How old is the merged Clark (post-Reborn)?

[victorsage]

Yeah, mid to late 30s sounds about right.

[Ascended]

I'd guess he's in his early 40's, with Lois in her late 30''s.

Im going to assume that before he got serious with Lois, Clark had a career long enough to squeeze the best parts of pre-Crisis into, so between five and seven years. Then gets married, and Jon is born between a year and two years later. If Clark started out in his early twenties, it basically works.

But really, age is something to be ignored in comics books. In Lois & Clark, it was about a Clark who had ten extra years of living underground tagged onto him so he was in his early 50's or thereabouts. Once he took over the main line he was drawn to look younger for no reason beyond he was on the main books; and "in continuity" he was still in his 50's, he just looked good for his age (maybe going back to work agreed with him). Now with Reborn the narrative reason for the extra ten years is gone so Clark's back to being in his 40's as well as looking like it.

Which is basically splitting the difference between Nuperman's early 30's, late 20's, and Superdad's 50's.

[Nick Miller]

Are u guys crazy?

He's never been past 35

Always early 30's

A bit older than Batman, who is late 2O's

Never ever have I thought he was near 40.

In any incarnation

[Superlad93]

Even with the birth of Jon in Lois & Clark I always put his age as simple "vaguely older than new 52 Superman."

When we got to Rebirth I put him at "30 whatever"

Reborn? "30 whatever"

To me, Jon can be born when Lois and Clark are in their early 30's and they'd still be in their early 30's after he's born.

I mean, Batman's got like 5 kids and Damian is now a teen......yet you'll never get me to call him anything over "30 whatever."

For the OP: Reborn Superman is older than 29 and younger than 40

[FishyZombie]

Are u guys crazy?

He's never been past 35

Always early 30's

A bit older than Batman, who is late 2O's

Never ever have I thought he was near 40.

In any incarnation

seeing as the ages are intentionally ambiguous, and appearance varies from artist to artist, it's all completely open to speculation. But how is Bruce still in his twenties despite having a teenage biological son, unless he met Talia when he was like 16?

[Kuwagaton]

See, the thing about Comic Book Time is that it's completely immune to "in-story time logic". The New 52 version did seem about the same age during the flashback years in Action (starting in at least issue # 10 or so) as he did at the end of his life.

I threw that example out there for the sake of acknowledging his "half" in the New 52, but that is seemingly the only scenario where that point works. I could have used the Morrison run and said Krypton's explosion 27 years ago, because in story time logic dictates that 27 years ago he wasn't 27 years old. Any other example, like my other one flashing back 20 years in Doomsday Wars or virtually any other occasion where the passage of years is defined, there is a difference in the age of the character. Even if age doesn't matter, and it doesn't, he's clearly not supposed to be the same age he was when Jon was born. That's just coherent storytelling.

I also don't think that the Rebirth Clark looks anything approaching the same age in Action # 957 even compared to the first issue of Lois and Clark where Jon's a baby! The new artist didn't just shave off Clark's beard, he shaved off ten years minimum!

He hardly appeared outside of the L&C series, so the only thing I can really post is two separate artists with distinct styles to compare. But it's something I'd believe if there was any evidence of that being an intention.

[Flash Gordon]

However old he was in Geoff Johns run on ACTION COMICS, since that (along with the Death of Superman) appears to be the only backstory that matters to this "Reborn" Superman.

32?

[Flash Gordon]

Are u guys crazy?

He's never been past 35

Always early 30's

A bit older than Batman, who is late 2O's

Never ever have I thought he was near 40.

In any incarnation

If I had to put an age on Batman, which I hate doing- I guess he'd be close to 40.

[Chris24601]

My ballpark is that Clark is 36 and Lois might even be a couple years younger.

I figure Clark is 22 years old at the start, then about 14 years as Superman (hence the 14 year anniversary being celebrated at the start of Reborn). Lois is certainly no older than Clark and, historically was a few years younger (their original starting ages in Action #1 were 22 and 19 years old respectively). Interestingly, John's supplemental material that came out just after "Secret Origins" described Lois as having been just a rookie/intern before she landed the interview with Superman that turned her into a new Woodward and Bernstein (which I suspect was a callback to Lois initially being relegated to writing an advice column for the lovelorn back in Action #1).

If the original ages are in play then Lois might have been just 22 or 23 when she had Jon and would only be 32-33 in the present, but my hunch is she's probably more like 35-36 the same as Clark.

[Adekis]

I threw that example out there for the sake of acknowledging his "half" in the New 52, but that is seemingly the only scenario where that point works. I could have used the Morrison run and said Krypton's explosion 27 years ago, because in story time logic dictates that 27 years ago he wasn't 27 years old. Any other example, like my other one flashing back 20 years in Doomsday Wars or virtually any other occasion where the passage of years is defined, there is a difference in the age of the character. Even if age doesn't matter, and it doesn't, he's clearly not supposed to be the same age he was when Jon was born. That's just coherent storytelling.

