The Death of Superman Retrospective, Part I: The Death of Superman
The synergy between Comics and their representations in other media can be a tricky thing. To work with the oldest superhero in comics, look at Superman.
For example, the animated Fleisher shorts from the 1940s wound up making Superman fly rather than just jump into the air for ease of animation. This bled back into the comics, starting the Man of Steel’s additional flood of powers, and the use of a phone booth for a quick identity change became a story staple. The radio series (and subsequent TV show) would add Kryptonite and Jimmy Olsen, the 1950s version of Harley Quinn.
This pattern would slow as Batman overtook Superman in perceived popularity, as DC would focus more on their Caped Crusader. It wasn’t that Superman wasn’t popular anymore… but Batman was infinitely more marketable.
When the media conglomerate Time-Warner turned their eye on DC Comics in 1989, they began to push Batman and Superman hard. While Batman got the movies (and an animated series), Superman was given a pair of TV shows. The Adventures of Superboy aired from 1988 through 1992, focusing on the adventures of a teenage Clark Kent… which no longer gelled with the comics at all after John Byrne rebooted the character with 1986’s Man of Steel mini-series. However, the show still aired and was a solid production… but then came the production for 1993; Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
“Sex Sells” never applied more than to the promotional material.
Focusing on the modern adventures of adult Clark Kent and his rival/love interest Lois Lane, Superman was actually pushed to the back-burner as a character. This was done to save on the budget and make those scenes of Superman all the more impressive. It was a remarkable success, and the concept alone wound up making Time-Warner look upon the last son of Krypton favorably.
Perhaps a little too favorably.
As mentioned before, Superman had been rebooted back in 1986, with Clark Kent and his supporting cast being brought forth into a 1980s worldview. Lois and Clark were restored to newspaper reporters for the Daily Planet, and Lex Luthor was transformed from a mad scientist with delusions of world conquest into a (successful) Donald Trump with similar delusions of world conquest. Later creators would also add the science angle back in, making for a more believable Lex Luthor. Unlike the previous era of Superman, this new era also had a rather dramatic change early on:
Lois Lane and Clark Kent became engaged as of 1991’s Superman issue 50, but it would take another couple months before Clark could find himself being truly honest with Lois. With this change, the comic’s status quo had well and truly gone past the point of no return. Marriage was almost certain, but the comic had planned for the wedding to happen in 1993. A year and a half of comics would spend time with Lois coming to grips with Clark being Superman, and there was plenty address in the meantime. After wearing a Kryptonite ring for several years, Lex Luthor lost his hand to advanced cancer before his own body was ravaged beyond saving by the same cancer. Committing suicide, the Luthor fortune went to Lex Luthor the Second, the product of a forgotten fling in Australia. Lex Jr seemed less petty than his father and actually like a redeemable person.
It would later turn out this was a cloned body of Lex Luthor with the original’s brain shoved inside pretending to be his own son, but no one was supposed to know about that outside the readers.
Comics are weird, man.
Superman had also been adventuring between universes and came back with a shape-changing artificial life-form named Matrix. It would assume a female persona and become the first Supergirl of the new continuity. Matrix would also fall for Lex Luthor Jr, with their relationship being subtext… but a remarkably blatant subtext. Matrix would also know Superman’s true identity, and would often visit Superman’s parents for advice.
Creators were also bringing in some old Jack Kirby concepts, like Cadmus. A top-secret government organization, they were focused on… a lot of really weird science. Clones were one of the bigger bread-and-butter plotlines with the organization, using them to bring back old character concepts like the Newsboy Legion and the Guardian with a fresh coat of late 80s / early 90s paint. Even old characters from Kirby’s time at DC were harvested, bringing back guys like the DNAlien Dubbliex to make the world of DC seem that much weirder.
During all of this change, Superman’s comic line had drastically expanded. Starting with the long-running self-titled Superman (now Adventures of Superman) and Action Comics, the life and times of Clark Kent would also be covered by The Man of Steel, and a newly-launched Superman. This made for one comic being released a week, with mostly stand-alone stories. However, plot lines would intersect between issues of each run, and DC would invent the “cover triangle” for Superman so readers knew what the heck was going on, and how each issue fit together each year.
At the very least, it was a genius move in terms of keeping the story straight, letting writers bounce off one another rather than come up with their own storylines that would sometimes go nowhere or be abandoned (like in Marvel’s X-Men line). Yearly meetings with the creators and editors would help further tie things together, with everyone making grand plans and story twists. Whenever things would become bogged down and compromises began to pop up, Adventures of Superman writer Jerry Ordaway would begin to joke about killing off the Man of Steel. With the engagement underway, however, this was only taken as a joke. Instead, issue 500 of The Adventures of Superman would be the grand wedding issue between Lois and Clark.
And then Time-Warner stepped in, making this whole introduction relevant.
You see, Time-Warner was all about brand synergy. With the brand-new show about Lois and Clark being romantically flirty and not married, the higher-ups figured people could get confused about how they weren’t married in the show, but were in the comics. Because viewers and/or readers are apparently idiots. And so, while desperately trying to come up with more content for Superman, literally creating the American comics equivalent of anime filler arcs while they tried to push out the wedding, Jerry Ordaway once again would pound on the table and joke about killing off Superman.
Only this time, another writer listened.
According to interviews, Louise Simonson (now on Man of Steel) actually liked the idea. Having worked on the death-prone X-Men franchise with Chris Claremont, she knew personally it would be a fantastic time to bring up what the deceased character meant to everyone around them. Editorial approved it, and left Ordaway speechless while everyone began to plan what could kill Superman, and what the world would be like without him… and how to bring him back. The original idea was that he would die with Superman 75 but come back to life in Adventures of Superman 500, keeping with the milestone issues and giving the story a few months to breathe and work.
