8 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Superman For Everyone

3. ...And All Those Other New 52 Retcons

Superman New 52
DC Comics

But of course, the trunks themselves weren't the only things on the chopping block when the New 52 dropped. The entire initiative reset much of DC's continuity back to square-one, which meant that some of Supes' most iconic storylines were no longer canon.

Among the most egregious changes made, though, involved Clark Kent's supporting cast. In the new continuity, Ma and Pa Kent were killed when Clark was just a teenager, as opposed to the post-Crisis canon which featured Jonathan and Martha prominently until the former's death in 2008.

Then there was the matter of the character's marriage to Lois Lane. The New 52 did away with that too (along with many other iconic DC relationships), deciding instead to make Supes and Wonder Woman an item and Lois a passive observer.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.