Press Pause

I started this blog almost 13 years ago. It formed out of a few different motivations:

1) To continue the discussion that many of us had been having in DC Message Boards, where seemingly random deletions, bans, and uproars made some quality conversation just disappear. This was initially focused on Grant Morrison’s Batman run; I wish that some of the older discussions posted there could have been preserved.

2) To reconsider the history of DC comics from the beginning. One of the first comic books I ever owned was a 1974 JLA-JSA meet-up, which was a confusing thing for a new reader! Those stories indicated that there was a vast, cosmic backstory of DC that I didn’t know and couldn’t possibly learn much about by reading new comics. It was only around 2008 that I really caught up on some of the oldest stories, which became fascinating for me in a sort of sociological sense, as Golden Age stories generally weren’t written for adults, but they presented me with an explanation for how DC’s characters began and became American mythology that later drew my admiration.

3) To continue both of those “present” and “past” threads of discussion, breaking down new comics of interest to me (quite often, by Grant Morrison) and writing Retro Reviews of older works – sometimes old favorites of mine, sometimes as I was reading them for the first time – of particularly significant value.

About four years ago, those two threads merged in my analysis of Final Crisis, a work that concluded only weeks before I began the blog, but that I didn’t feel ready to break down in subatomic detail until giving it obsessive levels of attention in late 2017. It was an enormously gratifying study for me, and felt like I took a bit of a risk there because I didn’t really have enough understanding to write the third part until after I’d already posted the first two parts.

Along the way, I took some considerable detours in topic, including the TV show Mad Men. I also have written quite a few drafts – even some extremely long and heavily-researched unpublished ones – that are sitting in my folders, so distant in my memory that I’d feel unqualified to finish them now.

It seems crass to be, in this online age, motivated by sheer numbers of clicks and likes, and I don’t want to convey that exact equation, but to be blunt: If I spend a good part of an hour working on a post for each person who eventually reads it, that feels like I’m speaking to an empty room. (E.g, if I spend 50 hours thinking about a post, then 153 people end up reading it.) And that’s how things are trending. I’m sure there are good reasons for this – there are reasons for everything. I could consider a shift in focus, spreading links in different places, but this is all meant to be fun. There are just about no DC titles that haven’t lost my interest at some point or another in the past few years and some top sellers have been aggressively off-putting to my taste. In a few cases, I’ve thrown down my money and held my nose while reading the issues of a pivotal event that I didn’t really like at all. In others, I’ve bought the first issue and regretted that I used my dollars to “vote” for creators creating something like that. Then I check online reviews and those works have 4.8-star ratings that tie The Dark Knight Returns. It’s hard for me to justify reading depressing, cluttered, subpar works in a life where good reading (viewing, etc.) material exists in overwhelming abundance.

Some comics that others have enjoyed have always – for decades now – seemed too inconsequential for me. Last year, I binge-watched Friday Night Lights and felt like it did an excellent job of something that so, so many mentor-and-sidekick comics had always done poorly. The mentor gives the sidekick an inspirational 30-second speech and then they’re ready to fight super criminals? Maybe someone reads that and finds it exciting. I find that it’s trying, with a pointed lack of effort, to do something that Friday Night Lights did with real effort and real conviction.

And increasingly, some of the news about the comics industry has been hard to stomach. A century ago, Proust advised us, “Never meet your heroes.” Well, that really undermines the point of a genre that is specifically about heroes. And there’s probably nothing in the news now that isn’t in a careful reading of several decades ago. Maybe Fredric Wertham hit the nail on the head.

2022 will make 50 years since I first walked out of a “news” store with a new comic book in my hand. It’s been a good run and it’s not over. For all I know, I’ll soon be strongly motivated to blog about some new comic book. But right now, I’m not sure what that comic book will be.

Retro Review: DC: The New Frontier

It is easy to begin Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier, classify it as an "Elseworlds" story, and continue on, reading it with pleasure to its conclusion without revising that classification, that is an Elseworlds, one of many. But New Frontier is, significantly, something different than – something more than – an Elseworlds, and part of what makes it so outstanding lies in that subtle distinction.

Yes, New Frontier meets the definition. Just as "imaginary stories," from the era before the term "Elseworlds" was coined, fits as well. New Frontier presents variants of familiar DC characters in a variant of the familiar DC Universe. But to see how the story is more than that, note the ways in which it deviates from both the Silver Age and post-Crisis renditions of the DCU:

• New Frontier has an absolute timeline with precise dates, and with characters aging one year for every year that passes.

• As a rule followed in all cases but three, Cooke defines characters' debuts and careers to match their actual publication dates. For example, Barry Allen debuts, in the world of New Frontier, at the same time that Showcase #4 was published in our world. The exceptions are so rare that they are worth identifying: Dick Grayson, John Henry Irons, and (in a cameo only) Roy Harper all debut around 1960 instead of in 1940, 1993, and 1941, respectively.

•  New Frontier interweaves the timelines of actual historical and cultural events with DC publications so that, for example, the launch of Sputnik is inserted in proper sequence after the arrival on Earth of J'onn J'onzz and the accident in which Barry Allen gains super speed.

• Artistic style and period-appropriate slang makes this work about 1960 look and sound like it was created in 1960.

• Though the style is from the Sixties, the perspective is from the 2000s, turning an eye to much that was ignored by comics and the mass media in its own time, such as racial discrimination, racial violence, and the excesses of McCarthy-era anti-Communist rhetoric.

• Cooke includes not only DC's stars, but also a huge lineup of DC characters, offering memorable renditions of characters ranging from Batman to Slam Bradley and the Challengers of the Unknown.

• Cooke adapts, from post-Crisis continuity as well as Watchmen the notion that superheroes became feared by the public, and thus the JSA era was ended. He adapts, from The Dark Knight Returns, the notion that Superman (and Wonder Woman) continue to operate by pledging their loyalty to the U.S. government, while Batman continues on as an outlaw.

• The comprehensive history of an era, showing the dawn of DC's Silver Age, suggests parallels between the optimism of John F. Kennedy's "Camelot" and the debut of the Justice League.

To summarize the nature of New Frontier's world: While a typical Elseworlds offers a variant of the standard DCU, or makes the DC characters interact with some fictional variant of our world, DC: The New Frontier places DC characters in a world that is much more like the real world than any previous rendition of the DCU. During long, extended scenes and in tiny details, New Frontier is a period piece that is about our world – primarily the United States, but other places as well. It educates while it delights and entertains.

Because of all this, the superheroes are much as we've always known them, but their world seems different, and, though set in the past, and worked from established material, it is incredibly new in the way it combines older plots and styles with a new perspective. The superhero action, front and center, is as universally white and non-inclusive as the comics of the Fifties, but Cooke makes the readers and his characters aware of the glaring social inequalities of the times, with xenophobia, rape, lynchings, and Joe McCarthy's Red Scare punctuating the usually-sunny narrative.

And while it does such a great job of being about the real world – circa 1960 but seen from the perspective of the 2000s – New Frontiers does two other things, too. It crescendos around a particular story with a particular threat, called The Centre. But before, during, and after that central plot, it constructs an architecture of an entire age of heroes, showing the Golden Age and the Justice Society in the rearview mirror while it drives us through the beginning of the Silver Age and the formation of the Justice League.

