A year into the DC Comics “Rebirth” SUPERMAN is “Reborn” and for the Man of Steel the aftermath is about to yield a “New World” as the Earth’s Greatest champion reacquaints himself with his own historic legacy.
With a history that has spanned more than 75 years, it is safe to say that Superman has seen it all! The Man of Steel has survived numerous crisis, reboots and even returned from a fatal confrontation with doomsday — the most recent “FlashPoint” event rendered him nearly powerless, and when that event played itself out, it introduced a new “Superman”. This younger, rawer version of the Metropolis Marvel single-handedly took on the underworld and courted Wonder Woman.
But it would appear that from the onset, this Superman’s fate was sealed, and after discovering a whole super-power — the ability to cause a near cataclysmic super nova that would render him human and powerless for 24 hours — and facing several other challenges, “The New 52” Superman soon learned that he was dying. Perhaps it was the exposure to the fire pits on Apokolips during “The Darkseid War”, or the kryptonite crypt beneath ARGUS, or the power struggle with Rao that did him in, but Clark soon learned his body wasn’t made of steel.
Fortunately for him and the ever-faithful reader, there was already another Superman already waiting in the wings, and by the time “The Final Days of Superman” (collected in one hardback volume) ran their course, the “original” Superman — the one that existed prior to the “FlashPoint” incursion — had been in hiding. That Superman was a victim of Brainiac’s “Convergence” experiment which had preserved and imprisoned portions of chronicled history and dropped them all onto the surface of a living planet named Telos.
It’s a long and rather complicated story, but in the end, Superman was dead — but not really! As we recently learned in the aftermath of the recent “Superman Reborn” four-part arc, Superman had been split into two beings — one “The New 52” Superman; the other “pre-FlashPoint” Superman! When Superman’s son Jon was threatened with being written out of history, the combined energies of Superman and Lois Lane reasserted themselves and it sent out a wave throughout the continuum that began to fix the timeline.
Though there is still a presence out there in the multiverse that has tampered with the continuity on “Earth-0” (or “Earth Prime”) — the mystery is about to unravel in the pages of Batman and The Flash in the much publicized arc entitled “The Button” Superman is left to put back together the pieces of “The New World” that he’s now a part of. The storyline begins in Action Comics #977 on sale now and written by legendary Superman scribe Dan Jurgens. And if you’ve been nostalgic for the return of everyone’s favorite hero, this is the perfect launching point!
Clark and his wife Lois Lane are busily putting their lives back together in Metropolis after their recent misadventure battling Mxyzptlk — the fifth dimensional imp may have been looking to tear apart the Super-Family, but in the wake of his dastardly plan, he instead brought them all much closer together and restored Lois and Clark to their former glory, but not all is entirely right. Now Clark is determined to get to the bottom of his “missing time” and hopefully solve this latest mystery surrounding our heroes “Rebirth”.
Superman in Action Comics #977 — “The New World” Part One written by Dan Jurgens with art by Ian Churchill is on sale now from DCComics.
Check this out:
The title may cause you a moments pause but really The Final Days of Superman written by Peter J. Tomasi is a fascinating account of “The New 52” Superman’s ultimate sacrifice. The entire saga is now collected in one-volume and is in the perfect lead into “Road to Rebirth”. Concerned about his continuing legacy, the Man of Steel recruits his best ally Batman to help him track down Supergirl, but when a mysterious energy source appears and claims to be the real Superman, it’ll take the combined might of the DC Universe Trinity to prevent this imposter from destroying everything — and in the end a startling revelation calls to question who or what Superman really is.
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