That's not the same thing at all. The Neil deGrasse Tyson story referenced his origin. I'm not saying that in-universe there's not supposed to be any passage of time at all, that's obviously ridiculous- just that the passage of time is meaningless within the bounds of Superman's career. For example, it's not like there were any reboots between the original Action Comics # 1 and DC Comics Presents # 97, but obviously Superman's about the same age, maybe a little bit older, and it'd been nearly 50 years. Still, you'd probably get Superman saying things in the mid 80s like "Krypton was destroyed thirty-some years ago"- it's not like Lois and Jimmy are actually ageless immortals, they're just casualties of the medium.

Continuity and yes, coherent storytelling, are secondary to DC and the audience's need for Superman to remain a relatively young man - or more importantly, the need to keep him the same age as his supporting cast. That's what makes the change where he stops being drawn older between the end of Final Days and the start of his new Action tenure -so he can be only a little older than Batman instead of having twenty years on him, even though the number of stories he actually had on still-the-New-52-Bruce is probably into the hundreds. How many of those stories are mutually exclusive but coexisted anyway? The world may never know, especially now that that particular continuity only lasted for a single year after Superman's death.

As for Clark really only appearing in the Lois & Clark series, that's true, but given that I don't think a single post-Rebirth artist for any of his appearances drew him to look comparably old to how he had, I see age lines drawn on Superman's face suddenly consistently vanishing as evidence enough. Also, I can't quite think of a quite tasteful way to put this, but Lois was drawn to be "sexy" again in a particularly younger way.

Anyway, sorry if my approach is a little too out-there, I know I'm basically throwing narrative logic under the bus- but I've basically come to the conclusion that DC never had that anyway as far as linear time is concerned.

[The Frozen Reptile]

Batman is older by a couple of years in every incarnation since the Golden Age.

However, we don't know how long due to relativity effects that Superman is, he could have been born 3000 years ago our time and we don't have a way of knowing unless told.

[Grim Ghost]

Are u guys crazy?

He's never been past 35

Always early 30's

A bit older than Batman, who is late 2O's

Never ever have I thought he was near 40.

In any incarnation

Near the end of PC a lot of people considered post crisis Supes to be around 40. He certainly acted that way. Heck, Grounded was basically his mid life crisis! And since Superdad basically is PC Supes with a 10 year old son it's natural to think that he is older.

Of course with magical comic book time all things are possible, he will always appear to be 30-35 at least in this incarnation.

Really at this point why not make him 40? Judging by sales people seem to be loving the Superdad with Lois and Jon thing (not me, but that's another story). Setting him at 40 seems natural in a situation like this.

Also it's kind of funny that Pre Crisis Superman was always considered to be eternally 29. He never looked or acted like a 29 year old to me, seemed late 30s maybe.

[Tony]

I don't think age can be applied to any comic character really. Best to just acknowledge that medical advances and technology easing the strain of manual labor combined with better eating habits has allowed us as a people to age much more gracefully. However old they are he's a Kryptonian and shes a hot mom.

[Sacred Knight]

Batman is older by a couple of years in every incarnation since the Golden Age.

However, we don't know how long due to relativity effects that Superman is, he could have been born 3000 years ago our time and we don't have a way of knowing unless told.

Wow, its been that long? I thought Batman a little bit older than Superman was a recent thing.

[Kuwagaton]

That's not the same thing at all. The Neil deGrasse Tyson story referenced his origin. I'm not saying that in-universe there's not supposed to be any passage of time at all, that's obviously ridiculous- just that the passage of time is meaningless within the bounds of Superman's career. For example, it's not like there were any reboots between the original Action Comics # 1 and DC Comics Presents # 97, but obviously Superman's about the same age, maybe a little bit older, and it'd been nearly 50 years. Still, you'd probably get Superman saying things in the mid 80s like "Krypton was destroyed thirty-some years ago"- it's not like Lois and Jimmy are actually ageless immortals, they're just casualties of the medium.

Oh, I certainly agree that they're not the same. I apologize if there's some miscommunication, but I'm talking about the former example and not the latter. The latter, although we know that Superman continuity does not place the Superman from Action #1 as the same Superman from Presents #97, is an example of time that doesn't pass in the comics. Time that passes in the comics is specifically referred to and saying that Superman is basically the same age in scenes depicting two different years doesn't really work because we're constantly shown otherwise. Most writers avoid stating an age, especially because someone usually comes along to contradict that statement. But my point is that it's happened.