The Superman From DC's Last Reboot Is Back

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Sideways Annual #1 by Dan DiDio, Grant Morrison, Will Conrad, Cliff Richards, Ibraim Roberson, Dan Brown, Hi-Fi Colors, Travis Lanham, Dave Sharpe and Carlos M. Mangual, on sale now.

In the heart of DC's Dark Multiverse, one of DC's brightest heroes, the Superman from DC's New 52 reboot, just reemerged after an extended absence. Wearing his signature t-shirt and jeans, the New 52 Superman teamed up with Sideways, a dimension-hopping teenage hero, in Sideways Annual #1.

When the New 52 reboot started in 2011, DC re-envisioned Superman as a working class hero who defended the oppressed in stories inspired by Superman's early appearances from the late 1930s and 1940s. While he was a big part of the New 52's early days, this young, brash Superman and his adventures were seemingly wiped out of existence when he merged with the Pre-New 52 Superman in 2017's "Superman Reborn" crossover. That story left DC with a new, more traditional Superman. It also left the New 52 Superman without a place in the DC Universe, until now.

After being held captive in a Dark Multiverse pocket dimension, Superman escapes with some help from Sideways. In between fighting giant spider monsters and saving a dozen other superheroes, this Superman reveals some subtle details about his history that could help answer some of the DC Universe's most burning questions.

While talking with Sideways, Superman mentions several specifics aspects of New 52 continuity. As he's recovering from "K-Toxicity" after being exposed to kryptonite, he remembers George Taylor, the editor he worked with at The Daily Star before moving to The Daily Planet. He references a few other key points from New 52's Superman's history, like dying, coming back to life and being named Superman by Lois Lane. He even mentions the Kryptonian ship that brought him to Earth in an image that homages Andy Kubert's cover to 2012's Action Comics #5.

While recapping his life's story, Superman also mentions that he spent time working in a general store while he was growing up.

While that was part of Superman's origin in the 1950s and 1960s, his family's general store has been a relatively obscure piece of trivia for decades. On Earth-One, Clark Kent grew up working in the Kent General Store when he wasn't flying around Smallville as Superboy. After Jonathan and Martha Kent sold the family farm, they moved into Smallville proper and opened up the store. While it's not totally clear what happened to the general store after Superman left Smallville, it's rarely been mentioned since the Earth-One timeline was destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the seminal 1986 crossover that rebooted and reshaped DC's multiverse.

The general store hasn't been a firmly established factor in any of Superman's subsequent origins, but it was mentioned near the start of the New 52. During a Sholly Fisch and Chriscross flashback story, "Baby Steps," in 2012's Action Comics #7, Jonathan Kent joked about mortgaging the family farm and opening up a general store. That never happened in the New 52, and the Kent family stayed on the farm until Clark was in high school. After Martha and Jonathan died in a car crash, Clark gave the farm to a family friend when he went off to college.

NEXT PAGE: New 52 Superman Fell Through A "Gap" Into The Dark Multiverse

While this could mean that this Superman isn't the New 52 Superman, that doesn't seem likely, especially since Grant Morrison, one of the New 52 Superman's definitive writers, worked as a "special guest writer" on this issue.

If this truly is the New 52 Superman, the changes to his origin suggest that his history could've been rewritten after "Superman Reborn." As a result of that reality-warping story, DC's main Superman got a new, rewritten history, and the same thing could've reasonably happened to the New 52 Superman.

However, that doesn't explain where the New 52 Superman went after "Superman Reborn." As he tells Sideways, Superman says that he fell through a "gap" into several "short-lived synthetic realities" in the Dark Multiverse. While that statement is pretty vague, the word "gap" is emphasized with a bold font.

Superman's statement could be a reference to one very prominent "gap" in the DC Universe's timeline. As Doomsday Clock is exploring, the New 52 timeline was created when Watchmen's omnipotent Doctor Manhattan essentially erased a decade of history from the DC Universe and kept the Justice Society, DC's first superhero team, from ever forming.

In the grand cosmic scheme of the DC Multiverse, the Dark Multiverse is, among other things, a place where unsustainable realities go to die. If the New 52 Superman ended up there after his adventures were taken out of continuity, the Justice Society and the other heroes of DC's missing eras could've ended up somewhere there too, perhaps in one of the "synthetic" realities that Superman fell through.

Like the New 52 Superman, DC's missing heroes are out there somewhere. Along with a few other characters from erased DC eras, Jay Garrick, the Justice Society's Flash, already reappeared, and DC has dropped numerous hints about other missing heroes.

For decades, the DC Universe continued the adventures of its older heroes in an alternate reality called Earth-Two. With all of these discarded scraps of history floating around, DC could be setting the stage for a new take on that concept, maybe even one that combines the early days of the New 52 Superman with DC's other early heroes in the Justice Society as a way to preserve the New 52 Superman's adventures.

While it's still not clear where he'll end up, the New 52 Superman ends his team-up with Sideways by saying that he was going to start exploring the multiverse and possibly form a "Super League" of multiversal heroes. If he follows through on those ideas, it probably won't be too long before this Man of Steel takes flight again.

CBR

The New 52 Superman Is Back (And Could Be the Key to DC's Future)

NEXT PAGE: New 52 Superman Fell Through A "Gap" Into The Dark Multiverse