The first time that NF shows us a superhero in costume is when Hourman dies fleeing from the police as a vigilante in 1952 – this is the first year after DC ceased publication of the Justice Society, and also the time that McCarthyism was near its zenith. As in DC's post-Crisis continuity, NF posits that the JSA was driven underground, leaving the world without superheroes for a time. As in The Dark Knight Returns, NF shows Superman working behind the scenes as a government agent while Batman fights crime illegally. Like the continuity applied retroactively to the Silver Age superheroes, we see heroes like the Flash (Barry Allen) and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) debuting some time after Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Unlike any of those once-main continuities, NF asserts that the Trinity belonged to the JSA era, and after a few years, went on to be part of the JLA era. This is a luxury that NF's timeline allows because only eight year separate the two teams' tenures, unlike the decades that passed before DC reintroduced JSA stories in the late Seventies under the post-Golden Age concept of Earth Two.

At its finest, New Frontier is an origin story, not of one hero or another, but of a team – a universe. Most central are the three Silver Agers who joined the Justice League as charter members. Barry Allen is trim, almost petite, but supremely confident and courageous. J'onn J'onzz is lonely and isolated in his exile on Earth, but utterly driven to act only on the behalf of others as policeman John Jones. Hal Jordan, whose life is shown in more detail than anyone else's, begins as a kid in an outtake from "The Right Stuff," then goes on to become a war hero, a test pilot, an astronaut, and a superhero. New Frontier is a coming-of-age story for the Justice League's universe, tying together many loose threads, and ending by showing how the nascent League goes on to fight together, opposing Starro, the JLA's first opponent in print, back in Brave and Bold #28. The finale, quoting Kennedy's inaugural speech is overflowing with optimism. If it makes you want to see the new world that has been born, it's there in print, in the first fifty or so issues of Justice League. But those stories by Gardner Fox are written for kids, perhaps older kids. New Frontier is a look at that world that was newly minted for kids, but dressed up and sophisticated for adults, full of meaning and style. Sometime a few months ago, I realized that it is, in all likelihood, the best comprehensive account of the entire DC Universe in one work. If I had one DC story to take to a desert island, I can't think of a better choice.

 

Earlier this year, I read New Frontier for the nth time, taking notes, putting together drafts of a review to post on my blog. And then, when the review was nearing completion, Darwyn Cooke died, far too young. All of the kind things I say about the work, and by extension about Cooke, might seem like a puff piece, something overly kind said of the dead. No. After many times admiring New Frontier, I was putting into words why I thought it was so wonderful, and this was nearly complete when I heard that the author was gone. All of the admiration was firmly in place and for the most part already typed out when I got the sad news. Darwyn Cooke, this review – too late – is for you.

History of the DC Universe: 1986-2015

My earlier post, History of the DC Universe: 1935-1985, breaks down how DC Comics became committed to a shared and (relatively) consistent continuity very gradually over a period from about 1952-1969. But once a shared universe began, inconsistencies from older stories were left unresolved and new ones were being made all the time. In 1981's Green Lantern #143, writer Marv Wolfman answered a letter from a fan who asked about why a character from Kamandi's universe had recognized Hal Jordan in a sprawling crossover in Showcase #100, but claimed not to in a recent issue of GL. Wolfman's answer acknowledged a need for some sort of clean-up wherein editorial powers would make it clear which past events were part of the main (Earth One) continuity and which weren't. At about the same time, some creators at DC began to perceive that the idea of a Multiverse was too confusing for new readers, and some features, such as Superman, seemed to be in need of a major overhaul. And thus, DC's first housecleaning event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, was conceived. It would finally be published in 1985-1986, and created a new, simpler, better DC Universe.

But if a shared, moderately consistent DC Universe was only about 15 years old when Wolfman saw the need to simplify it, it took much less than that for the need to arise for another clean-up, event, which was followed by another, and another. The post-1985 history of DC Comics is most aptly summarized by recording these reboot events, and what effect they had. They are as follows:

1986: Crisis on Infinite Earths

1994: Zero Hour

2006: Infinite Crisis

2011: Flashpoint

Each of these events restarted or revised the timeline of the DC Universe, enabling them – in principle – to change everything. In practice, none of them led to a completely new continuity. COIE and Infinite Crisis performed radical surgery on the Multiverse, with the former reducing the number of alternate Earths from "Infinite" down to just one, and the latter event increasing the number from one up to 52. Infinite Crisis made a modest number of changes to the continuity of the main Earth, while Zero Hour performed some extremely limited clean-ups. Below, I break down in more detail the changes that each reboot ushered in:

Crisis on Infinite Earths

In principle, Crisis rebooted everything. A new timeline began, and the Multiverse never existed in this timeline. In practice, many features were rebooted with new origins while other features were affected only slightly.

• The Multiverse of many alternate Earths was replaced by just one positive-matter universe with a past history that consisted primarily of a modified version of the Silver Age continuity of the Justice League and other Earth One features in its recent past and distant future, preceded by a modified version of the Golden Age continuity in its World War Two era. A smattering of heroes from other Earths were added to the modern age of post-Crisis Earth.

• Superman and Batman lost their positions of prominence as among the first superheroes on both Earth One and Earth Two. Instead, the JSA era had no versions of Superman and Batman at all, and they became first heroes of the second wave, but reserve members of the JLA instead of founding members.

• Superman's history was completely overhauled, with the Byrne Superman constituting a significantly new version of the character.

• The original lineup of the Justice League became Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and Black Canary. Superman and Batman existed at that time, but did not join as full-time members of any version of the Justice League until later.

• Wonder Woman was, in time, retconned to be two people: Diana's mother Hippolyta as a member of the JSA and Diana coming along much later as a member of the third lineup of the Justice League.

• Characters such as Captain Marvel of Earth-S, Blue Beetle and the Question of Earth-Four, and Lady Quark were added to the current era of superheroes.

• The Crisis itself became part of post-Crisis Earth's history, but as an attack by the Anti-Monitor on the one and only positive-matter universe. Barry Allen died in this Crisis, but Supergirl, who had never existed, did not.

• Many characters, including Donna Troy, Power Girl, and Hawkman, were eventually rebooted at least once, in an effort to provide them with histories that were consistent with the new, unified Earth.

• Because the new Superman had never been Superboy, the Legion of Super-Heroes were inspired by the Superboy of a Pocket Universe that was created as part of a nefarious plan by the Time Trapper. A sequence of timeline reboots taking place in – and affecting only – the Thirtieth Century created more than one new, distinct version of the LSH.

• Because certain features, such as Wolfman and Perez's own Teen Titans, were not rebooted, the post-Crisis continuity of these features was added on to pre-Crisis continuity, which eventually became very lengthy and complex.

• Justice League continuity eventually included six considerably distinct lineups: The Year One JLA, the Detroit JLA, Justice League International and Justice League Europe, the new Big Seven with Kyle Rayner and Wally West, and a new JLA led by "the Trinity" of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, which eventually turned into the Robinson JLA with Donna Troy, Starman, and Congorilla. This slate was wiped clean only with Flashpoint.

• The ranks of youths who served as Robin eventually included Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne. This sequence of Robins has never been reset at any point from 1940 to the present.

Zero Hour

In principle, Zero Hour also restarted the timeline, and modest retcons affected some features, such as Batman, but no flagship features were fundamentally altered. A fold-out in the final issue included a timeline of the DC Universe.

