Oh, personally I'm happy to go along with the idea that we're dealing with two different guys, a Golden Age Superman and then the other fellow, or maybe even more. If you're bothered about continuity (which I personally always take cum grano), then clearly the Superman of 1978 can't be the same person as the one of 1938, and frankly, he can't really be the same one who was around in 1958 either. Is there any canon for this? When's the cut-off point, if you see what I mean?
Did anyone actually sit down and retroactively write a story that says, for instance: "June 1953. That's when we stopped writing about 1938 Superman, and started writing about another guy, but we just never mentioned it to the readers."
There was never an official dividing point between Earth-2 and Earth-1 for the two Supermen---it was left up to the fans to debate... though it seems generally assumed that any Superman story after November 1955 (the first appearance of the Martian Manhunter) is on Earth-1 unless stated otherwise, with plenty of various stories before Nov. '55 (tales like "The Thing From 40,000 AD" or 1952's meeting between Superman and Batman on that cruise ship, or all Superboy stories/stories mentioning Superboy) taking place on Earth-1 as well...
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