1. The “new” Superman will be somewhere around 20 years old.

Those of us in our thirties and forties and older have a very specific vision of how old Superman should be, and that vision is largely informed by the portrayals of George Reeves and Christopher Reeve and the drawings of artists like Curt Swan and John Byrne. To us, Superman is an Adult. Even though DC tried to peg his age at 29 for a long time (are they still doing that?), he was a full-grown man who had his shit figured out.

If you’re in your mid-twenties or younger and you’re into Superman, however — and especially if you’re not a current comics reader, the people DC’s trying to hook — you’ve mainly seen him played by Tom Welling and Brandon Routh. Superman, then, is more someone in his early twenties, still figuring his way into the world. Not only does have this massive power, he’s trying to learn exactly what his place is, what his responsibilities really are, what it means to be a hero, to be Superman.

So I bet that DC lines up the “new” Superman to reflect that younger sensibility. And y’know what? I’m totally fine with that, as I think it’s a valid approach to take and plenty of good stories could come out of it.

(Be honest: when you saw the Lee-drawn cover to Justice League #1, you first thought that was Superboy and not Superman, didn’t you?)

For decades, Superman has been presented as the guy everyone in the DCU looks up to for inspiration and advice — he’s the Dad of the DCU (and Wonder Woman is the Mom and Batman is Crazy Uncle Earl).

But I don’t think that’ll be true anymore. Superman won’t be the fountainhead from which all heroism in the DCU springs — while still competent and powerful, we’ll now see him earning that respect from his elders. And by “elders” I mainly mean Batman (see point two below).

Also, I guarantee you he’s not married to Lois anymore. More on Lois and Superman to come in a later post.

2. Batman will be largely unchanged.

Batman goes under “if it ain’t broke.” Creatively and financially, Bats is in good shape right now, so I assume he’ll largely get left alone. (The same might not hold true for his extended family.)

I can see Batman filling some of the void created by the youthenizing (as opposed to euthanizing) of Superman. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Batman as less an urban legend and more as an inspirational figure. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Batman as a mentor to Superman (possibly reluctantly so), a relationship structure we’ve never really seen played out with them but that would make total sense given the current view of each in the mainstream media.

As I talked about yesterday, Grant Morrison’s been building a huge Batman story for several years that’s clearly not done. And the Batman books seem to be just about the only books in DC’s lineup that aren’t bringing their current story arcs to an end with their August-shipping issues. I supsect there will be changes to the details of his origin and status quo, but I doubt they’ll be all that severe.

Dick Grayson, on the other hand…

3. If this change sticks, we’ll be spending the next five to ten years adding back in everything that gets removed.

Let’s say, just for sake of argument, that in the new DC timeline, Barry Allen never died. There was no Crisis, he never sacrificed himself to save the universe, Wally never took over as the Flash, never got shunted aside and ignored when Geoff Johns decided to bring Barry back. Wally remained Kid Flash — and, if there’s a bunch of de-aging going on, might just still be Kid Flash. (Personally, I’m betting that the new team of Teen Titans will have somewhat of a retro feel to its lineup.)

In that case… there’s no Impulse. Bart Allen would have no place in this realigned continuity. But given enough time, someone will make a case for him and find a way to work him back in.

If Superman’s twenty-ish, what happens to Superboy, who generally seems to be about eighteen these days? Do we end up with a twelve-year-old Connor Kent? (That might actually be interesting.)

While I don’t expect DC’s creators to slavishly imitate and re-engineer the stories that came before — that would be totally against the point of this reboot — I’m sure we’ll see “missing” characters or variations on those characters start to show up in the new timeline, much in the way the early years of the Ultimate universe were littered with alternate versions of existing mainstream Marvel heroes.

4. At least one previously white hero will now be black, and a surprising number of people will totally lose their shit over it.

Do you remember how many people freaked right the hell out when it was revealed that Heimdall would be played by Idris Elba in Thor? People’s heads straight-up exploded with oh-of-course-I’m-not-racist rage, and that was over friggin’ Heimdall, a character who could at best be called “minor.”

So can you imagine what those people will do if, say, Dick Grayson or Tim Drake all of a sudden has always been African-American? Or Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen? None of those characters are in any way defined by their race, but I guarantee you that if that race gets changed, the comics blogosphere will go apopletic. 

And I will be very, very disappointed to be proven right.

(Though maybe it would lead to more idiot-bashing from Comics Alliance, which would be just fine with me. They’re good at it.)

5. Only about thirty to thirty-five of the fifty-two launch titles will be ongoing series.

I’m betting on a ton of one-shots and mini-series that will be used to define new takes on characters and flesh out this new world, but no way are they moving forward with fifty-two new ongoings. As David Uzumeri said on Comics Alliance today, I’m not sure there’s even fifty-two quality creative teams in all of comics, much less enough to make sure each of these proposed fifty-two books is a quality product.