Infinite Crisis

Infinite Crisis became the third event to reconstitute DC continuity. The villains' effort to remix pre-Crisis Earths to their liking was thwarted, resulting in a haphazard reordering of continuity of no one's design. A few major changes resulted:

• Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were once again made full founding members of the original Justice League lineup, replacing Black Canary in that capacity.

• DC once again had a Multiverse, rather than only one dimension. The new Multiverse, however, was not revealed for almost a year after Infinite Crisis ended, and has only 52 Earths rather than the thousand (or "infinite") Earths before COIE. These were initially identical, but tampering by Mister Mind made them all distinct. Many of these Earths were described only in very brief fashion until nine years later, when the Multiversity Guidebook provided an overview of almost all of them.

• In general, Infinite Crisis left more things the same than it changed, but it gave writers latitude to make modest changes that they could explain as having happened as a result of the event, or of Superboy Prime having altered reality while punching the walls between dimensions. Consequently, many small changes were revealed months and years after the event ended.

Flashpoint

Only five years after Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint changed DC Comics in more radical fashion. In contrast to COIE, which was published long after the concept was considered, Flashpoint apparently occurred as a matter of some urgency, interrupting many creative projects mid-stride. This was perhaps most evident in the Dark Knight title, which ran only 5 issues in a Volume 1 before being rebooted with a new #1. The New 52, as the post-Flashpoint DC Universe was called, made dramatic changes in the publication format as well as fictional, creative changes within the story:

• DC began distributing new comics digitally on the same day that print versions were released.

• Every title, new or old, was relaunched with a new #1, including the venerable Detective, Action, Superman, and Batman, which had not previously been renumbered since their 1937-1940 inceptions.

• Most flagship characters received a new costume, in many cases raising the collar, creating a 3-D armor look in place of skintight fabric, and eliminating the "underwear on the outside" look that had traditionally added an extra splash of color to the uniforms of Superman and Batman.

• The timeline of the main Earth, Earth 0, was rebooted in significant ways, although those have not yet been entirely explained. Most notably, the Justice League was rebooted with a new origin depicting the first meeting of most of the various pairs of heroes, including Superman and Batman, but not Flash and Green Lantern. New origins were told for many characters, including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but significant elements of their pre-Flashpoint history appear to be intact. The main heroes are now shown as almost a decade younger than in their pre-Flashpoint versions. Details of how much pre-Flashpoint history is still in continuity continue to emerge as new stories are published.

• Earth 2 was radically reimagined, replacing a version in the image of the Silver Age Earth-Two which had been seen only occasionally after Infinite Crisis with a new version stricken by bloodshed and catastrophe. A relentless series of attacks by Darkseid first eliminated the new Earth 2's versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, then almost the entire population, and finally the physical planet itself. The survivors now live on a new planet along with superheroes loosely based on the members of the Justice Society.

• The rest of the Multiverse is presumably unchanged since Mr. Mind created it at the end of 52. Most of this was seen rarely or not at all before Multiversity in 2014, so there was no creative reason to change any of the Earths besides Earth 0 and Earth 2.

Five Versions of History

In, all, DC has had about five major company-wide versions of continuity in their main storytelling world, and countless parallel worlds, alternate timelines, and lesser retcons. To describe the full history would occupy an encyclopedia, but a quick summary can be provided by listing some of the major superheroes of the era in approximate order of introduction, and the various incarnations of the "J" teams (Justice Society / Justice League). Other features, other reboots, and the tangled history of the future and past are beyond the scope of this summary. 

Golden Age (1938)

Superman, Crimson Avenger, Batman, Sandman, Flash, Hawkman, Hour-Man, Spectre, Doctor Fate, Green Lantern, Atom, Justice Society, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Seven Soldiers of Victory.

Silver Age (1952)

Earth One: Superman (first as Superboy), Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League, Atom, Hawkman. After many years, original JLA replaced by Detroit version.

Earth Two: Retroactively declared to fit the Golden Age stories, with considerable revisions made or implied. The JSA returned from retirement and younger heroes began another team, Infinity Inc.

Post-Crisis (1986)

World War Two era: Flash (Jay Garrick), Sandman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Wonder Woman (Hippolyta), Hawkman (Carter Hall), Doctor Fate, Atom (Al Pratt), Black Canary, Justice Society.

Second era: Superman, Batman, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Black Canary (II), Justice League (with Black Canary but without Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman). Detroit Justice League. Flash (Wally West). Justice League International and Justice League Europe. Wonder Woman (Diana), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner). "New Big Seven" Justice League.

Post-Infinite Crisis (2006)

This timeline inherited most of the Post-Crisis timeline, but with the original Justice League reset to the Silver Age lineup with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman instead of Black Canary. After Infinite Crisis, a new JLA lineup included several Silver Age JLAers along with Red Tornado, Black Lightning, Vixen, and Arsenal (Roy Harper). This later gave way to a JLA lineup including several former Teen Titans, Congorilla, and Starman (Mikaal Tomas).

New 52 (2011)

Earth-0: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Cyborg, Justice League.

History of the DC Universe: 1935-1985

Introduction

The Multiversity Guidebook is the most recent of several publications to offer a summary history of the DC Universe. Similar, somewhat longer, histories have been published in the past, and are already somewhat out of date.

It’s not easy to write a History of the DC Universe (or Multiverse), and it never was. Before anyone cared to piece the logic and the timeline together, it was already complicated and full of contradictions. Sometimes, the creators have published a retcon to try to correct the contradictions, sometimes they offer silence and perhaps a shrug. Reconciling eighty years of stories into a logical whole would fill a book, but here I hope to offer some cogent history of how the DC Universe took shape, something that might best be called “The History of The History of The DC Universe.” One simple observation – perhaps surprising to many – that I'd like to convey is that DC continuity didn't truly begin for decades after the superheroes debuted. Unbeknownst to me at the time, DC had adopted a full-fledged continuity across its titles not all that long before I began reading them in the early Seventies.

Roots: The Golden Age, 1935-1951

From 1935 to 1952, there was, with minor exceptions, no DC Universe: Most features stood alone. Features were published in a single title, or sometimes, such as Superman and Batman, were popular enough to be printed in multiple titles, but by and large, there was no thought in anyone’s head that the assorted titles were part of an integrated whole. This may come as a surprise to newer readers, familiar with stories printed in later decades that imagine the Golden Age stories as an early DC Universe. But this was nothing one saw in the majority of those early stories themselves.

Three exceptions, however, are worth noting. The Justice Society feature in All Star Comics merged the worlds of over a dozen different features that had started off separate. I've earlier written about the origin of the Justice Society. What’s important to note is that although the Justice Society feature placed all of these characters into the same fictional world, this never carried over to the solo features. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Starman, etc., in their own features never acknowledged that the Justice Society existed, and there was a distinct sense, often repeated, that each hero was the only hero in the world of his or her own feature. No police chief ever said, “I could call Superman or Starman. How about Starman?” Likewise, there was no indication that the Gotham City that Green Lantern lived in was the same Gotham City that Batman lived in, or that anyone on the Justice Society had ever heard of, say, Aquaman or Green Arrow. Later Justice Society stories placed the whole team in Civic City, with no mention of the heroes' respective home cities from their solo features.

