Here's a story for you.

When I was in high school, I remember a math teacher, Mr. McEllevenney, and we all knew he was a big Superman fan.  When JB moved to DC to do MOS, my friend Doug and I used to walk by him in the hallway and say, "John Byrne."

(Continued below)

We thought he would know what we were doing or who we were talking about.

10 years later, I was back at my high school to student teach, and I was talking to Mr. McEllevenney about Superman, comics, and John Byrne.  He was not a John Byrne fan, that is he did not know who he was, and he surely did not remember two kids dropping his name everytime we saw him.  Turns out he was a big Silver Age fan, so I would bring in many of my key silver Age issues to show him.

10 more years later, I get the principal job at my old high school.  Evidently, Mr. M googles my name and discovers that I am on the John Byrne Forum.  He relates this information to a current, long-time teacher, Dr. G who approaches me about Superman.  Turns out he is a Silver Age fan too (These guys are in their 50s).  I explain the John Byrne Forum to him and we discuss MOS.  As you might imagine, Dr. G thinks Superman should be all-powerful and should never have been weekend.  Admittedly, he is not as familiar with Superman's origins and might be interested in reading MOS.  I am going to lend him a trade before we continue this conversation.  But...

Yesterday, I had to take my daughter to PA for photo shoot.  I buy the new issue of Action Comics featuring Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes for the trip.  Now I did not read Last Son, but it seems that Geoff Johns' version of Superman is heavily influenced by the movie version, and I do not think that is so bad.

As much as I loved JB's MOS, and I do love it, I can understand why the movie version would be the version to go with, and it's a good version, with a similar (don't nit-pick over the semantics, you know what I mean) Krypton and no Superboy (takes care of the legal issues).  The main difference is in young Clark, which we could/should ignore.

Origins do not have to be retold, and probably shouldn't be retold.  Superman comics could be published right now that appear to feature both the movie Superman and MOS Superman.  The only way you really know the difference is when you flash back or try to clarify his back story, which IMO is not important.  Just move forward.  If someone depicts Krypton as looking the movie Krypton instead of JB's Krypton, who cares, as long as we know he came from Krypton.

Maybe he hung out in the future with the Legion, maybe he didn't.  What he did when he was in high school does not have to impact what he does now as Superman and a member of the Justice League.

In other words, what is the big deal?  These are comic books.  All these versions, including my first in Super Friends and the 50s TV show have the same basic concepts in common.  They are all easily recognized as Superman.

Sometimes I look back and wonder why so many people had to die over a book like the Bible.  Then I look at how zealous people are for their comics, and I think I get it.

Maybe we should get over ourselves.  Thoughts?

Maybe I should have included this.

If you did not read JB's MOS, couldn't/wouldn't you have been able to read his Superman & Action Comics and still enjoy them and not even think that something had been changed?  Probably.