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I came across this today.  From a book published in 2005.  Just going to leave it here.

I think the real-world change that happened might have been Paul Levitz becoming DC president. After that the Krypto and Legion TV series are greenlighted, the retroboot Legion returns, etc.

Besides Loeb on Superman/Batman, Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek (who was a member of this forum) took over writing duties, and between the three of them and All-Star Superman there was a "Bronze Age revival" in the 2000s. I remember reading a reference to Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, they brought back the real Zod, and toward the end of Superman vol. 1 Superman was kind of down about things, so he went and had a talk with a coded Elliot Maggin.

In the "rebirth" era I think they have a taken a best-of (or "Superman Through the Ages," if you will) approach to Superman's backstory. The first Mxyzptlk story happened, so did the first Krypto story, Jim Shooter's run on Adventure Comics, Matt Fraction's Jimmy Olsen series showed all of the 60s Jimmy transformations occurring. Basically every Brainiac story has happened, he just has different avatars through the years. The 1990s Death and Wedding. But the new Supergirl series is really the first that is explicitly bringing back Bronze Age events.

There has generally been an "everything is true" approach to DC history in the last few years. On the other hand, Waid is doing a New History of the DC Universe right now, so the pendulum could swing in the other direction.

[Karl Kesel and Mike Parobeck magazine origin]

I had originally intended to include the Karl Kesel and Mike Parobeck magazine origin on the site because in it:

1 - although Krypton had the Byrne look and feel visually; Jor-El and Lara were shown as physically vibrant and alive; and as actually capable of feeling and displaying real emotions like love, sorrow, loss and hope - all qualities that Byrne had removed from them and from Krypton in general.

2 - Kesel and Parobeck soft-pedaled the "not born-on-Krypton", test-tube aspect.  Although it is not outright denied; it is also not explicitly stated - kind of just danced around.  I felt like they were trying to get away with whatever they could, but were forced to do so within clearly defined restrictions.  They were pushing at the boundaries.

I absolutely agree, Jeph Loeb deserves a lot of credit - he did incredibly fantastic work.

I've been a bit out of the loop for the last 15 years or so; but in returning to comics, I keep coming across references to Silver and Bronze age continuities in the books.  I'm wondering if this is a recent development for DC or if it has been going on for a while:

There was a Jimmy Olsen story ("The Gorilla Ex-Wife of Jimmy Olsen") in this summer's DC's Kal-El-fornia Love that states right in a narration box that it is a sequel to "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #98, 1966!"  That was fun to see.

The new Supergirl series has a lot of references to the original Cary Bates early 1970s title, and reads almost like it could be a direct sequel to it. Right in the first issue, Supergirl uses her "yellow ring of Nor-Kann" to retain her powers while in Kandor; she got this ring and first used it in an early 1972 issue of Supergirl by Cary Bates.

The portrayal of the Kryptonian Language in the main Superman books is no longer that now-famous angular, almost crystalline looking character-set that has been used in every DC comic and TV show of the last 25 years;  but has reverted to the E. Nelson Bridwell 1970s squiggles of "Kryptonese" and is now actually called "Kryptonese" again. (I hope to have examples online)

I don't know whether all this is the result of some sort of intentional and official policy of a new, clearly defined DC continuity; or if it's more that the people now running things at DC just don't have any interest in bothering with continuity restrictions anymore, or are possibly even completely unaware that there was once a time when it was a concern for anyone.  So the creators are now free to write and draw whatever it is that they enjoy, completely ignorant that this is a wondrous, new-found and incredible freedom.

Could be both?

Great to see the site is still up and running. Very cool.

Jon Bogdanove recently posted about this, so I am sharing it here -

The Siegel & Shuster Superman Plaza will be unveiled in Cleveland, Ohio this Saturday, August 8, 2025

Announcement Video:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMwO5CnCMNL/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMyb_ArReZp/
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1387760525663134

About the Plaza and the Siegel & Shuster Society:
https://www.supermanstatuecleveland.org/

The announced (yesterday) contents are as follows:

World’s Finest Comics #198, The Flash #200–204, 206–212, 214–229, and The Brave and the Bold #99.