Similar to the Justice Society feature was the Seven Soldiers of Victory feature in Leading Comics. This team appeared about a year after the Justice Society, also teamed up heroes who had been created as solo features, and also stood apart as its own fictional world.

One sort of tie-in which did link different features was the reference, in one feature, to another one as a comic book in the world of the other, an idea which was later used in the origin of Barry Allen, who was an avid reader of Jay Garrick comic books, and is a plot element in Multiversity. In the Golden Age, both Red Tornado and Wildcat were inspired by the comic book adventures of Green Lantern, and Batman and Robin interacted with Jerry Siegel, the creator of Superman. The early Justice Society stories, beginning with the very first panel, made Fourth Wall references to their own comic books, and even to the editors.

Many efforts in later years would tie DC’s Golden Age stories, and characters such as Doctor Occult, Slam Bradley, Speed Saunders, Superman, and his super hero successors into a unified continuity, but during the Golden Age itself, there was no unified continuity to be found.

Unification: 1952-1968

The Justice Society went out of publication in early 1951. Just over a year later, as though to replace the team concept that had been extinguished, the first Superman-Batman meeting took place in Superman #76. In truth, Superman and Batman had previously appeared together in action and in many cameos in the Justice Society feature, but Superman #76 retconned that all away, and presented a story of their “first” meeting. In July 1954, World’s Finest began running a regular team-up of the two heroes, and their fictional worlds have been merged together, between and through reboots, ever since.

In the meantime, DC had several other superhero features, new and old, but for the most part, only Superman and Batman were part of a unified continuity. The mid-Fifties origins of Martian Manhunter and the Flash, Barry Allen, conspicuously avoided any mention of Superman as a part of their universe, something that almost certainly would have entered into the discussion at some point if he had existed in their worlds. The Fifties neared their end with DC Comics having one fictional world for Superman and Batman, with many other features that were presumed to be separate.

However, a story in early 1959 told the tale of Superboy meeting a young Oliver Queen, before he became Green Arrow. In late 1959, the origin of the new Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, mentioned Superman. These two stories began a process that would turn the Superman-Batman continuity into a unified DC Universe over the course of a decade.

In just a few months, the Green Lantern reboot and the first Justice League story turned DC Comics in a new direction. Now there was a feature that unified the worlds of a whole team of superheroes, and for the first time, their solo features were – at least in some ways – implied to be part of that unified continuity.

But by the end of 1961, the editors hadn't really commited to a unified continuity just yet. At the end of the third JLA story in Brave and Bold #30, an editorial note read, "With this issue, we close the case book of the Justice League of America! We'll be glad to re-open it – and continue the adventures of the JLA in a magazine of its own – if enough of you readers request it! Please write and let us know!" For about two years after the JLA was introduced, the Justice League members’ solo features made little or no mention of the Justice League, just like the Justice Society before it.

And then, that changed. In June, 1962, an appearance by the Flash in Green Lantern #13 made it the first crossover that put a JLAer besides Superman or Batman into another hero's solo title. Three months later, Green Lantern was a guest in Flash #131. Crossovers tying the heroes together remained rare, besides JLA and World's Finest. A story in Action #309 in early 1964 had "all" of Superman's friends with no mention of the Justice League besides Batman.

The years from 1963 to 1967 were when the idea of a unified DC continuity really took root. Brave and Bold began regular team-ups with an adventure starring Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow in issue #50 in November, 1963. The editorial voice is again instructive: "Here it is, fans – the magazine you've been asking for – two heroes from the DC Hall of Fame teamed together in a full-length spectacular adventure!" The implication is that fans' letter-writing was the impetus for the creative decision. Moreover, the phrase "DC Hall of Fame" is intriguing, being the concept they had in mind before a "DC continuity" or "DC Universe" had begun. Month after month, Brave and Bold tied two more characters' worlds together until it was devoted to team-ups with Batman in October, 1967.

By 1968, the Teen Titans had joined the JLA as a team that tied several older features together in one title, Brave and Bold had run over a dozen team-ups,

and many characters had made guest-appearances in other heroes' solo titles. By this point, it was natural for a reader to assume without question that most of DC's characters shared one continuity across all its titles.

Earth Two

Overlapping the same time frame that DC created a continuity around Superman, Batman, and the rest of the Justice League, they also developed the Earth Two concept to publish new content utiltizing Golden Age characters who didn't fit into the new Silver Age setup.

After the landmark meeting of Barry Allen and Jay Garrick in Flash #123 in September, 1961, almost two years passed before Barry Allen met the full Justice Society in Flash #137, and the first JLA-JSA meeting in JLA #21. In the same month that the third annual JLA-JSA meeting took place, in August 1965, the purely Earth-Two teamup of Starman and Black Canary was published in Brave and Bold #61 and #62, and later in the year, Alan Scott had a guest appearance with his younger counterpart in Green Lantern #40. This handful of stories established the Earth Two concept as a sidestage for DC, one that would later be developed into its own monthly series.

So, while DC continuity developed most actively between the Justice League characters who represented Earth One, it was at almost the same time that Earth Two became an integral part of that continuity, one that was separate most of the time, but could be bridged by the Flash or other cosmic events.

The Birth of Linear Time

The fact that DC’s Golden Age could proceed without an overarching continuity points to a more general truth: The stories of that era were simply not bothered with consistency of any kind. Retcons happened often, without apology, as though the creators simply hoped no one would notice. A feature that began in Detective Comics #1 started in San Francisco and suddenly jumped to New York. Superman went from working for George Taylor at the Daily Star in Cleveland, Ohio to working for Perry White at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. Hour-Man’s boss turned out to a criminal in one story and then was back as Rex Tyler’s boss in the very next issue. Note also that Hour-Man’s name told his enemies how to defeat him. Details like this were swept under the rug because it suited the creators’ in some way (Superman’s creators decided that they didn’t want to tie the character to Toronto or Cleveland), or because the creators themselves just weren’t concerned with details.

Going into the Fifties, comic book stories took place, primarily, in circular time. If you grab a random Superman story from 1943 and another one from 1949, you can probably read them in opposite order and not notice any inconsistencies. Nothing much was changing in the lives of these characters, and every story ended neatly to allow the next one to start with a fresh beginning. There were exceptions: Villains often returned after their first appearance, beginning in 1939 with the Ultra-Humanite and Doctor Death who returned to pester Superman and Batman, respectively, in the very next issue after their respective debuts. Immediate recurrences were also true for Luthor and the Joker when they arrived on the scene about a year later. Batman’s life changed with the addition of Robin and his butler Alfred in the early Forties. But, by and large, time did not move for DC characters in this era, just as it rarely did for many lighter cartoon features.

Nowadays, readers take for granted that the characters inhabit linear time in which, like the real world, changes take place in stories and then the changes carry over to subsequent stories. This transition from circular to linear time was ushered in by a few important events between 1952 and 1969.

First, the Superman-Batman meeting in 1952 “counted”, unlike their previous meetings in All-Star Comics. When they next met in 1954, their 1952 meeting was considered to have happened, and so both of their worlds had changed, in a shared continuity which accumulated new history from then onwards.

Second, the landmark Action #242 in 1958 introduced Brainiac, but more significantly, the bottled city of Kandor. Suddenly, a huge number of surviving Kryptonians joined Superman who had met only a few Kryptonians before this.

