Discarded Superman Continuity You Still Accept as Canon

[Montressor]

I'd totally forgotten how much older Lex was when Byrne did Man of Steel. By the time Johns had Clark and Lex attending high school together, this had totally slipped my mind.

I do remember what appeared to be pre-Crisis Lex helping kill Swamp Thing in Gotham during Moore's Swamp Thing run--I say 'appeared to be' because while he did not appear in any sort of costume or armor it was clear that Lex was known for clashing with Superman (he was called in for his expertise in techniques to eliminate super-powered beings) and was in prison at the time.

[Patrick Gerard]

Where to start...?

Superman fought Muhammed Ali. Lois Lane was born in Pittsdale. Pete and Lana were married. Pete had a political career. Lex had a daughter he lost.

Superman, Batman, AND Robin (Dick Grayson) had a lengthy history of team-ups before Barry and Hal debuted. Barry and Hal debuted noticably after Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman, who made their modern debuts in that order.

I'm open to Diana having had prior careers including in the Justice Society. I think she's more integral to the JSA mythos and patches like making Hippolyta or Fury placeholders is less effective than simply having Diana as a member.

As for Superman and Batman, time travel is common enough that I have little problem with Batman being an urban legend before the Waynes are shot or young Clark being aware of Superman before he becomes Superman. Maybe he doesn't know for sure that Superman is his future self but I think the world really needs to have a Superman in the public eye before Clark puts on the tights or a lot of real world pop culture gets lost from the DCU.

My preference is something like this:

Superman and Batman go back in time (and maybe to multiple periods). Superman is publicly identified in 1938. Batman is an urban legend who spawns some pop culture. Their actions cause Diana to debut early. Clark and Bruce grow up aware of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as figures in the past although Batman was never photographed and was only documented in unreliable sketches.

[Embryonic Superman]

Where to start...?

Superman fought Muhammed Ali. Lois Lane was born in Pittsdale. Pete and Lana were married. Pete had a political career. Lex had a daughter he lost.

I believe the Ali fight is one of the only bits of Pre-Crisis history that the Post-Crisis comics would acknowledge from time-to-time, although usually only through veiled allusions. But yeah, I agree with all of these, and I'll also throw in Ron Troupe and Lucy Lane having a relationship and Perry and Alice White adopting Keith.

Basically, anything that gives the supporting Smallville and Metropolis cast some depth and history, something that's been lost in the books for years and Rebirth hasn't yet fixed.

[Kuwagaton]

The modern Krypto is based on the original but actually comes from the simulated Silver Age Krypton seen in Loeb's "Return to Krypton". This would allow there to be no Krypto during the original Post-Crisis era, also leaving room for Bibbo's Earth dog of the same name. However, since the current Krypto is a virtual clone of Clark's childhood dog, he understandably views them as one and the same.

RtK was the way to do it. MoS #111 was an awesome, rare adventure starring Lois in the world of Superman and the Krypto from there had a greaf comic the following issue.

At the end Clark goes "whoa was that real?" And wanders off. It was great because that's a scenario you can take or leave instead of a counter productive exercise in telling us what didn't happen. Unfortunately they soon after went about writing the whole thing off which only managed to set us up for more origins in succession.

[Jon Clark]

1) Clark's public debut was as Superboy a noticeable amount of time before the Legion approached him to join.
2) Superman was a JLA member from the team's founding but was not a major player in the team roster early on.
3) Lex Luthor is a known criminal who spent years battling Superman publically before he became a businessman.
4) The Kents died in a way that had nothing to do with Superman (no imps, no Brainiac, ...)
5) Lois and Clark both had relationships with other people while they worked at the Planet before they became seriously involved (Lori Lemaris, Luma Lynai, Jonathan Carroll, Jeb Friedman)
6) Lois' "niece" Susie Thompkins was part of earlier stories that still happened.

[Patrick Gerard]

RtK was the way to do it. MoS #111 was an awesome, rare adventure starring Lois in the world of Superman and the Krypto from there had a greaf comic the following issue.

At the end Clark goes "whoa was that real?" And wanders off. It was great because that's a scenario you can take or leave instead of a counter productive exercise in telling us what didn't happen. Unfortunately they soon after went about writing the whole thing off which only managed to set us up for more origins in succession.

