You do have a point about the mutability of Superman canon. It's interesting to think of how the Superman story exists apart from any of its specific incarnations -- it's really like a modern myth. Everybody knows the story of Superman, at least in its vaguest outline, even people who have never picked up a comic book.

It does make it a bit of a different beast than a show with one "true" canon. Just about any possibility you can think of has probably played out in the comic at some point.

Denial ... more than just a river in Egypt ...