A third, important shift took place with the second introduction of Supergirl in 1959. A story one year earlier introduced a magical “Super-Girl” who died at the story’s end. The character was popular, so a permanent Supergirl, Superman’s cousin from Krypton, was created the next year. Like the case of the Superman-Batman association, the early story didn’t “count,” and was never mentioned again, but the newer one did.

Then several important events marking the transition to linear time happened in rapid succession in early 1961. Just as Supergirl was introduced twice – once not counting, the second time counting – Mon-El was introduced twice, once as “Halk Kar” in 1953, then as Mon-El in a very similar story in 1961. Halk Kar never appeared again, but Mon-El became an integral character in continuity. Also in early 1961, DC’s two superhero teams, the Justice League and Legion of Super-Heroes, both got new members for the first time in issues printed the same month, with Green Arrow joining the JLA, whereas the LSH was shown to have multiple members, beyond the three LSH founders who had been introduced earlier. Almost simultaneously, the Phantom Zone was introduced, which was a permanent version of the criminals-from-Krypton idea first explored with Mala, Kizo, and U-Ban in 1950 and 1954. As with Supergirl and Mon-El, an earlier idea that was subsequently ignored was given a permanent replacement. These four revolutionary events, published within only three months, switched the Superman and Justice League features from circular to linear time, and with this change, the continuity became much more fertile for accumulated history for fans to explore.

The revival of the Justice Society in Flash later in 1961 also indicated that time moved for the characters, as Jay Garrick and other JSAers were revealed to have retired and grown older in the years since their earlier stories had been published.

For Batman, the change to linear time occurred later than it did for the Superman continuity. The “New Look” Batman of 1964, besides putting a yellow oval around his chest emblem, eliminated more fanciful aspects of Batman’s stories, erasing the characters Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bat-Hound; for many years afterward, those characters were simply gone and assumed never to have existed at all. Then, in 1969, perhaps the most pivotal “linear time” change in DC history took place, with Robin ­– Dick Grayson ­– growing up and going to college. That same year, a JLA story bid J'onn J'onzz farewell, as the Martian Manhunter went on an indefinite leave of absence in space, and did not return to DC stories for several years.

Linear time brought life and death to the characters. The first stories with significant characters dying (temporarily) involved Lightning Lad in 1963 and Alfred Pennyworth in 1964-1966. Both of these plots unfolded over many issues, told as mysteries with subtle clues and misdirection intensifying the drama before Lightning Lad and Alfred were both resurrected. In 1966, the Flash married Iris West. [EDIT: Even earlier, as Keith Jones just commented in Feb. 2018, Aquaman married Mera in November, 1964. Thanks, Keith!] In 1967, the Legionnaire Ferro Lad died and – in a first for DC superheroes – remained dead. Now, the DC characters were going through all the major changes in life. The reader could perceive the characters of the DC Universe growing older, acquiring new associations, making life changes, and moving on. The lives of the characters moved at a much slower rate than real world time, but the implication was that time did march forwards for the characters.

The shift to linear time went hand-in-hand with DC features crossing over and joining together in one shared continuity. Characters could meet, team-up, grow up, age, and die. There was a significant backstory accumulating all the time, and the casual reader might be a bit adrift picking up an issue of DC Comics, but devoted readers now had an ever-more complex continuity to learn and explore.

The Bronze Age

Thus, the Seventies were the first full decade where a shared DC continuity ruled by linear time was in effect. Things changed slowly, but they did change, opening up more complex narrative possibilities. DC's creators and fans could conceive of a full-Multiversal history. The past included the Big Bang, the Guardians of the Universe, the New Gods, and eventually the World War Two era when superheroes began on Earth Two. The present included the Justice League on Earth One, an older Justice Society on Earth Two, and many adjunct characters on those and other parallel universes. And there was a future including the Legion of Superheroes, the Reverse Flash, Abra Kadabra, Rip Hunter, and other characters. DC's titles followed dozens of characters on many teams, acquiring a stable of hundreds of villains on various planets, dimensions, in various eras. About twenty years after DC continuity had finally gotten up to speed, it would be perceived as cluttered and overly complex, and DC's editors made plans to sweep much of it away.

Further reading: History of the DC Universe 1986-2015.

Who Took The Super Out Of Superman?

Who Took the Super?

For much of his 73 years, Superman has been the leading character of the superhero genre. The first of the successful prototypical comic book superheroes, Superman has also been – at times – the best-selling, most popular, most powerful, and in a couple of different ways, the defining symbol of righteousness. At others times, however, he has been less than that, and by and large several of these quantities have trended downwards over the last half of the character's history. The purpose here is to ask, as the title of a 1976 story put it, "Who Took The Super out of Superman?"

To the greatest extent reasonable, I have collected data to back up these points. I read one page of Superman from each year and counted the number of panels and statements that, in my view, portrayed certain traits. Ideally, one would examine every panel of every issue and have multiple readers "coding" their impressions, but I believe that the sample I performed is still enough to show some obvious facts on the scale of decades. I also used sales data to the extent that I could find it. I think there are some interesting and underappreciated truths in this data, and enough information to deflate a few myths.

History of Superman

Over seven decades, the tone and structure of Superman stories have varied considerably; to some extent, he is a barometer indicating what sort of stories one may find in each era in American culture as a whole. Summarizing Superman's history in any detailed manner would be a massive undertaking. My goal here is simply to sketch out some defining trends in the kinds of stories that have been told. Some of these trends are specific to Superman. Others reflect trends in the comic book medium or American entertainment as a whole. Some changes have led generally in one direction, whereas others have cycled like fashion.

Power

Superman's physical powers have generally increased over the years. This is probably best seen as a gradual many-step retcon; there was not an overarching account that Superman's powers were increasing over time. Certainly the physically weakest version of Superman came right at the beginning. A process of powering him up lasted about thirty years. Since then, his power levels were twice (1972, 1986) reduced for creative reasons, but there have been power-ups along the way. The cumulative trend from his creation to now is definitely upward, but the increases generally came in the first half of his history, with power levels being cyclical since then.

Tone

The tone of Superman stories has teetered between dark, noir themes and tales of childlike simplicity. This ran roughly parallel to similar changes in Hollywood. Current readers who think of the Fifties as "old" may not appreciate that cinema had a darker era before the mid-Thirties, much as Superman and Batman inhabited tougher worlds in their initial run which quickly mellowed as the Forties began. Both Hollywood and the comics had official "codes" to preside over family-friendly standards. Then, in the Sixties, as major cinema began to allow darker themes, the comics also ratcheted up their seriousness. Superman's facial expressions alone are unmistakable gauges of this. His foes of the Fifties seemed merely to confound and irritate him. As often as not, his menaces were nothing more than attempts by Lois Lane to discover his secret identity, or to marry him. In the Sixties as in the Thirties and early Forties, he once again grimly faced killers.

Friends

In his earliest stories, Superman had no confidante in the world, and other than his dead adopted parents, apparently never had. And yet, he never expressed any regret or remorse. From the Fifties through the Eighties, he had a large cast of friends at the Daily Planet, but he never trusted anyone with his secret identity unless that person was also a costumed crime fighter. Certain other superheroes, particularly Batman and Supergirl, became true confidantes of his. His romantic relationships became increasingly weird, as his cycles of denying and desiring Lois Lane actually hinged on the "rule" that the publishers could not change the mythos by marrying the pair, but within the comics, Superman always offered the reasoning that it would endanger her if they married – illogical given the public nature of their romance such as it was. With the Byrne reboot, Superman became significantly less odd. His closest superhero friendships were deleted but more than replaced with the return of his adoptive parents, the Kents. A "super family" of super powered friends arose, and Superman finally married Lois Lane, giving him a complete confidante.

