Continuity. It’s such a loaded word for comic book fans, both a prime reason for the medium’s longevity and a bane to many readers. When telling stories about characters over the course of sixty or seventy years, the stories have to change. There’s no room for innovation otherwise. Marvel Comics has operated on sliding timeline, attempting to keep the most of their characters’ histories intact while fudging the details that just won’t work anymore as the decades go on. Their distinguished competition DC Comics has favored reboots, relaunching their characters with new origins. This method is ingrained in DC’s DNA, dating back to when a rebooted version of The Flash heralded the birth of the Silver Age of comics in 1956.

In 2011, DC Comics made the surprising and controversial decision to reboot their entire line of comics, erasing years of continuity and starting fresh. In promotional images for the reboot, all their main characters had new costumes designs that reflected this new era. No longer were DC’s heroes clad in spandex. The red trunks Superman famously wore for decades were gone. His costume (and the costumes of his peers) more resembled battle-ready armor. But unlike the rest of the Justice League, Superman was featured in a second promotional image with a completely different and even more surprising outfit—a t-shirt and jeans.