I've stumbled upon a little wrinkle in the Post Crisis DCU. It's not the first such thing, of course. And it's not likely to be the last. But I found it very interesting.
You see, Tim Drake thinks Superboy Prime is dead.
I was rereading Detective Comics #820 when I noticed it. While under the influence of the Scarecrow's fear toxin Robin fights a vision of the Earth-2 Robin. Tim makes short work of him, and is then faced with a far more terrifying specter: Superboy Prime.
But that's not the interesting thing. The interesting thing is how Tim rationalizes the phantom away:
"You took my friend, Conner. You took away a lot of Titans. But Conner died taking you with him. You're dead."
This certainly raises a lot of questions (at least in my mind). I'd imagine that the general public doesn't know much about what really went down. Like the fire fighter in 52: Week 1 they've just been told that someone put the world in dire peril. And that that someone was stopped.
But what about everybody else? Most of the caped community knows what happened. They know the raw power Superboy Prime possessed -- and how almost no one could stop him.
But who really knows that he's still out there? Tim Drake seems not to know. Does Wonder Girl know that the monster who killed her boyfriend is still out there? Do the rest of the Titans? Does Batman?
Do they know that he's out there, waiting, biding his time? Do they know that he will get out? And how would they react if they knew?