Superman, Kal-El, and Clark

There has been a complex juggling of three or more personas within the character of Superman. Where there is one physical body, he has been, or subsumed, all of the following:

a) A human and specifically American who happens to be of alien origin.

b) A tough man with powers who pretends to be a frail weakling.

c) A tough man who is reasonably tough even as Clark Kent.

d) A Kryptonian who remembers his early childhood there and reveres the memories and traditions of his lost planet.

During the late Bronze Age, that last personality became, like his romantic relationship, increasingly strange, with Superman's life full of solitary rituals devoted to the memory of Krypton, rituals he rarely shared with his cousin. An undue number of thought balloons contained Superman thinking about his favorite topic – Superman, not infrequently thinking of himself in the third person as something that may have been himself or may have been his sense of his own public image. As Alan Moore had the man himself say in Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?, Bronze Age Superman was "too wrapped up in himself," which helped motivate the humanizing reboot that followed.

For the first thirty or so years after the Silver Age effectively merged Superman's world with that of other heroes, they called him "Superman." This has since changed, in many stories to "Kal" or "Clark" when no outsiders are around. The use of "Kal" seems to have peaked in the Eighties; Lois calls him Clark, but not infrequently, the ironically belittling "Smallville."

Rivals (in the Superman titles)

Superman's universe has became increasingly more populated with characters whose powers (or gadgets) rivaled his own. Initially, Superman was the only unreal element in his fictional world. That lasted for just one year, after which mad scientists and their creations began to challenge him. By and large, such additions to his fictional world "stick" and are less often subtracted, so his fictional world has continually become a more challenging environment as time has gone by.

In his own titles, Superman had the first of many encounters with characters who physically rival him, when he struggled to defeat the giants created by a mad scientist in Superman #8. At first, the idea of a foil that could match Superman was fresh and used rarely. In Action #47, Luthor used electricity to give himself strength almost equal to Superman's. In Superman #30, Mxyzptlk had powers that matched, but did not clearly exceed, Superman's. In the early Fifties, two stories introduced characters with Kryptonian-level powers. Within little more than a decade, they added Superman's pets, cousin, a clone of sorts, and we learned that two entire Kryptonian cities plus that society's equivalent of prison had survived the planet's destruction. Superman had a virtually intact Kryptonian society he belonged in. Meanwhile, in another line of stories, Superman had another set of peers with the Legion of Superheroes.

Ironically, the stronger Superman became, the more often he ran into rivals and foes that were stronger than him.  What was once meant to be a fresh and original twist – a foe stronger than Superman! – soon became a cliché. Initially, every Superman and Action cover showed Superman doing something dominant and amazing. Over the next several years this pattern was interrupted by covers showing Mxyzptlk, the Prankster, or Toyman making a dupe of Superman. Much later, in 1952, a cover promised "The shock of the year" – showing a character punching Superman backwards through a wall. That was perhaps a shock in 1952 (one which ended up not being real; Superman had staged a phony defeat), but by the late Sixties, nearly a quarter of all covers showed someone physically overpowering Superman, and many of the rest showed him in some other way humiliated or bested by the like of Atlas, Samson, Hercules, and Zha-Vam, a Captain Marvel surrogate. The original premise of Superman as an unbeatable winner had given way to the point of monotony as a super powered punching bag that was nearly always faced with some form of domination. Of course, this is how the cover pitched the comic, while the story inside would end with his eventual victory. But in the process, Superman went from a character that was dominant 100% of the time, to one who often spent almost every page of a story losing and only winning in the last page or two. When 1978 rolled around, Superman was punched, zapped, or blasted off his feet in no fewer than 11 of the year's dozen Superman issues.

And while the Byrne reboot cleared the slate of all of those rivals it quickly replaced them, and established that in the new Superman continuity, many characters and even rather conventional machines, were not only a match for Superman but also in many cases far stronger. He soon faced Apokoliptan villains and four Kryptonians of the Pocket Universe whose power far exceeded his. Doomsday was introduced as a brutish foe that could physically beat Superman to death. When Infinite Crisis reintroduced Superboy Prime, he was shown to be clearly stronger than our Superman, as though the "power down" that Superman underwent in the Eighties did not affect him.

Rivals (DC Universe)

While the pages of All Star Comics had several times in the Forties featured Superman in several cameos and just one actual illustrated adventure, the reality of those stories seemed absent from the heroes' solo features. Superman's universe effectively merged with that of Batman in 1952. The single biggest change came in the early Sixties when the Silver Age merged the fictional worlds of all of DC's major superheroes. But the advent of the Justice League, like the Justice Society before it, was not immediately mentioned in the characters' solo titles. Crossovers began in 1962 to establish the unified nature of the heroes' universes even in their own titles. This happened for Superman at a slow pace: A party for Superman in early 1964 had no Justice Leaguers besides Batman present. The other Justice Leaguers were first mentioned in a Superman title in July of that year. And the third and fourth appearances of characters from another "sandbox", besides Batman and Robin, on a cover of Superman came only in 1973, with the offbeat choices of Star Sapphire and Batgirl.

The Seventies, though, solidly asserted the relevance of the Justice League in Superman's world, and in so doing, gave major creative decisions a back door into Superman's titles that they had not previously had. Initially, Superman's physical supremacy over his allies was frequently implied and then vigorously asserted by Justice League #63, which opened the "versus" topic by stating that Superman could physically whip the entire Justice League (including Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman; Martian Manhunter was not present) at once. It went on to state neither Wonder Woman's lasso nor Green Lantern's ring alone could restrain Superman, but that in combination, they could. Soon, however, Green Lantern rings were getting the best of Superman, with guest Tomar-Re zapping Superman in JLA #80. Through the late Sixties and early Seventies, many new and existing DCU/JLA foes are shown outpunching Superman, and this now meant that Superman's rank among the strongest beings in his own universe was continuously lowered. Currently, DC comics have indicated that Superman is roughly on par (perhaps a bit stronger, perhaps a bit weaker) than a vast number of other leading characters. Whereas Superman began as easily the strongest being in his own universe, he is now matched or bested or tied by whole races, and may not be even the millionth-strongest being in his own universe.

Weaknesses

One of the hallmarks of Superman is that he has certain stock weaknesses. This superhero trait began with the original Green Lantern's weakness to "non-metals", which he encountered unfortunately frequently. Over the years, Superman has acquired specific weaknesses to the effects of kryptonite (1943 on the radio; 1949 in comics), red sun (Action #262, 1960), and magic (Action #86, 1945). These weaknesses, like powerful rivals, play a precise role in the narrative, giving Superman an obstacle to overcome, which inherently introduces variety into the range of storylines. When this was not enough, red kryptonite was introduced, allowing an implausibly vast range of quirky plots. The importance of varying story templates is the focus of the next section.

Story Structure

The classic story formula – not just for Superman, but also for Western literature as a whole – is Situation, Complication, and Resolution. In Superman stories, this is most often realized as follows: The peace of Metropolis (or the Earth as a whole) is attacked by an enemy. Superman comes forth to end their evil ways. A common alternative is that the enemy is aware of Superman and begins by attacking him directly.

