Whither Muto?!?

You know who once looked like he was headed for the big time?

This guy:

Yup, that's Muto, big-brained menace.

You don't know Muto? Never heard of him? Here's a quick origin:

Now, if you still don't recognize him, that's probably because Muto is from one of those alternate futures:

Muto only cameoed in that issue, in a "photograph" shown to Superman XX, a.k.a. the Superman Of 2965.

But soon enough, he was the star villain of a two-part story in Action Comics!

A year later, he was back, and teamed up with the future Joker!

So--three cover spots within a year? Sharing covers with Brainiac and the Joker?!? That sure seemed like he was ready to become a big-time player at DC.

But it was not to be. Muto only made one more appearance, 5 years later:

Unfortunately, when you're a back-up story, and the lead story is a classic like "Must There be A Superman?," no one is going to remember you.

And that was it--DC cut bait on the whole "Superman XX' idea. Maybe because he shared the same date as the Legion Of Super-Heroes, and DC feared it would be too confusing to have two alternate futures of 2966 (or whatever)? Perhaps that's why, for this final appearance, they changed it to "The Superman Of 2466 (and they changed it to that date in subsequent reprints of the earlier stories...)?

Or maybe DC just decided that it was all a little silly, as they were draged kicking and screaming into the Bronze Age (although that didn't stop later stories like "Superman of 2020"!)

Muto did come back, briefly, during the "Dominus Effect" storyline in 1998:

Now he was Superman 2999...can we get our dates straight, people?!?!?!

I'm not saying Muto was the greatest character DC never uses, or anything like that. But it did seem like he was kind of being built up to bigger things, and then...not so much.

The alternate future shouldn't have been that big a problem, given that a time machine or the Time Trapper or a billion things could have brought him back to the 20th century, or shuttled him over to the Legion's reality.

But I guess that's the life of a comic book villain. 3 years of build-up...only to become a trivia question.

Anyway, Muto. Think about him, won't you?