My understanding (and it's limited, as someone who was pitching at the time and in touch with the creative teams) was that they wanted to establish the Silver-Age Krypton as real and were working through how to do that with a minimum of disruption to other stories, stuff like the Cleric story and the Starman story. The basic idea was (as presented) to have the colder Krypton be a lie created to keep Superman from mourning. There was going to be an effort to reconcile most stuff. I was invited to try pitching some short story fixes for Secret Files books. Anything that couldn't be fixed was going to be smoothed over by some Mxy stuff in the pipeline and a time travel story planned.

There was some more convoluted stuff with the Pokolistan Zod. He was originally going to be sort of a time remnant created by Superman saving Krypton in RTK, raised by the spirit of General Zod. You'd have the two Supermen coexisting but the Pokolistan Zod was going to be the "price" for saving Krypton. He'd be defeated by allowing Krypton to be destroyed again.

Anyway, Dan DiDio got brought in about that point and developed Birthright with Waid. And decided that should be the new origin, which kind of forced a hasty retreat on the stuff Jenette Kahn and Eddie Berganza had approved with Loeb and Kelly. Loeb walked off Superman, frustrated, but stuck on Superman/Batman with the promise of more creative latitude, most of which he got. (There were some cancelled projects. Notably a teen slasher themed crossover starring Young Justice and the Legion and a sized book with Ed McGuinness about Superman fighting giant robos and giant monsters. That was an oversized book modeled on Superman vs. Muhammed Ali. They seeded some of it in the main books.

Loeb had trouble hitting deadlines while his son was dying of cancer and opted for a fresh start over at Marvel, where Mark Millar and Bendis had been trying to lure him. He was the first choice to write All-Star Batman (before Frank Miller) and was partway into a run with Art Adams, some of which was drawn. I think a big problem was lack of upward mobility at DC as Dan DiDio was the studio go-between guy.

Anyway, DiDio was really big on stories and concepts you could summarize in one sentence. That was most of his beef with legacy characters and stuff like Peter David's Supergirl. This got mistaken for DiDio being a silver age guy. I think he liked the quirkier silver age stuff at DC (Doom Patrol, Metal Men) and horror books but was, in terms of personal taste, more of a Marvel guy. I don't think he had any special opposition to Wally or Kyle aside from the fact that they had longer backstories from being second gen. Had someone other than Johns been pitching, I think DiDio would have been just as happy keeping Wally IF it meant erasing Barry from Wally's backstory to simplify it. With GL, well, Hal had an advantage because he was on more action figures and lunchboxes. The key thing was Dan was always that he wanted comics you could evangelize about to people who'd never read a comic before. He was more ambitious about sales targets than most.

This is all just my outside POV which I've related bits of before. But maybe hopefully gives some grounding for where Superman's origin instability came from.

[marhawkman]

My two favorite moments in the comics? They're not THAT old, but getting there.

1: Superman beating several minor villains and offering to make them a member of the Justice League if they choose to reform. Of the four, only Major Disaster took him up on the offer, but Scorch later reformed anyways. Although she never really became a hero she did have a few nice moments. It was epic seeing Scorch, Major Disaster, and Plastic Man fight the Burning Martian and actually weaken him enough for J'onn to reassert control. And this was a foe that the regular Justice League got crushed by. In case people are curious, Scorch used her flame powers to suck up the heat BM was trying to use to roast cities and people, Major Disaster flooded the city(BM was weak to having his flames extinguished), and Plastic Man actually went toe-to-toe with guy to keep him from physically attacking the other two.

2: Supes creating his own super-team called the Supermen of America. Particularly because Livewire is both part of the reason he created the team AND a member. Sadly there was a reboot before the team actually did anything. :/

[Darkseid Is]

Did the New 52 erase the death of superman? I remember it being mentioned somewhere. Could just me crossing wires with something else.

[Miles To Go]

Did the New 52 erase the death of superman? I remember it being mentioned somewhere. Could just me crossing wires with something else.

A version of the death of Superman still occurred in New 52 continuity, and a version close to the original definitely did occur in the current continuity.

[Jokerz79]

Since Rebirth is in flux I treat his canon like I do Batman's meaning I no matter the era consider Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams run canon so here's my Superman canon for me.

Lucy has a son Sam with Ron (He has custody off panel in my head).

Lex was President and Pete Ross was his VP and President for a time.

Lex had a daughter named Lena named after his sister he gave up to Brainiac for more power.

While Lex may have not been in the foster care system? He was raised in Suicide Slums and did at least kill Lionel for insurance money.

The late Perry "Jerry" White Jr. Was Lex's son.

