DC Generations: Shattered-Forged mystery teammate, villain, and link to the Dark Knight Returns revealed

variant cover to Generations: Forged #1 by Rafael Albuquerque — (Image credit: DC)

For over a month Newsarama has been telling you about Generations: Forged #1, the February 80-page one-shot that is the companion volume to January's Generations: Shattered #1. And while Forged #1's solicitation copy is succinct, it reveals a few unanswered questions regarding the brief event.

Written by Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt, and Robert Venditti, the reconstituted version of DC's Generations event that began with a story in Detective Comics #1027 stars a time-displaced team of disparate heroes, including the 1939 Batman, Kamandi, Steel, Starfire, Sinestro, Booster Gold, and Dr. Light.

However, last month Jurgens told Newsarama readers another unnamed hero is also part of the cast "who'll play a key part in the story and, we think, serve as a very pleasant, fun surprise for readers."

That character, according to the solicitation copy for Forged #1 is Superboy, and it appears to be a teenage, Smallville version of Clark Kent - as opposed to Kon-El or the current Jonathan Kent. Clark's career as a teenage Superboy has at times been written in and out of DC continuity.

DC's solicitation or Shattered #1 also kept the identity of its "mysterious" villain under wraps, and he too has been revealed in the Forged #1 solicitation as "Dominus," a Superman villain dating back to 1998 who mainly appeared in a story arc throughout all the Superman titles unofficially called 'The Dominus Effect.'

As you can see by this cover of that year's Superman #138, 'The Dominus Effect' involved time manipulation and versions of Superman from different timelines/continuity eras and was co-written by Jurgens.

"Dispersed through time by the villain Dominus, our ragtag team of generational heroes—featuring 1939 Batman, Kamandi, Superboy, Steel, Starfire, Sinestro, Booster Gold, and Dr. Light—must find a way to restore the timeline…and what they ultimately discover is something far, far greater," reads DC's official full solicitation copy for Forged #1. "You’ll have to read it to believe it as time dies…and generations rise!"

cover to Generations: Forged #1 by Liam Sharp (Image credit: DC)

That last sentence suggests Forged might not be the end of the Generations event, which is interesting considering the implications of the cover.

That's a clear reference to Frank Miller's seminal near-future Batman series The Dark Knight Returns on the top half of the standard cover by Liam Sharp.

Considering its complicated history, it'll be interesting to see what the future of Generations at DC will look like.

Generations: Forged #1 goes on sale February 23 with art by Bryan Hitch, Mike Perkins, Bernard Chang, Paul Pelletier, "and others," and covers by Sharp and Rafael Albuquerque.

Look for DC's full February 2021 solicitation Friday, November 12 here at Newsarama.

Speaking of alternative Supermen, here’s our look at the best versions of Superman from around DC’s Multiverse.

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I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.