Reexamining the Great Superman Stories: Part 1

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore and Curt Swan

The storyline “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” was originally published in Superman # 423 and Action Comics # 583 in June 1986. The idea for the story was developed by long-time Superman editor Julius Schwartz as a goodbye to not only the character of Superman that had appeared in the pages of the comics since the beginning of the Silver Age but also as a last hoorah as his final work on the character (Schwartz was the editor of DC’s Superman titles from 1971-1986).

In March 1986, DC Comics released the 12th and final issue of the limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, a series that the company used as a catalyst to clean up 50 years of complicated comic book continuity and to give their heroes all new origin stories. There was just one problem. The series that would reboot Superman, The Man of Steel by John Byrne, would not hit the shelves until July 1986. Resulting in Schwartz and company having three months worth of time to kill before handing over the reigns of the world’s first superhero to his new shepherds.

Schwartz used this as an opportunity to create the “last” Superman story, or at least the last story of the character as people had known him since the 1950s. Alan Moore stepped in to write the script while legendary artist Curt Swan was hand picked to pencil the issues with George Perez handling the inks.

The story is set in 1997, 10 years after the disappearance of the Man of Steel, with Lois Lane, now Lois Elliot, being interviewed by a reporter for The Daily Planet to recount those final days. What’s interesting and kind of baffling about this story is that it is clearly set in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths’ continuity but the events of Crisis still happened. Lois explains how a number of Superman’s main villains came together (some by choice and some not) to take him out once and for all. Eventually it comes down to Mister Mxyzptlk who has decided to trade out his trickster gimmick for one that is pure evil. Superman tricked Mxy to say his name backwards to send him back to the Fifth Dimension while at that same moment he turned on The Phantom Zone Ray, tearing the Fifth Dimensional Imp in two. Knowing that he’d premeditated Mxyzptlk’s death, he entered a room filled with gold kryptonite and was never seen again.

“Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” is a heralded story that is often mentioned in best Superman comics lists. I read it years ago but the only things that I really remember were the appearance of Captain Marvel (the Shazam one not the Marvel one) and the wink at the end. Reading it now… Okay, to be fair this is a book from 1986 written in a very Silver and Bronze Age style, so you have to take that into consideration and not judge it with 21st century eyes. That said, I honestly didn’t like it all that much. It was silly in all the wrong ways, kind of boring (the entire “Superman is boring” complaint was born out of the Silver/Bronze Age version of the character, IMHO), and Supes was kind of mean. One of the biggest changes to the character after the reboot was that Clark Kent was the person and Superman the costume. That was not the case in this story and that bugged me.

Would I consider “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” to be one of the great Superman stories? No, probably not. It is a great time capsule and send-off to that version of the character but beyond that… Had DC Comics not rebooted their continuity with Crisis, I have to wonder how much longer these characters would have lasted.