Superman & Batman: Generations is the umbrella title of three Elseworlds comic book limited series published by DC Comics in the United States, written and illustrated by John Byrne. A major concept of the series is the avoidance of the floating timeline; it places Superman, Batman, and the other members of the DC Universe in a single timeline, showing the characters aging and being replaced by their progeny.
The Elseworlds story Batman & Captain America, co-published with Marvel Comics and written/drawn by John Byrne, was released in 1996. The story features Batman and Robin teaming up with Captain America and Bucky Barnes to fight the Joker and the Red Skull in 1945. The epilogue of the tale features Dick Grayson as Batman and Bruce Wayne Jr. as Robin. The duo find the frozen Captain America in the 1960s while searching for the Joker Jr. It is from this epilogue that the Generations concept was spun-off and developed.
Publication history Superman & Batman: Generations was published as a four-issue limited series in Prestige Format from January to April 1999.
Superman & Batman: Generations 2, like its predecessor, is a four-issue Prestige Format limited series that ran from October 2001 to January 2002; it dealt with other DC heroes in chapters set between the times of the stories in the first series.
Superman & Batman: Generations 3 is a 12-part limited series. Unlike the previous two series, it was published in standard format and ran from March 2003 to February 2004. No trade paperback has been published for this series as of this date.
Plot summaries Generations Generations follows Superman and Batman from the beginning of their careers to the far future. Each issue contains two stories; each story takes places 10 years after the previous one.
1939: The Vigilantes — Superman and Batman meet for the first time at the Metropolis World's Fair, where they overcome their initial suspicions of each other to team up and defeat the Ultra-Humanite. 1949: Family Matters — Clark Kent is married to Lois Lane, and Bruce Wayne's ward Dick Grayson is leaving for college. Lex Luthor and the Joker kidnap the pregnant Lois. Batman and Superman defeat the villains and rescue Lois, but her unborn son is exposed to gold kryptonite, meaning he will never develop superpowers. The Kents decide to keep the knowledge of his heritage a secret from the boy. In an epilogue set in 1950, Bruce's wife is revealed to be expecting a child as well. 1959: Strange Days — Aliens in need of a champion ask Bat-Mite and Mister Mxyzptlk to test each other's respective heroes, but Batman and Superman trick the two imps into turning on each other and convince the aliens to take them instead.This story is similar to the story "Bat-Mite meets Mr. Mxyzptlk" (World's Finest #113 (November 1960)), right down to Mxyzptlk creating a half-centipede/half warehouse monster and Superman and Batman fighting a huge, hairy, fire-breathing, land-walking octopus-like monster. Batman and Superman also face the problems of age and family. Bruce shortly thereafter retires and Dick Grayson eventually takes over as Batman in the 1960s, while Bruce Wayne Jr. ("B.J.") trains to become the new Robin. When the Kents discover their daughter Kara is developing superpowers, they give her a red sun radiation necklace created by Superman so that Kara can live a normal life without her powers. In the closing panels, an aged Lex Luthor reveals to young Joel Kent the truth about his heritage. 1969: Changing Times — Kara Kent now helps her father as Supergirl, while Lois Kent is diagnosed with cancer, and Joel Kent is reported MIA in Vietnam. Dick Grayson, the new Batman, confronts the Joker Jr., who is actually an aged Joker in disguise. The Joker kills Grayson in an elaborate trap, but Bruce Wayne Jr. (the new Robin) switches uniforms with him so that the Batman legacy can continue, letting the public believe that the Joker killed Robin rather than Batman. 1979: Twilight of the Gods — Batman and Supergirl (or Superwoman as her father thinks of her) have become a heroic team and, as Bruce Wayne Jr. and Kara Kent, plan to marry. Lois is still alive, thanks to her physician Dr. Holurt. Bruce and Kara's wedding is disrupted by a super-powered Joel Kent, who is revealed to have faked his death in Vietnam. Joel attacks and violently kills Kara. Dr. Holurt reveals himself to be a disguised Lex Luthor; he shows the world that Clark Kent is Superman, then kills Lois. Joel's powers are the result of a serum created by Luthor but, as Luthor knows, the serum is unstable and Joel dies a few minutes after killing his sister. Superman learns that Joel had fathered a son with a young Vietnamese woman, and asks B.J. to raise the boy as his own while he searches for Luthor. Meanwhile, a 70-year-old Bruce Wayne, on the trail of Ra's al Ghul, is captured by his agents. 1989: Crime and Punishment — Bruce Wayne Jr., the third Batman, flies to the Fortress of Solitude to arrest Superman for murder. Superman had been hunting Luthor for the past 10 years and finally caught up with him. Luthor exposed Superman to gold kryptonite and revealed that he is really the Ultra-Humanite. In 1939, he transplanted his brain into the body of his assistant Lex Luthor after his rocket crashed while fleeing the 1939 World's Fair, his body and Luthor's brain were too badly damaged to survive unless the switch occurred. The Ultra-Humanite planned to move his brain into Superman's body, but Superman accidentally electrocuted him while trying to escape. As that happened, the villain's machines broadcast over worldwide television the video of Superman apparently murdering "Luthor" to frame him. In the present, Superman lets Bruce Jr. take him into custody so that he can plead guilty to murder before the World Court. Even though the judges point out that he acted in self-defense, Superman is not sure whether or not he might have been influenced by his hatred of Luthor and requests that he be sent into the Phantom Zone. The judges agree to a sentence of 10 years. 