The Man of Steel will go through changes in December that will ripple through the DC universe. (Approach with caution, comic-book fans, because — Great Krypton! — there are spoilers ahead.) When Issue No. 18 of Superman arrives in stores on Dec. 11, the hero will be going public about his alter ego.

Superman has been around since 1938, so it is hard to imagine something that has not been done, including revealing his secret identity. In 1991, he told Lois Lane, which seemed fair since she and Clark Kent were engaged. In 2015, Lois wrote a front-page Daily Planet story that revealed Superman’s secret. Comic-book shenanigans later erased that knowledge from the general population of the DC universe.

“On some level, this is what DC brought me here for,” said Brian Michael Bendis, who is writing Superman and Action Comics, among other DC books. He was referring to his departure from Marvel, DC Comics’ rival, in 2017. He began working on the Superman titles last year, juggling space adventures, the inner workings of the Daily Planet, and how Lois and Clark related to their son, Jonathan, in his preteen to teenage years. “I didn’t want to stir things up right away,” he said. “I had to earn my place.”