Goodbye, old Superman

Alan Moore and Curt Swan's 'Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow' was a heck of a way to put a full stop on the pre-Crisis Superman. It was poignant and a little bit mean, while still managing one final wink at the reader in one final panel.

But in the few months between Crisis on Infinite Earths and the John Byrne-led reboot in the 1980s, all the Superman comics - Superman, Action and the last few issues of DC Comics Presents - had a distinct vibe of finality.

Squeezing in an unknown Supergirl marriage always felt a little desperate, but there was also a sense of creators grabbing the chance to one final Superman story that just wouldn't fly in the new continuity, where everything would be brought down to earth. None of these stories were going to matter anymore, so who gives a damn if you blow up the Phantom Zone or did dodgy things with Kal-El's parents.

There is some cozy Kurt Schaffenberger and Curt Swan comics which are going hugely out of style and will only exist as retro pastiches by the end of the decade. There are replacement Supermen and Kal-El on Mars and super-werewolves, and DC Comics Presents ends with Steve Gerber and Rick Veitch doing some odd things to the Phantom Zone criminals.

But even Superman can't escape the chains of fashion and modernity, and while the character's iconic status is strong enough to bend slightly with the times, it does have to change. Even the greatest hero of all needs to evolve or die.

I'm not up on my DC, but I think everything is all valid now, which means even these last notes are still lingering, somewhere in the multiverse. The poignancy still lingers, long after that final fade into a new continuity.