Originally published October 2, 1992, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #985
Front page news.
“The Death of Superman” has finally hit the media, landing with a very loud splash on the front page of Newsday. And since Newsday is a tabloid, front page means the whole page.
DC publicists were not ready to talk about it, which is nothing new. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a general media event that was planned, orchestrated and launched by any comic book company publicity department. Instead the news events just sort of happen, with leaks coming from distributors or creators or retailers, and then the PR folks madly scramble to say something intelligent in response (which can frequently be boiled down to “No comment” or “We’ll get back to you on that.”)
So it would seem that those who were writing off DC’s future and market power were premature. DC has not taken its being knocked down to the Number 3 company for August lying down.
(Although here’s a homework assignment for anyone with access to the sales numbers: Remember that the August numbers that made Malibu/Image the Number 2 company were based on orders. It’d be interesting to see how many of those books actually shipped in August, versus how many DCs actually shipped. This would determine whether Malibu/Image was de facto Number 2, or whether they only held that status on paper. I have no idea one way or the other. I’m just interested. After all, orders don’t pay bills. Sales do.)
No, DC has fought back. For some time now, DC has wrestled with a difficult (you should pardon the expression) image problem. On one hand, it has carved out a niche for itself as publisher of some high-quality, award winning titles, mostly produced by British guys. And they’ve developed one Wolverine-esque success in Lobo.
But the three jewels in their British crown have been Watchmen, which was a limited series; Swamp Thing, which hasn’t been written by a Brit in years (although Nancy Collins is doing some nice work); and the award winning Sleepwalker-Done-Wrong, Sandman, which is scheduled to end when Neil Gaiman leaves. As for Lobo, the character has yet to prove that he can sustain anything beyond a series of specials, one-shots and limited series.
This puts DC’s long-term hopes back where they’ve always been, namely with their established characters.
The problem is that Superman, et al have been around for so long, that DC is constantly in the position of having to reinvent them, so that modern readers can embrace the characters without dust flying. Kind of a comic book equivalent of the “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” commercials. Indeed, I keep waiting for an ad with Batman standing there, looking kick-butt and serious, declaring “This is not your father’s Batmobile.”
DC perpetually embraces the latest trends in this reinvention of themselves and characters. The announcement at San Diego of their intended crossovers with Image reminds one of the college professors in the 1960s who grew beards and wore Nehru jackets and love beads, in an effort to show the younger generation that they could be groovy, too.
Furthermore, DC characters have been, for some time now, becoming grimmer and grittier. It’s a trend that has become more and more pronounced throughout the line. Terrified of being viewed as old fogies, DC is doing whatever they can to “de-fogy” themselves.
How else to explain, for instance, the abrupt cancellation of Justice Society of America? I don’t know what sales were, but were they that bad that they warranted the decision to drop the axe that fast? Was it sales, or was it DC believing that they’ve already got enough “old” characters in their stables, and shouldn’t be adding any more.
One of the greatest benefits of this is that, whenever DC makes any sort of major change, it gets them headlines because their characters have such high recognition. Also, the stories have masterfully easy hooks for the media to latch on to.
“Batman Gets Old!” Dark Knight in three easy words that make great headlines. “Jimmy Olsen Gets Fired.” “Superman Gets Engaged!” And now “Superman Dies!” (Me, I’m waiting for “Wonder Woman Becomes Single Mother!” The GOP would just love that.)
There have been the occasional backfires, of course, because the simplicity that newsfolk crave makes it difficult to handle any development of complexity. Remember the “Superman Gets Married” story of some years ago… except it turned out (to bewildered reporters and newcomers) to be the Superman of Earth II.
For that matter, try to explain to your average feature writer (who hasn’t read comics in years) the entire Crisis on Infinite Earths concept. Developed to simplify the DC Universe, you first had to describe all the circumstances that made the DC Universe so confusing in the first place–by which point the reporter was hopelessly lost. (“So which earth is ours?”)
Then, of course, there was the Dial-M-For-Murder-of-Robin fiasco. It started out as a nifty-enough novelty story, but backfired when America’s youth actually voted to kill the character. The problem was that the average man-on-the-street (or reporter on the beat) couldn’t mentally distinguish between Jason Todd’s obnoxious Robin, and the cheery, gosh-wow Ðìçk Grayson-Robin of the 1960s Batman TV show. Go explain that Ðìçk Grayson was safe and sound as Nightwing of the Titans (“Who of the what?”)