At first, it began with hints of something big.
In the month prior, each issue of Superman’s stories began with a massive green-gloved fist hitting against a metal wall. Doomsday was coming. As the month wore on, the glove began to collapse, revealing grey skin and bony protrusions like a demented Wolverine. Finally, the wall broke open, and Doomsday was Here!
The story proper began in December of 1992. Action Comics 648, Adventures of Superman 497, Man of Steel 18 and 19… and Superman 74 and 75. The action even wound up spilling over into Justice League American issue 69, as Superman was a reservist member with them at the time. Escaping from an underground bunker, the creature with no name was restrained with steel cables and had one arm free. A small bird finds the monster, lands on his hand and…
A Disney Princess, Doomsday isn’t.
While Superman deals with Jack Kirby styled creations living under Metropolis, Doomsday wanders onto the interstate and punches a semi-truck, causing enough damage to get the attention of the Justice League. Much like the Avengers of the 80s and 90s, the Justice League were built mainly of heroes who didn’t have their own adventures. This time, the Justice League is made of the second Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Ice, Fire, Superman’s self-proclaimed perfect woman Maxima, a recently de-Green Lantern’d Guy Gardener and a mysterious being known as Bloodwynd. They approach the scene of the pending disaster in the Blue Beetle’s own flying craft, the Bug.
They genuinely didn’t stand a chance. While it sounds impressive today to say that a villain took out the entire Justice League with one arm, this was a time when the League was very underpowered. Batman and Superman were considered reserve members, only pulled out to either save the day or to bolster sales. However, the way each team member is dismantled by sheer brutality is still shocking, even today.
Eventually, Superman hears of the horrible fight and joins with the Justice League to take him down. Together, the League gathers up what firepower they have and launch a ranged assault on the monster…
...freeing his other hand, and showing off the face of this monster. Doomsday wastes no time, ripping the League to pieces. Jumping off, only Superman can chase him down. Unfortunately, a family trapped in a burning home makes Superman leave for the briefest of moments, and the fight begins to wind its way to Metropolis. Maxima and Superman team up to take down the creature, but-
Well, you can’t argue that this comic doesn’t make great use of page space to show the destruction and chaos caused by this monster.
As each issue counted down to Superman 75 in the year’s timeline, there was something special happening with the art. Adventures of Superman 497 would make use of pages with 4 panels only. Action Comics 684 reduced it to 3 panels per page. Man of Steel 19 brought the panel count to 2 per page as the monster reached Metropolis. Unfortunately, as invulnerable as Superman has been since his relaunch in 1986, Doomsday would prove to be stronger and even made Superman bleed.
It wasn’t Kryptonite, it wasn’t magic. Just sheer, overpowering strength. It would also mess up Supergirl, the Guardian, almost the entirety of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, and half the city.
Then Superman 75 hit the newsstands, with three covers. A black cover with a bloodied Superman logo, a grey tombstone, and Superman’s cape tattered and blowing in the wind. It didn’t matter which cover you got, it told you something big was happening here.
The interior art didn’t hurt either, as every single page is a single-page splash panel. Action is captured in perfect screenshots, with nearly every page being iconic and utterly beautiful. The remaining fight is brutal, with Superman taking just as much as he can dish back, and both Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane getting in the way to try and help. But, finally, both Doomsday and Superman fall. And, across a double-page spread followed by an incredible triple-page spread, Superman dies.
The impact felt in the real world was almost as massive as the fictional one. While the fact that Superman would die was spoiled several months in advance thanks to solicits released for the related issues, the actual news was treating this like a real-world event.
The problem was, DC might have goofed on their message. These people interviewed seemed convinced that the Man of Steel had been put out to pasture, and the news reporters did too… when they weren’t confusing comic events for ultra-violent characters (1:20 in the video features super-violent characters highlighted: Punisher, Wolverine… and Infinity War). DC’s interviews didn’t help either, with line editor Mike Carlin admitting that sometimes you just have to do something desperate to get attention.
At the time, the entire line of comics for the Death of Superman sold like gangbusters, with first-edition copies of Superman 75 selling expensively on the secondary market. In fact, the runaway success of the entire wheel-spinning endeavor wound up convincing the DC Editorial bosses that doing the same with their other heroes would also be a fantastic success. Batman’s back was broken, Green Lantern was planned to… something, and plans were in place to kill off Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Arrow. After it was shown that these lethal experiences for heroes were only temporary sales boosts, plans for some heroes were shelved and others were adapted for a bigger story. The Flash was temporarily replaced by a Flash from the future, followed immediately by one from an alternate universe… and Green Arrow was eventually killed off and replaced by his kid.
It wasn’t restricted to just DC, either. Marvel would launch the Clone Saga as a similarly-themed event that would catch the eye of comics fans and increase sales. The Age of Apocalypse would launch a temporary universe where Charles Xavier didn’t exist to create his team of teenage superheroes. The core non-X and Spidey titles would be split off into their own rebooted universe, called Heroes Reborn. While other factors would inspire these events, it’s hard not to see a straight line from the Death of Superman.
Normally, we would look at how this story survives in the modern-day… but that will be saved for an overall retrospective at the end. Because the Death of Superman, unlike what some believed, was far from the end for the Man of Steel. An entire month would show a world without Superman, and the world would see what happens in phase 2 of Superman’s death and rebirth.
Coming Next, Funeral for a Friend.
