This is "Never Gonna Be the Same Again," a feature where I look at how bold, seemingly "permanent" changes were ultimately reversed. This is not a criticism, mind you, as obviously things are always going to eventually return to "normal." That's just how superhero comic books work. It's just fun to see how some of these rather major changes are reversed. This is differentiated from "Abandoned Love," which is when a new writer comes in and drops the plot of the previous writer. Here, we're talking about the writer who came up with the idea being the same one who resolved the change. This is also differentiated from "Death is Not the End," which is about how "dead" characters came back to life, since this is about stuff other than death.
Today, we close out our look at the "permanent" changes that happened to Superman in the early 1970s.
This is the fourth in a four part look of the most notable changes that Denny O'Neil made to the Superman mythos when he took over writing duties on Superman in 1971. The first one is here, about how Kryptonite was meant to be eliminated. The second is here, about how Superman's Superman robots were meant to be eliminated. The third is here, about how Superman lost a third of his super power.
This one is about how Clark Kent stopped being a reporter for the Daily Planet and began to work in TV news.
Now, I have written about how Julius Schwartz and Denny O'Neil were the driving force in most of these changes, however, this one was tied in with the OTHER Superman editor at the time, Murray Boltinoff, who was in charge of Action Comics and Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen.
In Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, Jack Kirby's first issue, we learn that the Daily Planet has been purchased by Morgan Edge...
We see right after that that Galaxy Communications even took down the Daily Planet globe!
Then, in Superman #233, we see Edge put Clark Kent in front of the camera...
At the end of the story, Clark has done so well that he is permanently assigned to GBS-TV...
By Action Comics #408, Clark Kent is now anchoring his own daily newscast...
Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane continued to work for the Daily Planet in their own comics. Perry White had a great bit in Superman #265 about how the Daily Planet was still relevant....
It's a funny bit because the comics pretty much argued the exact opposite, ya know? Schwartz had Clark Kent become a TV reporter specifically BECAUSE he felt that newspaper reporters were no longer relevant.
So is he gone for good?
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He remained at WGBS solely for most of the decade, but with the Superman movie coming out, DC decided to get the Daily Planet back into Clark's life.
In Action Comics #493, Clark is on vacation from the TV station and does a news story as a favor for the Daily Planet and he gets a scoop...
The next issue, he starts back at the Daily Planet...
He now worked for both the TV station AND the newspaper division.
That was the set-up for the rest of the time before Crisis on Infinite Earths. So it was still a change that lasted, but not TOTALLY, since he did end up going back to the Daily Planet for the last eight years or so.
That is it for all of the major changes from the 1971 Superman revamp!
Okay, folks, there are tons of examples of major changes being made to characters, seemingly "forever," that were then reversed, so feel to write in with suggestions for future editions of this column to brianc@cbr.com!