While not Superboy in the present era Clark did travel to the future and was Superboy with the Legion for a time as a teen.

Connor existed with all Post-Crisis history.

Linda Danvers was Supergirl before Kara in my head canon Jeremiah is Fred's brother and thus her uncle and she is retired.

Shrunken Kandor is an alien city not Kryptonian like Post-Crisis I like the Phantom Zone with Kryptonians but Kandor does feel like too many Kryptonians survived and makes Kal and Kara less special.

Jonathan is dead but Martha isn't just off panel (I know there's no chance but I like to pretend).

I also consider some bronze age things canon too.

[Kuwagaton]

I was invited to try pitching some short story fixes for Secret Files books. Anything that couldn't be fixed was going to be smoothed over by some Mxy stuff in the pipeline and a time travel story planned.

There was some more convoluted stuff with the Pokolistan Zod. He was originally going to be sort of a time remnant created by Superman saving Krypton in RTK, raised by the spirit of General Zod. You'd have the two Supermen coexisting but the Pokolistan Zod was going to be the "price" for saving Krypton. He'd be defeated by allowing Krypton to be destroyed again.

Anyway, Dan DiDio got brought in about that point and developed Birthright with Waid. And decided that should be the new origin, which kind of forced a hasty retreat on the stuff Jenette Kahn and Eddie Berganza had approved with Loeb and Kelly. Loeb walked off Superman, frustrated, but stuck on Superman/Batman with the promise of more creative latitude, most of which he got. (There were some cancelled projects. Notably a teen slasher themed crossover starring Young Justice and the Legion and a sized book with Ed McGuinness about Superman fighting giant robos and giant monsters. That was an oversized book modeled on Superman vs. Muhammed Ali. They seeded some of it in the main books.

Loeb had trouble hitting deadlines while his son was dying of cancer and opted for a fresh start over at Marvel, where Mark Millar and Bendis had been trying to lure him. He was the first choice to write All-Star Batman (before Frank Miller) and was partway into a run with Art Adams, some of which was drawn. I think a big problem was lack of upward mobility at DC as Dan DiDio was the studio go-between guy.

Thanks for that. I know they were absolutely rolling with that as effective origin at least early on, and they had some idea for Pok Zod. But my memories of behind-the-scenes or fandom stuff are hazy. Didn't know or remember the timeline between Loeb and Waid origin scheduling.

[superduperman]

I'll be honest, DC has rebooted Superman so many times I don't really follow continuity anymore They finally found my limit. If we're talking what things I keep as head canon it would be him having powers from day one. Taking this away was the one thing about the Byrne reboot that I didn't like. I tend to follow individual stories and fill in the blanks myself these days. Wonder Woman Year One is an excellent story, for instance. But in the context of the larger Rebirth narrative it is somehow lessened. So I just don't imagine it as part of Rebirth. I liked what New 52 did for Superman and feel like he needed a clean slate so maybe some of this is just sour grapes on my part.

[Doctor Know]

Discarded Superman continuity?

Superman being The Last and Only Survivor of Krypton.

[Lokimaru]

Remember, Lex II is not a different guy. He's not really Lex's son, he's plain old Lex Luthor who masqueraded as his own son in his new cloned body so he would inherit his own fortune back after faking his death. It was his way of not only curing himself, but starting off with a clean slate in the eyes of Metropolis and flying under Superman's radar. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, but I'm not seeing how SO contradicts any of that directly.

Well the original Lex was around Perry's age so him having a secret grown son made sense. SO put Lex is Clark's generation so the Son would have been around Kara's age which could work if Lex got an Older Woman pregnant at a young age.

[Lokimaru]

I'll be honest, DC has rebooted Superman so many times I don't really follow continuity anymore They finally found my limit. If we're talking what things I keep as head canon it would be him having powers from day one. Taking this away was the one thing about the Byrne reboot that I didn't like. I tend to follow individual stories and fill in the blanks myself these days. Wonder Woman Year One is an excellent story, for instance. But in the context of the larger Rebirth narrative it is somehow lessened. So I just don't imagine it as part of Rebirth. I liked what New 52 did for Superman and feel like he needed a clean slate so maybe some of this is just sour grapes on my part.

He deserved just as much of a chance as post crises Superman did. That's the hypocrisy of the whole affair. Post Crises Supes got over by piggy backing off his predecessors Earth 1 successes. I really wish I could see the letters section at the time and what people made of the switch.