Despite these snags, DC (and Image, for that matter) have generally managed to stir up some genuinely great PR for themselves (as opposed to Marvel, which these days generally gets media attention along the lines of “Major Marvel Stockholder Arrested for Having Sex with Sheep”).
And now, DC’s latest–and possibly greatest–publicity coup. The killing off of the Man of Steel.
No comics fan is fooled by this for a microsecond, of course. In most fiction, “And then he dies” is usually followed by, “The End.” As opposed to comics, in which the same statement is usually followed by, “Oh really? And then what?”
It is, as noted before, eerie timing coming hard on the heels of the death of Joe Shuster.
(Although, purely as a side note, I’m happy to report an amendment to my earlier statements over DC’s placing Siegel and Shuster on a $20,000 a year stipend. I commented that $200,000 seemed more appropriate. Well, a source at DC has informed me that the amount has escalated dramatically over the years–wildly beyond normal inflation adjustments–to the point where Joe Shuster was getting around five times that amount every year when he passed away. Still less than I thought they should get, but certainly a lot closer to equity. Cheers for DC.)
Thus far, the initial sales impact seems very promising. Comic store owners are reporting a lot of interest from non-readers. Signs are already going up at stores offering a reserve system. Hëll, I must admit that if I weren’t on the comp list, I’d buy a copy of the storyline, just to enjoy the mechanics of it.
What’s interesting, although understandable, is that Superman dying is, quite simply, not a story. Joe Shuster dying, that’s a story. Fay Vincent resigning, that’s a story. But Superman getting knocked off is, in and of itself, meaningless, because in comics death is, in and of itself, meaningless. CBG‘s own Don Thompson put that in perspective for Newsday.
No, Superman’s death is not an event. It’s plot mechanics. What makes this whole thing so intriguing is what DC intends to do after Superman dies. “What next,” as mentioned above.
Thus far, editor Mike Carlin has been quite correctly cagey on the entire topic.
What, then, is going to happen next?
Here’s my guess…
And no, you’re not going to see any sort of spoiler warnings or anything, because that would imply knowledge. I have deliberately refrained from asking anyone in authority–not that they necessarily would have told me, although I imagine I could have wormed it out of someone. But since I haven’t chanced finding out anything, my guess is no better or worse than yours. Besides, I’ve written about so many things in the past without knowing a dámņëd thing about them, so why ruin a perfectly good track record.
My guess is that after Superman dies, he’ll enter some sort of chrysalis or transformational nature–caterpillar to butterfly type of thing. This could be based either on the nature of his death (whatever that is) or something having to do with his Kryptonian physiology. And once he does come back… what then?
Probably a two-pronged approach.
First, his powers.
I don’t think they’re going to change them radically in nature because, well, he’s Superman. Sure, they’ve mucked around with him in the media. But I doubt we’ll suddenly see him acquiring some of the abilities from the old TV series, such as splitting into two Supermen, or phasing through walls. Nor will he suddenly display the talents that showed up from nowhere in the Superman films, such as turning back time, multiple-imaging or even the dreaded Kryptonian “S” Frisbee. (Not to mention the dreaded anti-gravity vision displayed by the Kryptonian villains.)
No, when they’ve toyed with his powers, it’s generally been in the realm of power level. When a “major change” was made, as Denny O’Neil did in the 1970s and John Byrne did in the 1980s, the move was towards making him weaker. No drop kicking planets and such.
But since he’s not all that powerful now, maybe the move will be to increase his powers. I’ve even heard a rumor or two on the fan circuit to that effect. Maybe DC is tired of Superman flying through space with an oxygen mask. Maybe they want to make Superman more Super… which will make it that much more challenging for the writers to come up with someone who’s going to be a serious threat to him.
I don’t think, however, that the important change is going to be in the powers. I think it’s going to be in the personality. My guess–and I stress, it is a guess–is that the watchwords of Superman is going to be, basically, No More Mr. Nice Guy. I think we’re standing on the eve of Grim and Gritty Superman.
I mean, let’s face it… if somebody kills you, that’s got to be more than a little annoying. So when (not if) Superman comes back, my guess is that he’s going to react in one of two ways. Either he’s going to become ultra-tentative, reluctant to risk dying again… which somehow, I don’t think, is going to play all that well. (“Up, Up and Far, Far Away.”) Or else he’s going to become ultra-aggressive, determined not to give anyone the chance to knock him off again.
