In and out with Superman

It's somewhat jarring to note that there has nearly been more years of post-Crisis Superman than the original Golden and Silver Age ideal. Superman wasn't even 50 years old when he got the full 1980s reboot, and it's been nearly 40 years since then.

And there has been a metric shit-tonne of Superman comics since then, pulled together by tight continuity ever since John Byrne's Man of Steel kicked things off in 1986. Since then, there has been decades of weekly publication of Superman comics, with an ongoing storyline bridging multiple titles, and various specials and crossovers and guest appearances along the way. 

Nobody can keep up with all that over all those years (unless your name is Mike Sterling), but it doesn't really matter if you're not 100 percent up to speed. I've probably read less than a third of Superman comics since I started seriously following the character's adventures in the late 80s, and have still been able to follow things. 

I probably only read half of all the comics that came out in the triangle numbers era, and that was my era - the only time I came close to filling out a proper run of consecutive Superman comics was in the period immediately before and after the whole Death of Superman thing, and that was a run of no more fifty issues in a run of never-ending escapades

And yet, I've always been able to follow it easy enough. I might miss the odd crucial details, but always able to follow the big picture, and know roughly what is going on.  

I did lose track a little in the early 2000s, around the time that Ed McGuiness gave us a beautifully massive Kal-El, but using the local library system meant I could follow what was happening in the past 15 years. And even now, I just got a recent collection of the current Superman's post-Warworld adventures from the local library, and could pick up the story easily enough.

One thing that keeps it easy is how little actually changes on the larger levels, like the apparent deaths and rebirths of Superman's various loved ones. And no matter what Super-era you are in, Luthor is always going to be an absolute tool - a petty, jealous and foolish little man - no matter how hard they try to give him a soul.

Sometimes I fill in the blanks, and get a bunch of cheap back issues from 1998 or whatever, and they are always fun, but never essential. The essential nature of the big, bright Superman saga is never in the details, it's as broad as a Wayne Boring chest, and just as easy to follow.