Since that WF story was a two-parter (involving a race with Superman, no less), it's reasonable to assume issue 199 will also be included.  DC isn't always great about listing the contents of these things correctly.

Flash #200 is the first issue drawn by Irv Novick and thus a logical starting point.

B&B #99 is nutty even by Bob Haney's standards, involving Batman's possession by the ghost of a pirate while visiting the Wayne family beach house, where the cremated remains of Thomas and Martha Wayne are kept in a bottle in a wall safe (despite all those visits made to their graves in other comics).  The story ends with Batman thanking the Flash for helping him finally get over the deaths of his parents so he can move on with his life, which technically should make this 1971 tale the last Batman story ever told.  Good old Haney.

"The Flash: The Fastest Man Dead" next year; the Bates/Novick era was "my" Flash.

The last couple of years I have been doing a readthrough of Superman titles and Fantastic Four. I have thought about doing Flash next, because a) after the sheer volume of Superman family comics and strips, any other character should be pretty easy lifting, and b) because Flash has been central to the DC reboots, I feel like it's the one series you could probably read from the beginning to present.

I have the Trial of the Flash reprint, do you know which issues will be in the DC Finest book?

[No Javascript. No Pop-Ups. No Cookies. No Tracking. No Targeting. No AI.Never had them. Never will.Your privacy is assured and your humanity sacrosanct.]

There's a new phrase running along the bottom of most pages on the site reading,


No Javascript.  No Pop-Ups.  No Cookies.  No Tracking.  No Targeting.  No AI.
Never had them.  Never will.
Your privacy is assured and your humanity sacrosanct.


This isn't really a new site policy, but actually a newly formalized statement of what has always been regular but unstated site policy.

Since 1995, various parties have approached me with proposals on how to monetize the site, but it always involved polluting the site content and/or the user experience in some way.  I have always declined, mainly because I wanted the site to remain an enjoyable, useful, and positive experience. When I initially studied Computer Science back in the '80s, I was attracted to the field because the philosophy was: How to make useful tools to assist and empower the user.  But now the philosophy is: How can we manipulate and control the user to get them to spend as much money as possible and do and think what we want them to?  Basically, how to get them to stop thinking.

Back then, I could see where things were headed and refused to go down that path; both with this site and with my career.  The approach here is to respect the user and the user's computing device and to follow the Golden Rule.

AI is new and has a whole new set of problems: mental, emotional, ethical, artistic, financial, and environmental. Plus, whenever I try to read any text generated by an AI, or view an image created by an AI, I feel physically ill.  Whatever AI is doing to the user, it can't be good.

These are wonderful books that definitely hit my sweet spot in terms of page count and price.  So far the reproduction in all of them has been great.  My favorite is "Superman Family: The Giant Turtle Man" but I'm digging the other Superman-related volumes as well.

You left one off your list:  December will bring us "The Invisible Luthor," although the (Golden Age) contents have all been reprinted before in Archives and/or omnis.

I'm thinking "Last Days of Superman" represents the progress they've made to date in restoring content for GA Superman Omnibus Vol 8, which may or may not ever materialize, but as I like the "Finest" format better, it's a win for me.

And yes, the "Gorilla World" has created a lot of confusion for folks.  Similarly the title "Superboy: The Super Dog from Krypton" must be a bit of head-scratcher to the average bookstore visitor.

I'm on board for all the super-stuff, plus I'm looking forward to "The Flash: The Fastest Man Dead" next year; the Bates/Novick era was "my" Flash.

I haven't read the Superman Adventures magazine, will have to check it out. 1993 is the year they finally went all-in on John Byrne's origin (see the test-tube rocket) after Wolfman and others ignored it, and I suspect it was because Man of Steel #1 was reprinted and on the stands during the Death of Superman saga.

Alex Ross did sneak the traditional baby-ship into Kingdom Come, but other than that I think Loeb was the first to successfully break the lock on Superman's back catalog. His Return to Krypton was overturned, but he brought back Kara and Krypto, Red K while writing Smallville, and I remember Superman/Batman even referenced the Caveman from Krypton in it.