Publication History
Ultraman first appeared as the evil counterpart of Superman on the original Earth-Three. Having created the worlds of Earth-One, containing Silver Age superheroes, as well as Earth-Two, containing the golden age ones, DC Comics decided to expand the universe to include various themed universes. The first of these was Earth-Three, in which there were villainous counterparts of DC's heroes as well as heroic counterparts of DC's villains. The first Ultraman was killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths and Earth-Three was destroyed by an anti-matter storm and then wiped from continuity at the end of the series. This original Earth-Three Ultraman has reappeared briefly both in the 1980s Animal Man series and the later Infinite Crisis mini-series.
Since Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC has returned to the concept of Ultraman, creating several different characters with that name, often appearing only for a single story. Two versions of the character have appeared, several times each. The first was an anti-matter version of Ultraman, created for Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel. This version has appeared several times and was slain at the conclusion of Final Crisis series. Another version, closer to the Silver Age original Ultraman, appeared on the post-52 universe's Earth-3. Based on comments by Grant Morrison, this Earth-3 universe is not the pre-Crisis Earth-Three, making this a new character unrelated to previous versions.
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