Lobo’s New 52 Reboot and Retcon, Explained

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Lobo is DC’s crudest, rudest, gnarliest bounty hunter. He embodies counter-culture, taking cues from his era’s punk and metal scenes in his wardrobe and attitude. He’s a murderous, low-down bastich with little to no regard for political correctness or human life. When DC decided to reboot the universe in 2011’s New 52, they felt the need to change Lobo.

The Main Man was not created for a modern audience, but his dashing, rebooted version showed he’d officially entered DC’s mainstream. Fans rejected the new design for Lobo, and the creative teams behind his story abandoned ship, leaning into the silliness and chaos of the original character to resurrect the unkillable bounty hunter.

Portrait of a Bastich: A Brief History of Lobo

The original Lobo was a counterculture icon

When Lobo first appeared in Omega Men #3 by Roger Slifer, Keith Giffen, and Mike DeCarlo, he was already far grittier and more savage than other villains. The issue’s cover showed his brutality, despite the whimsical vibe of his space-age jumpsuit.

By his next appearances in Justice League International and L.E.G.I.O.N., he’d adopted the look most readers recognize and blossomed into the violent murder machine fans came to like through his solo series. His time with the League clarified his powers, establishing the mythos Legion built on. While Legion eventually brought him on as a regular cast member, the solo series then explored a Main Man without supervision, and they let him do whatever he wanted.

His violence and vulgarity are clear commentaries on a particular vein of comics and characters, taken from counter-culture movements raging against industrial morality. The violence that often ends conflicts in comic books, along with the blatant over-sexualization of female characters and the moral high-grounding of those who market such things to young readers, are parodied by the extremes to which Lobo’s misanthropy harms the world around him.

Despite all his darkness, Lobo is incredibly goofy. He holds nothing sacred (except Space Dolphins), and his basic ideals allowed his stories to play with the medium’s form and ideology in ways ahead of their time. Sometimes, he was a tasteless misanthrope, murdering indiscriminately and for personal enjoyment, but other times, he had a definite soft side and hated to see a crooked person win. He was surprisingly complex, but the problematic aspects of his person made him too much of a gamble for the New 52. DC overhauled his character instead of including him in all his disturbing glory.

Things started to go wrong when controversial comic industry legend Rob Liefeld introduced The Main Man to his run on Deathstroke (Vol. 2) for the New 52 reboot. Instead of an amoral maniac hell-bent on his own whims, Liefeld made Lobo an ex-slaver notorious for global genocide.

While the original Lobo killed numerous entire planets throughout various solo series and crossovers, Liefeld’s version lacked any of the cartoon violence that made Lobo endearing. Instead of blowing up worlds by commanding the entire population to bonk themselves on the head in unison or detonating comically large artillery, Liefeld’s Lobo was too close to real-world villains than the loveable anti-hero of old.

Lobo Copies Kill Each Other

Lobo’s main superpower is a near-limitless healing factor

Lobo is incredibly hard to kill. He’s a partial parody of characters like Wolverine, and some versions of him can clone themselves from a single drop of blood, which is a real problem if he explodes or becomes a fine mist because of some horrible alien weapon.

Even a multiversal, company-wide restructure couldn’t eliminate the Main Man, so Cullen Bunn and Reilly Brown, the writers of Lobo Volume 3, gave a younger, more handsome Lobo a contract on himself. The sleek Lobo claimed he was the original, then shot his surlier counterpart (presumably Liefeld’s) in the head with enough force to kill “any natural-born Czarnian.” He was a quiet loner who talked in a mix of Lobo’s alien drawl and high-status pomp, but he worked best alone and was never much fun to be around (or root for).

He fought cool space monsters and executed bounty contracts as usual, but his backstory and methods were too big a jump for his hardcore fanboys to follow. He was a formerly high-ranking Czarnian military officer with a classical romantic interest in the Princess until tragedy struck and made him a killer.

Lobo was immensely loyal to his people and leaders until love and tragedy pulled him in another direction. The original Lobo bit off a nurse’s fingers when he was born, then killed his planet for a middle-school science experiment. It’s not hard to see how this change made fans feel like the New Lobo wasn’t Lobo. On top of all those changes, his physicality was drastically different, and he frequently got his butt kicked by D-List goons.

In issue #3, a phase-shifting man in a deep-sea diving suit did a number on him, and other fights led him to regrow a little stronger and wilder each time. The first six issues cling to the Czarnian royalty storyline, introducing a blood cult to explain Lobo’s regeneration but ultimately getting further from the essence of the character. It was not until the last seven issues that a new creative team began to right the errors and steer the new Lobo in a more familiar direction.

When he hunted Hal Jordan in issue #13, he was at least recognizable as Lobo again. His personal story still involved romance in ways nobody really asked for, but his bloody quest to eliminate various Lanterns let him grow into a genuine version of himself. He was scooped up and revived after having all the skin and muscle blasted off his body, appearing in Batman/Superman #29 with a contract on the World’s Finest.

Superman flings him into the cold vacuum of space in the following issue, apparently for the second and final time in that continuity. The New 52 ended shortly thereafter, and it’s unclear whether the next appearance is a new Lobo for the Rebirth era, a clone, or an idealized end-point for the New 52 version, but he’s much closer to the Main Man readers know and love.

Lobo’s Back Again For Yet Another Rebooted Universe

Old-school Lobo reappeared in the Rebirth era as an original Suicide Squad member

When the Main Man returned in Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, he was back to his old, loveable, hateable self. Batman blew up his head, which earned his respect and convinced him to join a new Justice League. He was the team’s bruiser, helping them in conflicts against interdimensional alien warlords. They functioned much like the Justice League International, whom Lobo met in issues #18 and #19 of their solo series, with Lobo acting as the team’s resident jerk.

He’d call out anything that didn’t sit right and proved surprisingly insightful. He’s an incredible judge of character because of his bounty-hunting talents, and seeing him regain solid footing as an anti-hero was almost a complete return, bringing back his Silver Age goofiness and a lot of his attitude. Still, being a part of the League did take away some of his edge. After leaving the Rebirth Era’s Justice League of America peaceably in issue #26, Lobo kicked around the multiverse sewing his wild oats and, unknowingly, had a daughter on Earth.

Crush’s quest to find her father explored his return as an intergalactic scourge, and his eventual plot to break out of space jail by using her as bait confirmed how much of a scumbag he is. 2024’s Cancellation Special by Kyle Starks and Kyle Hotz is a full return to form for the Main Man, pitting him against the dreaded Murdercrotch Slaughterface, who stole his rep as the baddest man in the Universe while Lobo went through all his unseemly changes.

He deals with Slaughterface and anyone else who gets in his way, showing little regard for sentient life except for the lonely children he can’t help but empathize with. He’s an absolute monster, but not in a way that gets too close to any real-world issues. He’s brutal because that’s just how he is, and beefing up his backstory was never what he needed. Lobo is wild and spontaneous, and watching him tear his way through the Universe will likely always be more fun than learning a new, intricate backstory for a character who doesn’t care to remember it himself.

“}]] The reboot of Lobo was one of the most controversial changes in DC’s New 52 universe, though it failed so spectacularly that everything soon changed.  Read More