Superman stories tend to run several pages (once as few as twelve; now, over a hundred, in the form of multi-issue story arcs, is not uncommon). Superman essentially always wins, and he is defined, traditionally, as being capable of beating almost any enemy. Accordingly, some counter-complication has to happen to prevent Superman from winning on the first page.

Over the years, this has tended to consist of largely repetitive formulas which paradoxically have evolved over the years. A formula is used for years on end, then is discarded, and a new formula is used.

For the first year or two, Superman faced almost no setbacks of any kind. The stories, which were usually quite short, consisted of him asserting his will onto a situation. Sometimes, he set out to change a social situation, and (as in the first two stories in Superman #1) his extra-legal solution consisted of forcing someone to undergo an experience that would make the person become more moral.

That template of story was mixed in with, and gradually replaced by, low-level mysteries. Superman would fight his way through some henchmen in one or two encounters before finally cornering his enemy. The key condition that enabled this was that Superman, though virtually invincible, was not omniscient. It was never asserted, as it later would be, that he could use his various sensory powers plus speed (plus little concern about invading the privacy of many innocents in order to catch the guilty) to scan large areas to find anyone he was looking for.

In the Fifties, there was a rise in stories where Superman was troubled by some sort of personal difficulty, often involving his secret identity or Lois's quest to marry him. From the Sixties to the present, the most common complication is that a foe has a way of besting Superman, despite his great powers. Many of the ways that this can happen have already been listed, but there are others: Superman is vulnerable to mind-reading, hypnosis, teleportation, threats to his friends and innocent bystanders, and countless science fiction constructs that infect, overpower, shrink, enlarge, zap, trap, or otherwise transform him. By and large, the default Superman plot has transformed into one that begins by emphasizing the limits of his power, and then the interest in the story shifts to how he overcomes that limit. Sometimes, this takes the format of a "Flash facts" story – Superman exploits one science law to beat his foe, and the issue thus becomes a mini-science text. Sometimes, Superman comes up with a clever tactic, or gets help from an ally. Sometimes, he seems simply to try harder in his third encounter with the villain than he did in the first two, summoning up just barely enough will power to win.

All told, the various degradations in Superman's relative powers and the increasingly challenging situations that he has faced can be seen as a way of renewing the creativity of the serial, allowing stories other than the repetitive stories of his initial year. However, these plot devices have themselves often become repetitive. A year's worth of stories in which Superman always solves a problem on the second-to-last page is no more or less formulaic than a year's worth of stories in which he always wins on every page.

Character-Driven Stories

Superman began as a supremely self-confident individual, bold, egotistical, and prone to boast, even gloat. He, like DC's next three heroes, was also a vigilante, working as a fugitive and at times almost as an anarchist. He resembled Frank Miller's Batman more than he resembled most later versions of Superman. When the comic genre as a whole lightened in tone, Superman naturally lightened with it, but his good nature remained even when the world around him became more complex in the Sixties and onward. Superman became the "Big Blue Boy Scout", at home in one-page promotional spots where he lectured kids on good values. His level of confidence and ego has generally wavered between the Sixties and the present. While, in the Fifties, Superman had not much personality at all, he now has essentially no personality at all. While he of course remains a heroic figure, the details of his values vary sharply from writer to writer.

As the tone of Superman stories changed over the years, embedding a long "nice" period between his rougher first year and the darker Sixties, Superman's personality developed accordingly. In the Fifties, all DC superheroes had much the same personality: They were happy and optimistic when things went well, temporarily glum but still optimistic when things weren't going well; they were upset by setbacks, but never angry.

As the publisher aimed for older readers, and mindful of the competition from Marvel Comics, DC had their superheroes begin to grow up in the Sixties and Seventies. In this new era, one could say that the Flash, Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow definitely had different personalities from one another. One can say that the industry grew up, replacing one-dimensional characters with more realistic, more "literary" characters, the basis of richer stories, more deserving of mature readers' attention.

To an extent this is true, but the character development has gone only so far, and is probably no more than one finds in "young adult" literature, aimed at teens. While stories are sometimes quite complex, they tend to be complex in a science fiction way, not like classics of literature. And, fair enough – they are churned out and mass-produced. In most media, serials and classics are distinct. Moreover, the "hero" genre excludes some of the range of personality from the creative palette: if a set of characters have to be heroic, then there is quite a bit that they cannot be.

Superman's characterization in particular left him penned into some strange pigeonholes. His Bronze Age love life was a soap opera with Lois and Lana at the corners of a love triangle. After the Byrne reboot, Superman planted an unreciprocated kiss on Wonder Woman then creepily told her he'd had erotic dreams about her. It was as though the mightiest hero in the world had the emotional and romantic stature of a fifteen-year-old boy.

The most problematic nature of Superman's characterization is how it has ended up so malleable as to have no solid core. Superman is the property of no single writing team, and in any given decade dozens of writers get their shot at him.

While certain values – of course, his goodness, heroism, and resolve – are relatively fixed, Superman has not become a well-developed character because different writers manipulate his finer points to make their stories work, leaving Superman with no real core.

For example, 2002's eight-issue crossover story Ending Battle climaxed with Superman refusing to kill Manchester Black even when he believed that Black had brutally murdered Lois Lane. Less than two years later, that value was affirmed when Superman said of the prospect of willingly killing a foe, "Never for me. Superman doesn't kill. He has too much control. He'd never make that kind of mistake."

But a year later, the Sacrifice crossover contradicted this by showing a Superman who was willing to kill Brainiac and other powerful foes when confronted with the same illusion that Manchester Black had shown him. The second story, a lead-in to Infinite Crisis, changed this value of Superman's for the sake of making the plot go where it needed to go. Even in this regard, the handiwork was careless: In order to make Superman a dangerous menace in the hands of Max Lord, it was only necessary to make him perform ruthless aggression while believing that he was responding appropriately. Sacrifice could have achieved the same thing by having Superman fight (nonlethally) opponents like Darkseid and Doomsday. In fact, he could unwillingly dole out lethal force while thinking that he was dismantling a bridge, or moving a pile of gravel. The writers and editors of 2005's story could have kept Superman consistent with his 2002 characterization simply by telling the story in that way. What were sacrificed was not the life of a fictional character or the reputation of Wonder Woman, but the creative values of consistent characterization.

The irony is that second-tier characters like Green Arrow and Damian Wayne have been characterized considerably better while Superman's characterization has, in the words of Gertrude Stein, "no there there."

Who Took The Dollars Out of Superman?

A simple display, and at first glance a shocking one. Here are the monthly sales of the Superman title from 1946 until the present. There are some factors that make this display somewhat misleading, but before we discuss these, take in the gestalt of this graph. It is a bleak state of affairs. Issue-for-issue sales have dropped as much as 98% over the past 65 years. This is a complete collapse.

Now, before looking for decades' worth of scapegoats, we should note the factors that led to the greatest part of that decline. First and foremost, the comic medium has faced increasing competition from other forms of entertainment. In 1946, printed reading material faced no competition from television or video games. As time passed, more entertainment options (besides playing outside) have emerged, and the decline seen overall in Superman sales can be seen in virtually any single entertainment channel when viewed over a run of decades.

