Warning: SPOILERS for Justice League #21

Superman has taken on the worst of DC’s villains in his life, but he may finally have met his match… now that the Superman of the future is trying to kill him.

Yes, before Justice League fans even got the chance to truly enjoy the arrival of Superman, angelic and godlike in his more highly evolved, grey-haired, sixth-dimensional form, the truth has been revealed. As incredible as the Justice League of DC’s future may be, and as impressive as this older Man of Steel may seem, their success came with a price. That ultimate, mysterious cost has yet to be revealed, but one thing is for sure: it apparently includes murdering Superman, since that’s been the older Superman’s plan all along…

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  • This Page: The Future Superman is Too Good to Be True
  • Page 2: Superman is Being Killed By His Future Self

The Future Superman Seemed Perfect

In hindsight, readers really should have known that the other shoe was bound to drop in Scott Snyder and Jorge Jimenez’s “The Sixth Dimension” storyline. When all seemed lost and the evil creator of the DC Universe, Perpetua, had been freed to destroy it once more, a solution presented itself. The unlikeliest solution imaginable for Superman, as it turns out: the infamous trouble making imp Mr. Mxyzptlk. But as trouble-making as he has proven to be over the course of DC history, he’s a resident of the Fifth Dimension. And if the Justice League stood any chance of gaining the upper hand on their current calamity, stepping up into a higher level of understanding seemed their only shot. Oh, how foolish these heroes turned out to be.

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As the only hero physically capable of even surviving the ascension to the Sixth Dimension, Superman decided to trust in hope, and step willingly into the unknown. When Mr. Mxy manifested a doorway through dimensions, Clark Kent reassured his friends that when he returned, everything would work out fine. So when the older, wiser Superman stepped back through that doorway draped in white and gold just moments later, it all seemed to make perfect sense. Superman would find out how to save the universe. And he would bring the entire League forward to meet their future selves.

For once, it looked like Superman’s ability to do the impossible had returned, after years of unparalleled disasters. Maybe that’s why the League of the current, present-day universe never stopped to ask for proof that the Superman who returned was the same one who left.

The Future Justice League is… TOO Perfect

You know what they say about things that seem too good to be true? Before long, Batman’s nagging feeling that there’s something they’re not being told grows to a siren. He hasn’t learned the truth about what happened to the version of Superman they called their friend… but the readers have. And believe us, it isn’t pretty. When the older, wondrous, evolved, sixth dimensional Superman stepped out of his cosmic door and into the regular DC Universe, the Justice League assumed what the readers did: that this was the true Superman, just older and wiser.

But before fans got to worry that their beloved, bare-faced Man of Steel was lost forever, the comic’s final pages revealed the far darker, far graver, far more gruesome truth. When the real Superman walked out of DC’s Universe and through that door, he didn’t travel to any ‘higher dimension.’ He fell straight into a trap, left for him by the future version of himself. Minor SPOILERS for the beginning of Justice League #21 incoming.

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Page 2 of 2: Superman is Being Slowly Killed By His Future Self


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About The Author


Andrew Dyce
(3247 Articles Published)

Screen Rant Editor Andrew Dyce was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Despite calling the vast nothingness of the Canadian prairies home (or perhaps because of it) film and television have been a passion since birth. As a graduate of the University of Manitoba with a degree in English Literature, Andrew has grown to appreciate the story and writing behind everything from blockbuster comic book movies to schlocky B-movie action.

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