Distinguished Critique: Superman and Batman: Generations and Superman and Batman Generations 2 Review
An intriguing premise is clumsily executed at times, hampering these series' ability to work in tandem in telling an original narrative
—by Nathan on February 23, 2025—
The Man of Steel. The Dark Knight Detective.
Krypton's Last Son. Gotham's First Son.
One is a superhuman alien whose legacy was born in the fires of his decimated home planet. The other is a human, trained to near physical perfection, driven by the oath sworn on his parents' deaths. Both are men dedicated to certain ideals rooted in their own senses of justice and morality. They've been friends and teammates. Occasionally, they've been enemies.
For almost as long as they've existed, Batman and Superman have been compatriots of one kind or another. Sharing various pages of various comics since 1941, the two are brothers of a sort, bonded by their causes, even if they represent opposite color schemes and philosophies: the light of hope versus grim vengeance.
John Byrne, the architect behind Superman's new status quo in DC's post-Crisis continuity, sought to capitalize on this pairing in two Elseworlds series, Superman and Batman: Generations and Superman and Batman: Generations 2, the first two of three limited series under the "Generations" umbrella. Taking place in an alternate reality, Generations and Generations 2 are not unlike Marvel's Spider-Man: Life Story or Fantastic Four: Life Story, which asked what would happen if the Wall-Crawler and First Family had actually been around for decades and aged in real time. Similarly, these Generations series discard the ever-fluctuating timeline inherent in mainstream comic continuity, showing what occurs if the heroes of yesterday found themselves growing older as the decades dawned.
Superman and Batman: Generations/Superman and Batman: Generations 2
Writer: John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: John Byrne
Colorist: Trish Mulvihill
Letterer: John Byrne
Issues: Superman and Batman: Generations #1-4
Publication Dates: January 1999-March 1999, August 2001-November 2001
I initially intended on reading and reviewing these two series separately, and upon finishing the first series, I was fairly intrigued by the possibilities within the second series. I believed, erroneously, that Byrne had developed two different approaches to the same premise: what if Superman and Batman aged in real time? Upon reading the second series, I found this was somewhat untrue. These series take place in the same universe. Byrne is not systematically exploring two distinct narratives in two distinct timelines; he's exploring the different facets of the same timeline. Thus, I have thought it best to combine my opinions on both series. The more specific "why" will become apparent deeper in the review. I will also note that there is a third series, Generations 3, which has not been collected in its own volume and is instead contained to an omnibus, which I did not pick up.
To be honest, I'm glad I didn't.
These types of narratives, in my mind, face a significant hurdle: how much a creator is using their story to diverge from actual continuity. When I first read Spider-Man: Life Story, I was somewhat frustrated with the execution of its premise. I had believed Peter Parker aging in "real time" would have drastic effects on certain famous events in his history. Yes, elements were changed, but certain events—such as Norman Osborn discovering Peter is Spider-Man or the circumstances of "Kraven's Last Hunt"—were either changed arbitrarily, not because of Peter's age, or remained completely unchanged. Whether Peter was 15, 25, 35, etc. didn't seem to matter as much to the circumstances around him. Continuity proceeded apace.
I believe I may have had similar frustrations with both Generations series if I was more aware of Batman and Superman's continuity…and if John Byrne, aware of that continuity, knowingly played loosely with the concept, similar to Life Story. But I'm not overly aware of Batman and Superman's history from the Golden/Silver Ages, and I'm not aware of what Byrne knows either. I was more than pleasantly surprised to watch how events in these series unfolded from a principal conflict, maintained throughout both series, and how the aging of its central heroes, and their progeny, affected history. I can't point to any singular event and say it happened differently than a mainstream Batman or Superman issue because our heroes aged—for example, Jason Todd never makes an appearance, and while one could argue this is because Bruce gets married and has a son who becomes the second Robin after Dick Grayson, we're not given a direct parallel. Again, if I were more knowledgeable of how Batman and Superman's histories unfolded, perhaps I would have become somewhat resentful.
So whereas I approached Life Story with the mindset of "If Peter Parker grew old, this is how it would/should happen given my understanding of mainstream continuity," I approached Generations with a more open perspective. Batman and Superman are allowed to get older, get married, have kids, develop lives beyond their eternal four-color existence. Those are the parameters Byrne sets in this alternate universe, and deprived of certain tethers to mainstream comics, is allowed to run a little wild. Yes, he plays rather loosely (as far as I can tell) with actual history and continuity, but distancing himself from a set universe or specific circumstances prevents these narratives from becoming stale or a mere "What If-?" where an "imaginary" story is predicated on a single change to the world as we know it.
The results are really fun…mostly for the first series.
In each series, Byrne generally allows one issue per decade, jumping a span of ten years between issues. In the interstitial moments, certain events happen—marriages occur, children are born, some folks die—but Byrne is less interested in capturing particular "snapshot" moments and more concerned with how the ramifications of those events might play out. What if Bruce Wayne Jr. became Robin to Dick Grayson's Batman…and what circumstances would allow the biological son of Batman to adopt the mantle of the Bat from his adopted "brother"? What if the son of Superman grew up powerless while his sister developed her abilities–what ramifications might this have for the Kent family? Watching Byrne sculpt these characters–some of them wholly unique to his series–and seeing how they are shaped individually as well as in relation to one another keeps the momentum flowing–you're as intrigued by the fate of Superman's son and daughter and Batman's son as you are Batman and Superman themselves. Even villains such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, and the Ultra-Humanite are given decent arcs across these series, popping up in wholly surprising ways.
