8) Flashpoint Superman
In case you missed the massive comic book crossover, the animated movie adaptation of it or the ongoing Flash TV show, we’ll quickly provide a quick recap for you. The event that led to The New 52 universal reshuffle, Flashpoint saw Barry Allen travel back in time to save his mother – an action which accidentally created a dire new timeline where the world had gone to pot. Wonder Woman and Aquaman were at war, Bruce Wayne died as a boy and Superman was nowhere to be found.
The reason was that Kal-El’s spaceship did not land in Smallville as before, but slap bang in the middle of Metropolis, flattening the city. The alien child was then taken in by the government for experimentation. When the Flash eventually tracks him down, he finds a stick-thin Kal-El, starved of both the sun’s radiation and human contact.
It’s tragic to see the mighty Superman brought down to the level of a terrified lab rat and, while not quite as fascinating as Thomas Wayne’s Flashpoint Batman, it’s one of the most interesting revisions of the Flashpoint universe.
