A Sermon Supreme #1: I Don't Want Origins to Honor the Past.

[Kal's Pal]

more pivotal events:

-finding Krypto
-the romance with Lori
-going to work at the Planet
-going to work for WGBS
-meeting Batman
-founding/joining JLA

Absoloutly! (Posted that last one in a hurry, didn't have time to list them all!) As well as...

- Childhood friendship with Lex Luthor, resulting in emnity that carries into the present day
- Building the Fortress of Solitude
- Various encounters with the criminals of the Phantom Zone
- Finally enlarging the bottle city of Kandor on another world

[NotSuper]

In regards to the Luthor/Kent friendship: I've always liked the idea of Lex leaving Smallville while he's still Clark's friend. Then, when they meet years later, they've both completely changed.

[Gangbuster]

Part of me would like the Evelyn Curry story to always be a part of Superman's early adventures...at least until the U.S. becomes the last civilized country to get rid of the death penalty, making the story "irrelevant." (but that's for another rant altogether)

But I've thought it over, and the most pivotal thing might be this: Superman almost has a different personality in the Golden Age. He was a tough guy, someone who could beat the gangsters at their own game, who really had no qualms about tearing the governor's door down, or making a munitions dealer enlist, just to set things right. What made Superman go soft?

I'm only 23, not a parent, and do not have as much life experience as many people on the board. However, I suppose for a moment I were the last survivor of my planet and family, often forsaking human relationships in favor of carrying out the promise I made on my father's deathbed. Then I suppose that one day a rocket crashed, and out of it came my own beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed flesh and blood, for whom I was now responsible. She would have me wrapped around her finger!

I would become a softy. Lois Lane would suspect that I was vulnerable to marriage, and spend an entire comic series trying to convince me of it. I would begin to seek out a "Superman family." So I think the most pivotal part of the story, that differentiates between Golden and Silver Age versions of myself, could be the sudden arrival of Kara.

[JulianPerez]

Interesting perspective, and one that I agree with: a character's history is the single most important thing about them, both in creating future stories and showing how they're characterized. Some of these "historical" stories were just gut-wrenchingly powerful. I doubt any story that involves the introduction and description of life on Krypton would be as suckerpunch powerful as what Jerry Siegel did in "Return to Krypton."

It would be a very heroic decision for DC to make if they said, "you know what? All that stuff from 1986 on? It really happened. Let's get to telling more stories." Not just because Superman comics past this point were by far the richest kind of comics world ever created (everything from Supermanium to the Kryptoniad, the Epic Poem of Krypton) and because these stories have additional resonance as being "the way it really happened," but ALSO because history itself is worth preserving, is worth making useful.

It's very wasteful that they have all this history, all these ideas from 70+ years, all these stories they could tell sequels to...and they can't make use of it because of an arbitrary reboot point.

You are right that the Earth-1 and Earth-2 dynamic DOES feel very retroactive. However, I think they were able to get away with it, because Superman comics until the 1970s did not quote from or derive from the past; previous battles were not brought up or used to affect current characterization (the exception was with Gardner Fox, who took his superhero history VERY seriously; the JLA had statements like "Gosh Manhunter, we haven't teamed up together since the battle with Starro!").

I would become a softy. Lois Lane would suspect that I was vulnerable to marriage, and spend an entire comic series trying to convince me of it. I would begin to seek out a "Superman family." So I think the most pivotal part of the story, that differentiates between Golden and Silver Age versions of myself, could be the sudden arrival of Kara.

This is a pretty good idea. It explains the change in Superman's personality in a natural way. Though one problem is, Superman didn't have to take responsibility for Supergirl. Superman chucked her in an orphanage; it wasn't a THREE MEN AND A BABY deal only with a teen.

[Super Monkey]

more pivotal events:

-finding Krypto
-the romance with Lori
-going to work at the Planet
-going to work for WGBS
-meeting Batman
-founding/joining JLA

Absoloutly! (Posted that last one in a hurry, didn't have time to list them all!) As well as...

- Childhood friendship with Lex Luthor, resulting in emnity that carries into the present day
- Building the Fortress of Solitude
- Various encounters with the criminals of the Phantom Zone
- Finally enlarging the bottle city of Kandor on another world

-Finding the facts of his alien origins
-joining the Legion
-finding Super Monkey
-...

[llozymandias]

Earths 1, & 2 are parallel earths.  Their universes were separate from the beginning.

[Kal's Pal]

Earths 1, & 2 are parallel earths.  Their universes were separate from the beginning.

Yes, but what were trying to say is that was only elaborated on so as to seperate the contradicting continuities. (And even then, Kal-L's history does not perfectally gel with that of Superman seen in the 1930s/40s). ... instead, how could we reconcile all those events into one continuity? (And can I just I love Al Schroeder's web-site, 'Schroder's Speculations' that seeks to do just that with nearly 70 years of continuity... however, trying to put it into a 'real world' historical perspective! http://www.novanotes.com/specul.htm ).

[MatterEaterLad]

It SEEMS fairly simple, Supes and Bats survived the super hero shakeout and are VERY long lived characters in real years...the Earth 2 idea was quite clever in keeping the past and the present comic books "fresh" at the time...the separation of Earth 2 Supes and Kal-L was a mistake to my mind...