The fact is that Superman’s image hasn’t been the same since Dark Knight. Frank Miller did wonders for Batman, but his portrayal of Superman as the ultimate representative of the status quo seriously damaged Superman’s likability. One of the attractions of superheroes is that they’re wish fulfillment. They do what we wish we could do, be what we wish we could be. But who really aspires to becoming a blue-and-red-costumed embodiment of the Reagan era?
Writer Kurt Busiek put his finger squarely on the problem when he made a rather canny observation about a Jim Croce lyric from the song, “Big Bad Jim.” You know… the line that goes, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.”
Kurt’s view on this was, quite simply, “Why not? Why wouldn’t you tug on Superman’s cape? What’s he gonna do? He’s Superman, for crying out loud. What’s the absolute worst that’s gonna happen? If you tug on Superman’s cape, he’ll just look at you and say, ‘Don’t do that, son. It’s not nice. And… isn’t this a school night?’ Nothing is going to happen to you if you tug on Superman’s cape. Now… you don’t tug on Batman’s cape. Tug on Batman’s cape, you’re toast. But Superman? Tug away.”
In a comic universe that features psychotics, drunk drivers, crippling sociopaths, homicidal maniacs… and that’s just the good guys… Superman would seem to be something of a relic. Whereas once he pointed the way for all superheroes to follow, now he seems to be a giant anchor, dragging them back in a direction that they don’t want to go. Which means that–in my opinion–he’s either going to have to follow the migration, or be left behind.
Superman B.C…. Before Corpse… is a square. My guess is that Superman A.D…. After Death… is no longer going to be a nice guy.
Because we all know where nice guys finish.
(If Peter David, writer of stuff, turns up dead of strangulation, and Mike Carlin’s fingerprints are found on his throat, that will be a good tip that his guesses were correct. Place your bets.)
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Well, looks as if most of your guesses were wrong.
But i love this:
Especially with the column footer, it put me in mind of:
“…but I do not ask, as persons who ask questions may become known as persons who wish to find things out.”
Damon Runyan is almost as good a source of aphorisms as the Bible, sometimes…
On the contrary, it looks like PAD was spot on with his guesses… even with the grim ‘n gritty Superman (albeit it was with one of the 4 Supermen).
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I was most impressed with this prediction: “My guess is that after Superman dies, he’ll enter some sort of chrysalis or transformational nature–caterpillar to butterfly type of thing. This could be based either on the nature of his death (whatever that is) or something having to do with his Kryptonian physiology.”
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…since that’s almost exactly what happened. They put him in some sort of chrysalis chamber, and it was stated he was only able to be brought back because of how much sunlight his Kryptonian physiology had stored up.
Okay, i wasn’t following Superman closely at the time, i admit. (Actually, i’m still not, though that’s at least as much due to the nearest comic store being twenty-odd miles away.) I guess i was mostly keying off the “split or power change”, as i recall a Superman Red/Superman Blue with changed powers” scenario that was after the rebirth (though i don’t know how soon).
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And i don’t count the four Supermen in discussing how Superman changed, since none of them were him.
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Right?
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I am right on that, right?
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Please tell me i’m right…
But the thing is, we were led to believe one of them was (either the cyborg or the Eradicator). So in terms of taking Superman in a grimmer and grittier direction, we definitely got that, for more than a year before the real Superman came back.
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The other thing that’s interesting to me is that what PAD talks about here in terms of marketing/promotion– coordinating with the media, positioning your characters as “not your daddy’s”– that’s exactly the approach that Marvel came up with in the Jemas era, 10 years after PAD wrote this. So PAD was far ahead of the curve in that thinking. Heck, the whole Captain Marvel/Open Letter/U-Decide thing was PAD going “Hey, I knew all about guerilla marketing years before you guys got around to it.”
It’s interesting to reflect back upon the “Death of Superman” stuff. I remember just wanting to *read* the dámņ story, but having to wait awhile to get my hands on it at my LCS because they couldn’t keep it in stock. I think I finally got my hands on a 4th printing.
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I’d never read Superman before that, and it did spark my interest in DC… for a bit. I tried to follow as much of the post-Death stuff as I could with Funeral for a Friend through to the Supermen. But there’s only so much a 12 year old on an allowance can do when there were so many titles to follow.
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So I ended up going back to my favorites at the time, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers West Coast. The only time I’ve even bothered to look at DC since was for a bit of Lobo now and then.
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Side note: I got to visit that LCS of my childhood for the first time in 15 years about a year and a half ago. It was great to see that the only thing that had changed in all that time was the owner’s hair had gone gray.
