SUPERMAN REBORN, Parts 1-4

SUPERMAN #18 by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason. In Part One of SUPERMAN REBORN, Tim Drake taunts Mr. Oz by telling him that someone has escaped from him. Over in Hamilton County, Lois and Clark are celebrating their anniversary while Jon finds a photo album on the porch filled with pictures from before Jon was born. The house becomes engulfed in a blue flame, which leads to the house and Jon disappearing.

ACTION COMICS #975 by Dan Jurgens, Paul Dini, Doug Mahnke, and Ian Churchill. In Part Two of SUPERMAN REBORN, Clark and Lois are flying to Metropolis in search of Jon and they go to Clark Kent's apartment. All they find is a refrigerator filled with junk food until Clark shows up and begins fighting with Superman, saying how he left him to rot in a cell. Then Clark begins turning into a myriad of villains including Bizarro, Brainiac, Mongul, the Parasite, the Cyborg Superman, Doomsday, and finally his true self-Mr. Mxyzptlk. In the back-up, Mxzyzptlk tells Jon how he came to Metropolis to play with Superman when Oz took him off the game board. He knew Superman would show up to save him, but that never happened. He tried to escape but that didn’t happen either, so he became Clark Kent to hide from Oz, even convincing himself that he WAS Clark Kent. In the end, he promises to spend a lot of time with Jon, so that Superman will know what it feels like to forget someone.

SUPERMAN #19 by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason. In Part Three of SUPERMAN REBORN, Lois no longer remembers her son, who is in a void where two balls of red energy eventually start talking to him. Mxzyzptlk forces Superman to play a strange intergalactic board game filled with pieces from Superman and Lois' past. Superman and Lois eventually make it to the top of the globe of the Infinite Planet, even though they no longer know who he is. Jon breaks free of the globe and uses the balls of red energy, combining them with his parents and turning them into the New 52 Superman and Lois.

ACTION COMICS #976 by Dan Jurgens and Doug Mahnke. In Part Four of SUPERMAN REBORN, Jon has been freed by his parents, but he realizes that they not only look different, they don’t recognize him. By using the red energy burst, he has inadvertently replaced his parents with their New 52 counterparts. While Superman and Mxyzptlk fight, blue energy arrives and speak to Jon. He then convinces the New 52 Superman and Lois to let the blue energy balls enter them, which causes the memories of the Pre-Flashpoint Superman and Lois to merge with the New 52 versions. In this, both New 52 and Pre-Flashpoint history becomes one. And Mr. Oz is impressed.