Men of Steel

Andrew Smith, AKA Captain Comics, explains the difference between the two Supermen appearing in Infinite Crisis for the uninitiated:

Today's Superman is certainly THE Superman, but he's not exactly the first. To explain, let's turn the planet's rotation back to the late '40s, when superheroes met a foe they couldn't beat: Low sales.

After WWII, superhero sales tanked. Perhaps a generation that had saved the world was bored with fictional heroes, or maybe too many servicemen stopped buying. Whatever the reason, most superhero titles were canceled and replaced by other genres _ horror, teen humor, sci-fi, romance, etc. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman retained their fan base (and self-named titles), and Aquaman and Green Arrow continued as back-ups. But most superhero titles had gone the way of "All-Flash" by late 1951.

In 1956, however, DC Comics decided to give superheroes another go. They introduced a new Flash _ using the name and powers of the '40s hero, but otherwise an original creation. The second Flash sold with super-speed, so this new "Silver Age" Scarlet Speedster was quickly followed by a new Green Lantern (1959), a new Justice Society (called the Justice League, 1960), a new Atom (1961) and a new Hawkman (1961). Like the new Flash, these were original characters who had no connection to their "Golden Age" predecessors except their names and their powers.

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