I had a similar experience with DC as a result of the Death/Return storyline… the book I really got interested in was the Kesel/Grummett Superboy… but then DC started with that Zero Hour stuff which confused the heck out of me, and I lost interest. I wonder if DC understand how off-putting those constant continuity reboots are.
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I think my next exposure to DC was in the Marvel vs. DC crossover, which was kinda weak… but I actually really dug the Amalgam titles and thought they were a lot of fun. I guess because I always thought the Marvel and DC heroes should be part of the same universe.
My abiding memory of that period was not so much the death of Superman- as Peter quite rightly pointed out, none of us thought for a moment it was more than a temporary development- but actually the incredible amount of news stories reporting how those particular issues were going to become increbly valuable collector’s items. That was followed by a spate of bull-in-a-china-shop-type stories in which your local comic shop was invaded by members of Joe Q. Public, who were buying up endless numbers of copies, thinking they could finance their summer home in Tahiti. But as we well knew, those books were barely going to fetch their cover price, by virtue of the fact that DC had printed up so many of them. Peter, you would know this better than I, by virtue of your own experience in the industry, but I think I’m right that the Death of Superman was actually one of the factors that ended up badly damaging the industry, because it brought outside speculators into the comic book market.
You’re right that it ended up damaging the industry but not in the way you might expect. I was a comic book dealer at the time, doing weekend comic book shows, and the speculators were already in the market before the DOS issue came out. They were the ones buying up Valiant Comics books and several other small publishers that sprung up, looking to find the next TMNT, and also speculating on the variant covers that were being printed at the time. (I should point out that there were comic book dealers who were speculators at the time too; I remember one dealer who told me he had a whole case of issue #87(?) of New Mutants, the first appearance of Cable, and was waiting for the back issue price to peak before he started selling them.) DOS brought millions of people into comic book shops and shows, and dealers and publishers thought that all these people were going to start buying comics; the orders for the Supermen Returns issues the following April were extremely high. However, when the issues came out the demand wasn’t there; I remember dealers with stacks of the new issues on their tables retailing them for 50% of cover price the week of their release. At the same time, the Diamond Catalogue for retailers for June of that year tripled in size, from 200+ pages to 600+ pages; Dark Horse, Image, Valiant and several other companies I can’t recall all decided to create new comic book universes with several brand new titles. All this new material actually drove speculators out of the market; there was too much to choose from and no way to tell which titles were going to be winners, so the speculators started selling off while the prices were high. It took about a year and a half for the full crash to occur, but eventually most of the speculators had left the comic book market in search of the next hot thing. With too much production and not enough demand the comic book market collapsed; the same thing had happened to the sports card market several years earlier. There were a lot of other factors affecting the market that also contributed to the crash, but this is a Readers Digest version of what happened then by someone who survived it.
Interestingly enough a lot of what you said did come to pass, only not for a couple of years. Superman Red, Superman Blue, What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?, Kingdom Come. But what I love is the chrome plated balls on DC about it during that period. There is no way to make Superman into grim and gritty. His character is so well defined you just can’t write him a different way.
Weren’t most of those Nehru-clad, bead-sporting college professors just trying to score with hippie chicks? (I admit I’m basing this impression entirely off of Donald Sutherland in Animal House.)
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Lobo did eventually prove he could sustain an ongoing series, just not a good one.
Nobody could see the mullet coming.
Holy crap, I had totally forgotten about the mullet! They should put a warning on all Kryptonian resurrection cocoons about this potential side effect.
Ah, the 90’s. At least they didn’t put him in a black leather trenchcoat…
Matt Adler said, “I guess because I always thought the Marvel and DC heroes should be part of the same universe.”
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In the second Superman/Spider-Man team-up in the late 1970s/early 1980s, they were part of the same universe (at least for that one adventure, which had Clark going to work for J.J.J. and Peter taking an assignment as a Daily Planet photographer). Yet despite making it clear that neither Spidey nor Supes had crossed over from some other reality, a New York Police desk sergeant had no idea who Superman was when he walked into the station. That never made sense. In any universe, Superman’s gonna be a known quantity. And he wasn’t just starting his career in that story.
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As to the death of Superman, I enjoyed reading the subsequent “Reign of the Supermen” and “Funeral For a Friend” storylines, but as I’ve said before, it would’ve been a really gutsy move if DC had killed Supes and kept him dead. But then you have the whole matter of keeping the trademark active. But, strictly from a storytelling point of view, imagine if Kal-El had died and Superboy had stepped forward to take over. Everyone would have known that he wasn’t Supes, so he’d have had a lot to live up to.
