You kid, but they just about came out and said that in the latest issue of Adventure Comics.

It was bizarre. Like, “Superfriends”-style science.

Johns must really want this inner battle to take place…’Stupid science getting in the way of my themes!’

Have they tried to explain how the evil genes problem never was a problem until Superboy found out about them?
Maybe evil genes are like original sin – it’s only wrong to be nude once you know it’s wrong to be nude.

If you’re going to have a revelation like that, reveal it in an exciting and dramatic way.

It’s a teen book, so it makes perfect sense they found out in an email – teens love the internet!

Know what I mean?

Two, it was handled even more lazily. Somewhere in the first couple of issues of the new “Teen Titans” comic, Superboy just kind of mentions to Robin, “Oh, I got an email that says I’m half-Luthor.” Robin says, “I’ll check on that for you.” A couple of issues later, he says, “Yep! You’re half-Luthor!” And Superboy says, “Bummer.” If you’re going to have a revelation like that, reveal it in an exciting and dramatic way.

Three, it provided excuses for endless whining and angsting as opposed to actually, oh, I don’t know, doing super-heroic things. Modern comics feature way too much of characters moping about their personality problems, and not nearly enough fighting bad guys. This tipped the balance for Superboy.

And I still hate that Luthor element in Superboy if only because it SHOULDN’T affect anything. It’s an interesting fact at best.

It was bizarre. Like, “Superfriends”-style science.

I just HATE the way it now informs every Superboy story with “wah I’m half evil” angst.

Because science has proven that evil gets passed on in your genes!

I think the Eradicator stuff was the weakest.

The Luthor retcon is harmless in and of itself (and makes sense, since Westfield hasn;t been relevant in forever), I just HATE the way it now informs every Superboy story with “wah I’m half evil” angst.

I think they made the ‘Behind the scenes’ doco, about the making of the comics, just for you.

Most of the other artists working on Superman books at the time had very standard fairly uninteresting superhero art. Bog’s was much looser and more dynamic.

One thing I should point out, is that this was NOT meant to be one cohesive story- DC was just trying to continue publication of the four Superman titles without him. So it should not read as a single, even story. Though it does cross over nicely at the end.

Personally, I never had any doubt that Superman wasn’t any of them- I recognized the Last Son as the Eradicator right away, and the Cyborg had body parts missing that Superman’s body *never lost* so it didn’t make much sense to be revived that way. Plus, his “amnesia” was waaay too convenient. Oh and as for Steel having Superman’s spirit, that COULD have been possible- since as we saw, his soul was captured by Blaze and saved by Pa Kent (!) with a little help from The Phantom Stranger, so the possibility that it had ended up in somebody else wasn’t that farfetched.

In fact, my original guess was that Supes was going to return by being *recreated* by the Supermen, with Cyborg providing the body, Steel the soul, and Last Son the memories- that would’ve been cool too.

Oh, and I never believed Superboy to be a clone of Superman, because it had *already* been established that Superman couldn’t be cloned right- his Kryptonian DNA was too complicated, and the attempt only led to the creation of the post-Crisis Bizarro, remember? Not to mention that when Cadmus stole the body, they claimed they weren’t able to take a DNA sample (the body was still invulnerable… that was a big hint that HE WAS STILL ALIVE.) But, I guess Geoff Johns doesn’t care about little details like that.

This sounds stupid, until you get to the actual origins of Eradicator and Cyborg, which is just page after page of convoluted logistical backflips that no one could have a) reasonably expected, or b) understood without thorough knowledge of plots from several years earlier. Even at 12 or so, I remember reading this and thinking, “Wait…so the Cyborg Superman is actually a presumed dead, thinly-veiled Reed Richards analogue? Huh.”

A nice “I should have caught that” moment was in the Cyborg’s second appearance, when he taps into the world’s computers. Among the things he studies: Coast City, Green Lantern, and Mongul’s spaceship.

Finally, I don’t think there were really that many clues pointing to the Last Son being the real Superman as we might think. In his first appearance, he’s clearly relying on a giant crystal…thing…to recharge himself. In his second appearance, the crystal hatches, and out comes….Superman! Admittedly, that issue was ambiguous to my 13-year old self. I honestly thought the Last Son had been sleeping in the crystal, and that’s who we saw hatch. Fooled me.