1999: Beginnings and Endings — Batman III is brought to Ra's al Ghul, who is revealed to be Bruce Wayne, Sr. In 1979 Wayne had entered a Lazarus Pit with Ra's al Ghul after Ra's discovered that, if two people entered the Pit, one would perish while the other would survive, gaining immortality and none of the accompanying madness. Wayne survived and discovered that Ra's was correct. In the years since, Wayne turned Ra's's criminal empire into a force for good, working so subtly that everyone assumed his actions were a front for a criminal scheme without realizing that the 'front' had become the real organization. Wayne asks Bruce Jr. to take over the operation while he returns as Batman. Batman frees Superman from the Phantom Zone, and they investigate the Ultra-Humanite's death. Based on what the villain said before he died, Batman surmises that Ultra-Humanite had perfected a cure for gold kryptonite's effects and planned to use it after transplanting his brain into Superman's body. Superman finds the antidote, which restores his powers, and after recreating it, he shares it with his grandson, Clark Wayne, a.k.a. Knightwing. Feeling that he is no longer needed now that there are so many other heroes, Superman leaves Earth in the hands of Batman and his grandson to protect the cosmos. 2919: Nineteen Twenty-Nine — Batman visits Superman in his Fortress of Solitude, now an asteroid in a distant galaxy. Due to Superman's Kryptonian heritage and Batman's Lazarus Pit treatment, the two have aged at a slow rate. As they reminisce, Superman recalls that they had met in 1929 as teenagers. Clark and Lois Lane were winners of a journalism contest held by Bruce Wayne, owner of the Gotham Gazette. While in Gotham City, Superboy joins forces with Bruce (wearing a prototype "Robin" costume) to defeat a gang of criminals led by the young Lex Luthor, the events also prompting Clark to relocate his plans to move to Gotham to move to Metropolis to follow Lois. In the present, the two heroes realize the galaxy has become a paradise under their protection and care. They decide to leave the galaxy as they left Earth and find a new galaxy with people in trouble they can help. They are joined by Lana Lang who, thanks to magical powers, has also gained a long life and married Superman.
Generations 2 The second series, rather than using a 10-year jump between stories as in the original, takes jumps of 11 years. Starting in 1942, each issue again tells two stories, ending in the year 2019 at the end of issue #4. While the first series focused on the Batman and Superman families, the second features other characters from the DC Universe, especially from the Justice Society and Justice League.
1942: Battlefields — In Europe, Hawkman and the Blackhawks battle a giant Nazi robot. Green Lantern (Alan Scott) arrives, but exhausts his power ring saving Hawkman. The robot launches a rocket, which Blackhawk member Chuck stops at the cost of his life. Superman and the Spectre arrive, and disarm the robot. Superman rips open the machine to reveal the Ultra-Humanite, who uses kryptonite to hold him off and escape. Back in Gotham City, Lois Lane discovers that Luthor developed the robot and sold the plans to the Nazis. She is captured and held captive with Robin, but the two are saved by Batman, disguised as Luthor's henchman. 1953: Absent Friends — A long-missing Jim Gordon collapses in the doorway of Wayne Manor. He tells Bruce that he knows his secret identity, and warns him of a new threat: a mysterious criminal known as "the Head of the Demon". Meanwhile, Wonder Girl (a mystical projection of Wonder Woman) flies to North Korea in search of Steve Trevor's downed plane, while Diana Prince goes into labor. Wonder Girl finds Trevor, but he dies en route to Paradise Island. At the same moment Diana gives birth to a baby girl, Lois Kent gives birth to her daughter, Kara Kent. Clark arrives late; as Superman, he had been stranded on a planet with a red sun until he was rescued by Abin Sur. After attending the birth of his daughter, Superman introduces Sur to Alan Scott. The two Green Lanterns are puzzled at the similar nature of their rings which nevertheless possess different weaknesses. 1964: Children's Hour — Bruce Wayne Jr. is stopped by his mother from going out as Robin with Batman II, while Kara Kent tries on her Supergirl costume for the first time. She flies to Wayne Manor to see B.J., who is unhappy with his situation. Supergirl points out that he promised not to be Robin with Batman; he did not say anything about Supergirl. The teens fly off and find Kid Flash, who is fighting Weather Wizard and Mirror Master. When Kid Flash is knocked unconscious, Supergirl and Robin intervene, only to be knocked out by Gorilla Grodd. Meanwhile, Barry Allen calls Diana Trevor, looking for Kid Flash. Diana's daughter Stevie goes looking for Wally as the new Wonder Girl. She is drawn to a warehouse in Central City, where Gorilla Grodd is preparing to transfer the teens' superpowers into his body. Supergirl, who had been playing possum, rips apart the machines holding the teens, and the four young heroes subdue the criminals. Supergirl and Wonder Girl realize that they share a special bond due to being born at the same moment; this is what drew Wonder Girl to the warehouse. The teens decide to form a crimefighting team and, after rejecting the name "Junior Justice Society", call themselves the Justice League.