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Not sure how DC would have been able to keep the Clark Kent name (and trademark) active (I guess Matrix could’ve assumed his identity), but, again, there could have been a lot of great storytelling possibilities if Kal-El had actually died.
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That said– and knowing that in comics, death is never permanent. Right, Bucky? And that not even autopsies keep you from returning- right, Elektra?– I liked that DC kept Supes gone for eight months, rather than bring him back in the next issue. And, as I said, the follow-up storylines were good.
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Ironically, my own blog this week addressed death in comics, including a mention of Supes’ demise. One of the topics I discussed was the Captain America Omnibus, which includes the return of Bucky and the death of Steve Rogers.
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I’m actually O.K. with Bucky’s return, since we never actually saw him die, we just assumed he’d been killed in the explosion (and his death was retroactive anyway); and the explanation for his return didn’t strain credulity. Unlike a few others I could name.
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Right, Elektra?
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Right, Jason Todd?
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But I’m fine with the “if there’s no body, he’s not dead” school of thought.
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And I understand Steve Rogers has come back after two years. A longer stretch than eight months, but either way, it comes across as nothing but a stunt in the long run. In which case, why bother doing it? Beyond the cynical need to boost sales, that is?
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I haven’t read any of the Batman books in years, but I assume Bruce Wayne has shuffled this mortal coil back on again following his recent “demise”?
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By the way, the 1993 World Almanac had Clark Kent listed among the people who’d died the previous year.
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Rick
The Death of Superman… Funny you should mention this because it was this that eventually turned me off from buying individual issues of story arcs (and just get the HC) AND led to my developing the “Siryn Mentality”. I mean, Superman, Batman, The Punisher, Captain America…they all “supposedly” died, and now they’re alive and keeping. I think the BIGGEST headline would be if a popular superhero died and he or she stayed dead. XD
Urgh! I meant “alive and KICKING”. I really should get some sleep after finishing all these deadlines. XP
I had already moved away from DC at this point, so I still don’t know how Superman died and came back, although from what I see here it apparently involved cocoons, multiple Supermen, and mullets. I don’t think I mind having missed it.
I was wondering if this death is what inspired the Crash Test Dummies to do their song, or if they’d already recorded it before this happened. Does anybody know? I really love that song, and the video. It was very moving. And Ellen’s harmonies send shivers down my spine.
The thing I liked best about all the media attention this got was David Letterman’s Top Ten Things Overheard At Superman’s Funeral. Number one– ‘Hey, has anybody seen Clark?’
I still pull out the Death of Superman trade and read it about once a year.
The DOS is what helped bring me, and most of my comic reading friends, into DC and Marvel. Before that, it was Super Mario Bros., TMNT Adventures, and my brother’s Lancelot Link comics. I am grateful for the DOS and it’s arcs, and wouldn’t trade them for anything.
And this might be completely biased but I haven’t seen anything as cool as Doomsday or the Cyborg as far as villians go in comics since.
In fact, a lot of what DC did after that helped KEEP me in comics—Breaking of the Bat, PAD’s Aquaman (I specifically remember reading Aquaman #1 in the back of my parent’s car thinking how COOL he was when he punked Aqualad for not calling him “sir”), and ushering in a new Green Lantern.
The biggest let down in comics for me, since then, wasn’t bringing back Supes (even as a newcomer to comics and being a kid, I knew it was all just a story to bring him back), or fixing Batman’s back, but bringing back Hal Jordan. As far as I was concerned, Kyle Rayner was/is MY generation’s Green Lantern, and he was something, an artist, I could relate to! Having Hal go bad during the Coast City and Zero Hour stuff was such a gutsy move, and so much fun for a newcomer to comics that I haven’t picked up a Green Lantern book since Hal’s been back. In fact, I’ll probably skip the movie because I feel Ryan Reynolds would make an awesome Kyle but I could care less about Hal Jordan.
My point? I don’t know, it’s late. I think it had something to do with the DOS being looked at in a negative light by many but for every bad thing it might have done, it also brought in a lot more long term readers, like myself, then it seems to be getting credit for.
On a somewhat related note, while all that stuff was going on in DC, I also tried to get into Marvel with the Phalanx Covenant stuff. I didn’t understand then, and I don’t really understand now, why it concluded in a random “Cable” issue, which I thought was very lame. It didn’t help that I couldn’t find that issue in all of Rochester. Really soured me on the X-Men, and crossovers in general.
