy's kidnapping Jon to play games with him?

I assume Lois was never Superwoman. Was Lana still Superwoman, though, and if so, where did she get her powers? Is that now retconned to her simply having worn Insect Queen armor to battle Lena Luthor?

Was Jonathan Carroll ever part of Lois's life?

Do the people of Hamilton consider Supes to be a resident, since they apparently see him flying around there a lot?

[Last Son of Krypton]

When is the next reboot?

[bat39]

Lois mentioned that they had survived Mxy's "strange attack". What do they think happened in that incident, since they don't remember Fake Clark, Red Nuperman, or dead SuperLois? Was the "attack" simply Mxy's kidnapping Jon to play games with him?

I assume Lois was never Superwoman. Was Lana still Superwoman, though, and if so, where did she get her powers? Is that now retconned to her simply having worn Insect Queen armor to battle Lena Luthor?

Was Jonathan Carroll ever part of Lois's life?

Do the people of Hamilton consider Supes to be a resident, since they apparently see him flying around there a lot?

My guess is that Lois and Clark remember Mxy kidnapping Jon, erasing their memories of Jon, and toying around with them in some other dimension. They may even remember Mxy talking about Superman being 'split' and powerful forces at work. And then they remember things getting back to 'normal'.

Not sure about the status of 'Fake Clark'. Apparently, Mxy assuming Clark's identity was to 'help out' by restoring Superman's secret identity. It kinda seems pointless to have that plot-line if that's erased. Also, I'm pretty sure we'll have Clark thinking about coming 'back' to work at the Daily Planet (since it is a pretty major status quo change/restoration) and that will only be possible if he HADN'T been there for a while.