With the release of Action Comics #1, National Comics (now DC) inadvertently birthed the superhero genre of comic books, changing funny books forever.

These colorful modern gods would dominate the medium for the rest of the century and beyond. Superheroes are more popular now than they've ever been, with no end to their influence in sight but its been a bumpy ride to get the industry where it is today.

Superman was the first of his kind but he was far from the last. Noticing Big Blue’s success, DC started creating similar characters and even published stories where these new bombastic heroes would meet, essentially creating the DC universe that we’ve come to know and love (most of the time). Since the Man of Steel's introduction, DC Comics has been at the forefront of the comics scene and for better or worse, they are the status quo.

When a big change happens in DC, it alters comics as a whole.

As you can imagine, reading stories about the same characters for the better part of 100 years can get a little stale. When sales start to slump, DC has a tendency to throw new scenarios and characters at the wall to see what sticks, except in this case, us readers are the wall.

Some of these tweaks to continuity have been met with enthusiasm and fanfare while others, well… they didn’t stick so well. Regardless of how they were received, these events changed the status quo, for better or worse.