Mary,
“had already moved away from DC at this point, so I still don’t know how Superman died and came back, although from what I see here it apparently involved cocoons, multiple Supermen, and mullets. I don’t think I mind having missed it.”
Actually, I think it was a pretty good story. The “Death of Superman” did a great job in showing just how powerful Doomsday was and – in addition to having some classic battle scenes – not only had Supes did deep to “win” but showed that he was the ONLY ONE who could defeat such an opponent. The panel where he dies and Lois cries is forever etched in my memory.
The “Funeral For A Friend” storyline did a real nice job of showing just how much Superman meant to the DC Universe – and Lex Luthor’s reaction to his nemesis being killed by someone else is both surprising and chilling.
“Reign of the Supermen” was a nice mystery and also showed that the powers don’t make the man. There was a half-android Superman, a grim-and-gritty Superman and a new Superboy. The one who seemed to have the most of Supes’ character was a “black Superman” who would eventually become known as Steel.
This is actually one of my favorite stories and I feel it’s been unfairly maligned. thing is, since so many copies of the issues in these storylines were printed, you could probably snag a who;e set for a very cheap price. If not, I would recommend getting the trades and being entertained for a good, long while.
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Just my two cents.
I’ll second the recommendation of the “Reign of the Supermen” storyline. The writers on each of the books (Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Roger Stern, and Louise Simonson) were all at the top of their game, and you also get some gorgeous art from the likes of Jurgens, Tom Grummett, and Butch Guice (wasn’t a big Bogdanove fan, but you can’t win ’em all).
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Plus, the mullet doesn’t come in till the very end of the story.
For me, the DoS marked the beginning of the end of my regular readership of comic books. I had been a reader for 10 years. Mostly Marvel stuff: Avengers, X-Men, Thor, etc. I had dabbled in collecting – and learned very well the lessons of supply and demand. If EVERYONE knew about a marketed event, your resale was awful.
Marvel had been leveraging X-Men to the hilt – I think there were four X-books by this time, and even more in the summers when they would go to two per month on some titles.
DC never grabbed me the way Marvel did, but I had done some reading of Superman and Batman. Of course, the build-up to the Death of Superman made it a “must-get” for everyone.
I was just a few months out of college and working part-time jobs while hunting for “real work”. At the time, I was working at a mall bookstore. We didn’t get the direct comics – we got them two weeks later. Still, every call we received was about this comic book. Word spread quickly that of the three major stores in the area, only one of them was selling it at “face price”. The other stores were jacking it up at double or triple the face price of the comic book to increase their profits – I heard much later that one of those stores went so far as to auction off their last copy of it to the highest bidder. Needless to say, I was telling everyone who worked at the store where to send people to get the best price.
When I read DoS, I was disappointed. The story was just bad. Doomsday – a killing machine with no personality – kills Superman on a rampage. That was it?! Yawn. And everyone knew it was temporary. It was a marketing coup for DC, but I had just about had enough.
Within 18 months of the DoS release, I had stopped buying comics. The constant crossovers and mega-storylines made it too expensive. The market was obviously bloated. Marvel almost went bankrupt. The two shops I referred to earlier that were getting the quick buck? They were out of business – the other survives to this day (a credit to the owners in my mind). That, and I had a career/marriage to think about. Every dollar counted then, and comics didn’t measure up. I think in the 18 years since that time, I’ve bought maybe a score of comic books – a far cry from the 10 per month I was getting back in high school and college. Priorities.
I’ve still got the collection – all bagged and boarded in a closet at my parent’s house. I suppose one day I need to take them out and see if I have anything worth much. Anyone know what a sealed DoS comic gets you these days?
The Death of Superman? A bore. Especially the last issue, where it was all splash pages.
Funeral for a Friend? Reign of the Supermen? Pure genius.
Publicity stunt or not, the end result was a revitalized Superman, the arrival of Kon-El and John Henry Irons, a year of really great comics, and some interesting follow-ups, such as Hal Jordan being replaced by Kyle Rainer. I don’t like super-hero death much, but when the the answer to “what’s next?” is as good as what DC gave us back then, I will not be unhappy for long.
To be fair, the last issue being all splash pages was a pretty cool idea. Each issue dropped a panel as Doomsday got closer and closer to his goal, making the comic go quicker and quicker. That’s a pretty cool concept.
I can’t be the only person who read that title and thought of the following joke:
“Why did Superman fall out of the sky?”
“Because he was dead!”