Our main characters, heroes and villains alike, are allowed to age, a (somewhat debatable) privilege our Caped Crusader and his alien ally are not allowed in regular continuity narratives. Their hair whitens, their faces wrinkle. Readers acquainted with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (and its ridiculous, far inferior sequel) are already familiar with an "old Batman," but Byrne's Bruce Wayne is nowhere near as cantankerous or violent as his grimdark counterpart. Neither is Byrne's Superman a philosophically brainwashed government stoolie, instead largely retaining the charm Byrne infused the character with in his Man of Steel series. Age brings a certain wisdom, and both Bruce and Clark are cast into the roles of mentors and parents, seeing with both joy and despair how their legacies play across the generations.
That joy and despair are surprisingly balanced in the first series–surprising, in that most "What If?" style stories I've read tend to focus on the depressing negatives, that a twist here and there to the fabric of reality will lead our characters towards doom and destruction. Tragedy befalls the Kent and Wayne families in Generations, but we're not treated to catastrophic event after catastrophic event. The calamities are well-timed, creating conflicts which our heroes must strive to confront and overcome, regardless of personal cost. And without an anchor to then-current continuity, Byrne has no darlings to kill–anyone is ripe for the plucking, and a few genuinely astonishing losses create emotional resonance which wouldn't be allowed in a mainstream comic. In other words, do not expect the dead to return.
Plots and subplots develop naturally, with the exception of the final issues of each series. Byrne casts both issues in an intriguing direction, flinging us into a distant future, yet for some reason spends the majority of each of these final issues in flashbacks. Intriguing parallels are made between younger versions of Bruce and Clark in two creatively told "first meetings" between the Boy of Steel and a pre-Batman orphan acting as Robin in the first series, but the placement of the meet-ups are oddly positioned, culling most of the interaction between older versions of the characters. Perhaps Byrne hesitated to begin each series with his characters as children, which feels like a correct move, but using extended flashbacks means the childhood versions of our heroes overstay their welcome. Where the final issues could have poignantly commented on the overarching plots which preceded these conclusions, they throw in a few tales which, while fun, detract from the unfolding stories moving forward in time.
"Cute" is the word I'll use to describe these stories, but "cute" doesn't lend itself the gravitas to the final issues. Here, Spider-Man: Life Story usurps Byrne's narratives, using an older Peter Parker to dramatically, fittingly end the story in a satisfying conclusion Byrne fails to provide Superman and Batman. The time jump, much longer in the case of the first series than in prior issues, also hampers the pacing, setting our heroes so far into the future as to remove them wholly from the majority of the cast Byrne has effectively used to this point. This issue specifically feels separate from pretty much everything that has come before, and though it attempts to establish a certain finality in the intertwined Batman/Superman story, it winds up feeling more standalone than, I assume, Byrne intended. Maybe others feel differently, but I found the execution colder than warranted. It's not the ebullient reflection on the previous issues I thought it would be.
You may note I keep referring to the first series, and there's a very good reason for that. As I mentioned, the second Generations series exists in the same parallel universe as the first, which means that when Byrne isn't developing new subplots, he's either referencing the plot of the first series or hinging on the reader having already experienced the first series to recognize pieces which tether plot points and scenes together between the two. There are unique moments found in the second series–we're introduced, for example, to the children of the Flash and Wonder Woman, who bond with Clark and Bruce's kids to form a junior Justice League–but much of the second series feels regurgitated.
That's not to say Byrne focuses on the same exact narrative plots or scenes in a "copy-and-paste" method, but the stories he weaves here are so reliant on what has come before (to the point where, again, Byrne expects references to the first series to remind readers enough of what has already happened to inform them of what is currently happening in Generations 2), the second series cannot at nearly any point stand on its own. Generations 2 is not billed as a sequel either, meaning I entered believing this was a wholly separate narrative, and upon learning it wasn't distinct, kept flipping back to the first series to fill in the gaps Byrne created in the second. I would argue Byrne would have been better off making Generations an eight-issue series and molding these two pieces together in a more streamlined fashion.
What makes the first series fun isn't completely lost in the second, and I'll mention those unique elements Byrne weaves in here. The second series should, to me, be a platform for him to expand upon the work he did previously, and though it's a valid goal, Byrne can't quite make the execution work. Imagine if J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy consisting of scenes which occur between chapters, interactions, and time jumps. Picture extended sequences of Gandalf flying on the eagles to rescue Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom, Gollum slinking through Moria after our heroes, or Frodo lying poisoned in a cocoon before Sam rescues him. Maybe some folks would want to see these scenes play out, but for those of us who are glad they remain references or small parts of the ongoing story, I wouldn't want to see them extended. The same feels true of Generations 2, with Byrne developing these in-between pieces which cannot hold my attention the same as the first series.
Other than a disappointingly hollow ending to both series, and aside from a sequel which languishes in the shadow of its older sibling, Generations is a fairly well-executed narrative (if perhaps even just "half" a well-executed narrative) under DC's Elseworlds banner. Batman and Superman often work so well on their own that one would hope a series or two (or three) carrying both names across its cover would inspire readers and spell delight. Byrne largely delivers in the first series, three out of his four issues creating a fun story about how the legacies of DC's favorite sons could possibly play out, possibly in ways even seasoned leaders may not necessarily anticipate. That same magic cannot be as readily found in the sequel, which borrows far too much from the original narrative to be considered its own story, let alone a story not entangled in confusion about its identity.
If you're looking for similar narratives, tales toying with the fabric of reality and our heroes' fates, may I suggest such classics as Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son, Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, or Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". These narratives may scratch that itch while telling more cohesive stories...though, admittedly, none are perhaps quite as ambitious as what Byrne tries concocting here.