In addition, the number of Superman titles per year has fluctuated. The frequency of publication for Action and Superman has varied, the number of other solo titles and titles containing Superman features has varied, and his team-up titles have also varied.

That said, the tale is still profoundly negative when we allow for the uncontrollable factors. If we compare Superman sales to a baseline comprised of four other DC titles (JLA, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash), we see a pronounced drop in stature as the years have gone by. In the Sixties, Superman's two titles, in terms of monthly per-titles sales, had 267% the sales of that baseline group. In the period from 2000-2008, Superman's fell to 102% of that baseline. Things have gotten far worse in the past three years, with Superman often absent from his own titles. From 2009 to 2011 Superman is down to 66% of the baseline.

Lest one believes that this collapse was somehow inevitable, or attributes this relative decline to the resurgence of JLA and Green Lantern, we can use Batman as a comparison. While Batman sales, relative to those four baseline titles, plunged from the Sixties to 1980 (in large part due to the loss of the bump that Batman comics experiences when the television show aired from 1966-1968), they subsequently rose, and have remained well above the baseline.

In a nutshell, one or many adverse factors have impacted Superman's popularity between 1980 and the mid-Nineties; in the same time frame, Batman's popularity surged, and then leveled off.

Given all of the ways in which Superman has trended over the years, largely by creative choice downward, which ones track the relative decline in sales?

Sheer physical power? No. Though I do not have data to track this, by all accounts Superman's sales did well for a decade after the Byrne reboot depowered him. Moreover, Superman's powers have been boosted over most of the last fifteen years, but his sales have dropped while his raw physical power has increased. Likewise, the de-emphasis of "Kal-El" and even the Superman persona relative to that of Clark Kent does not track the sales data. The most emphatic statement that the character really is Clark, not a Kryptonian superhero, came in Man of Steel #6 in 1986. The major sales collapse has come more recently.

Is it the tone of the stories? Superman's relationships? No – the darkest eras of Superman stories have sold just fine, and so have the lightest in tone. Bringing the Kents back to life did not hurt Superman sales. It is possible that his marriage to Lois Lane has been a contributing factor in decreasing interest, but that event happened in one issue, long ago, and Superman's sales have fluctuated both up and down since that time; if it has hurt interest by making Superman less macho, there's no real way to test that, and clearly the biggest fall in Superman sales happened well after the marriage.

Is it the increasing extent to which Superman has lost his initial encounters with enemies who match his power? Possibly. While Superman had glorious sales when this rarity became a cliché in the Sixties, it is interesting to track how consistently there has been an increase in the incidence of Superman being weaker when he first encounters an opponent. Taking as a sample the first page where Superman goes into action for one issue of Superman for each year, I coded his physical and personality traits as displayed in that page, counting the number of panels showing him at a physical advantage, or disadvantage, the number of panels in which he expresses confidence versus doubt or confusion, and so on. Then Superman's physical and personality toughness can be calculated by the number of "tough" traits shown versus the overall number of tough and weak traits. The following graph (click to enlarge) shows how those have tracked over the eras of Superman's history.

Some items of note: Superman was physically most dominant in the Fifties, with his battle outcomes declining sharply as his foes grew stronger in the following decades. Both his physical and personality dominance escalated in the Byrne era, despite his literal power-down: The self-doubt of the late Bronze Age was removed and replaced with a touch of farm boy disorientation but a larger helping of determination and confidence. And while Superman's personality was at a low in the late Nineties, his confidence rebounded in the 2000s.

However, one quantity that has steadily declined is the number of fights that begin with Superman taking a beating, with his victories just as inevitable by story's end, but those victories come later. In part, this is a reflection of stories that span multiple issues. In the 2000s as in the Fifties, Superman must struggle in the "Complication" phase of the story, but now that lasts much longer, potentially more than one issue. Page per page, Superman spends more time losing than he used to.

In my view, the greatest source of Superman's decline, though there are many to point to, has come from his relative decline in the DC Universe as a whole. His absolute power-down in the Eighties still left him more physically powerful than during the early years of the era of his uncontested dominance from 1938-1963. But as the post-Crisis era has gone on, Superman has encountered more and more situations where he is physically outclassed by recurring characters.

Consider Superman's first appearance in each JSA/JLA team series. In his only JSA adventure, he won an easy victory. In his first JLA action in 1960, he arrived at the end to mop up. In his first JLA action in 1997, he was immediately taken prisoner, and remained a captive while Batman began defeating the enemy.

Consider Superman's appearance in a 1977 issue of Flash. The speedster, running from a powerful energy fist, ran to Metropolis and led the fist into the back of Clark Kent's head, where it splattered apart. Superman's appearance in Flash Rebirth showed Barry Allen insulting Superman as he left the Man of Steel in his dust.

Consider Superman's easy dominance over his JLA teammates in 1963, and consider Captain Marvel decking him with a sucker punch in 1997.

Consider Superman's 1977 appearance in Batman, where his powers allowed him to laugh his way through a faked physical defeat while wearing the Batman costume with Superman's appearance in later Batman stories such as Hush and Frank Miller's Dark Knight stories where Batman manages to use his tools to beat up Superman.

Consider Superman mopping up a whole crew of White Martians in 1977's JLA #144 and his helpless captivity by White Martians in 2001's JLA #57 as well as the observation by J'onn J'onzz in 2006 that Superman is perhaps not even a rival to the Martian Manhunter.

Consider Elseworlds where Superman is tortured and killed by Gog, or left by Lois Lane for being pathetic and self-pitying when he loses his powers.

Heat flows from a warm body to a cold body. And DC writers, when they have another character's success to call their own, routinely use Superman as a punching bag to demonstrate that the other character is worthy of esteem. In many cases, as with Martian Manhunter, whatever is lost in Superman's stature is certainly not being made up for with the minor character's sales.

The single most important creative decision by DC is the one responsible for Superman's sales drop since 1980 and Batman's surge during that same time. In very simple terms, DC decided to make Batman stronger, and lo, Batman rose in stature. They decided to make Superman weaker, and lo, he sank in stature. While many separate stories oversaw this change over a span of years, the signature moment in that reversal of fortune came with Batman's eloquent dismantling of his erstwhile ally in The Dark Knight Returns. That moment alone, however, was not the unraveling of Superman's whole franchise, which still had a vibrant decade to come. But it was an inspiration to other writers who sought to steal heat from a warm body. Superman lost fights in the Sixties, to his own villains, but he always managed to prevail in the rematch. As he lost to other heroes, or saw his stature in the DCU otherwise diminished, that has been for keeps.

There was a time when Superman's name appeared on the company logo: "DC", "National", and "Superman" shared the billing. There was no question that he was the company's flagship character, distinctly above Batman, and incomparably above any other series. Since then, particularly in the past 15 years, Superman has been used like a bank, with creators making withdrawals from Superman and investing them in other characters. Sometimes, as with Batman, the loans pay back. Sometimes, as with the Martian Manhunter, the loans disappear. These unrepaid loans have spent Superman down out of flagship status, still strong in merchandising, but in comic sales, distinctly trailing Batman and Justice League, of late trailing Green Lantern, perhaps on trend to sink below the Flash. And that is how it stands coming into September 2011, with a new Superman #1 and a new Action #1 going on sale. It is up to the creators to decide whether there will be a #1 inside those issues or only on the covers.