The Death of Superman
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"The Death of Superman" was a comic book storyline leading up to Superman #75 (January 1993) that served as the catalyst for the DC Comics crossover event of 1993, which had the umbrella title The Death and Return of Superman.
The storyline was a major media event. Its premise is as simple as its title: Superman engages in battle with a seemingly unstoppable killing machine named Doomsday in the streets of Metropolis. At the fight's conclusion, both combatants are killed.
The crossover depicted the world's reaction to Superman's death in "Funeral For a Friend," the emergence of four individuals claiming to be the "new" Superman, and the eventual return of the original Superman in "Reign of the Supermen!"
The storyline was devised by editor Mike Carlin and the 1991-1993 Superman writing team of Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway and Karl Kesel. The move was a response to underperforming sales, and met with enormous success. The Superman titles gained international exposure, reaching to the top of the comics sales charts and selling out overnight. The event made the front pages (though not the headline) of several newpapers outside the United States.
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[edit] Storyline
[edit] Doomsday!
On the last page of several comics prior to Superman: the Man of Steel #18, a gloved fist was shown battering a steel wall, accompanied by the caption: "Doomsday is coming!". In that issue, Superman fights the Underworlders while a hulking figure in a green suit rampages through a pastoral field. This marks the first of seven issues in the Death of Superman story proper - it would continue through all four of the Superman books at that time, and one issue of Justice League America, before culminating in Superman #75.
The Justice League (Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Maxima, Fire, Ice, and Bloodwynd) respond to a call from a smashed big-rig outside of Bucyrus, Ohio, and follow the trail of destruction which leads them to a confrontation with an unknown creature that destroys Blue Beetle's aircraft. The League attempts to stop the monster, but it systematically takes the team apart, finishing by punching Booster Gold into the stratosphere. Booster Gold is caught in mid-air by Superman, and declares "It's like Doomsday is here," thus providing the monster with a name.
The Man of Steel arrives on the scene, having cut a television interview short in Justice League America #69. He and the able-bodied League members follow the threat to the home of a single mother and her two children, where their battle with "Doomsday" destroys the house. The League attacks Doomsday with all their energy-projection powers, the only discernable effect being that much of his body covering is blasted or burned off. Doomsday again takes them out, causes the house to explode into flames, and then leaps away. Superman follows, having to ignore the son's cries for help if he is to stop Doomsday.
Superman throws Doomsday into the bottom of a lake, slowing him down long enough so that the Man of Steel can return and save the mother and her infant daughter. After Doomsday escapes from the salty lake bed, he and Superman tear up a city street, and then Maxima enters the fray. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are sent to cover the battle for television, while Lex Luthor II dissuades Supergirl from joining the fight. The fight continues at a gas station, where Maxima rips a light post from the ground; the sparks from the wiring meet the leaking gasoline and the station is destroyed in a huge explosion. Guardian arrives after Doomsday leaves, finding Superman and Maxima, and offers his aid.
Superman then follows Doomsday's trail of destruction, waiting for an opportunity to attack. With the monster's rampage drawing closer, Lex Jr. convinces Supergirl that she's needed in Metropolis while Superman is fighting elsewhere. While demolishing an appliance store, Doomsday sees a TV commercial for a wrestling show being held in Metropolis, and after seeing a road sign for Metropolis, heads in that direction. Superman engages him and throws him in the opposite direction, where he lands on the mountain housing Project Cadmus. They brawl throughout Habitat, bringing most of it down. When the superhero Guardian arrives, Doomsday knocks him down and leaps toward Metropolis.
Doomsday is driven below ground, where he ruptures gas and electrical mains, levelling Newtown, a large section of Metropolis. Supergirl goes to Superman's aid, but a single punch from Doomsday knocks her to the ground, her form destabilized. Professor Hamilton and Bibbo, Superman's allies fire a laser cannon at Doomsday, but it does not harm him. The local police open fire on Doomsday, but again, he is not harmed. Superman returns to the fight.
Superman and Doomsday lay into each other with everything they have. Superman figures out how to hurt Doomsday - the bony protrusions on his body are actually extensions of his skeleton. At the struggle's culminating moment, each fighter lands a massive blow upon his opponent (Superman striking two-fisted); the resulting shockwaves shatter the windows of the surrounding buildings. The two titans fall to the ground, having taken half of Metropolis down with them.
The event happened in Superman #75 (second series). The issue only contains 22 panels and every page was a splash page (A structure building on the previous issues - Adventures of Superman #497 was done entirely with four-panel pages, Action Comics #684 with three, and Superman: The Man of Steel #19 with two). The entire story was immediately collected into a trade paperback and titled The Death of Superman.
[edit] Funeral for a Friend
The funeral that followed featured many of Superman's fellow heroes and friends, including most of the Justice League of America, and a mausoleum was built in Metropolis in honor of the Man of Steel. During this time, every hero in the DC Universe sported a black arm band featuring the S-Shield logo. Some time later, Project Cadmus stole Superman's body from his mausoleum. It was hypothesized that they were attempting to clone him. The body was recovered by Lois Lane and Supergirl.
The stories after the funeral often dealt with the emotions felt by the general public as well as specific characters entwined within Superman's world, including Lois Lane, Clark Kent's parents, and even a number of supervillains. Also the (then) President of the United States Bill Clinton and wife Hillary Clinton were included in a scene during the funeral. With Superman gone, crime rises up again and the costumed heroes of Metropolis rise to fill in as protectors. Supergirl, Gangbuster, Thorn, and even Team Luthor, a Lexcorp sponsored team, all tried but were not sufficient. Meanwhile, Jonathan Kent took the death of his adoptive son the hardest and as a result suffered a heart attack. At this point, all Superman comic titles went on a three-month hiatus.
The story was also collected into trade paperback form. Rather than using the banner title Funeral for a Friend, the title used for the collection was World Without a Superman.
[edit] Reign of the Supermen!
Following hiatus on the Superman titles, they were all relaunched. Four new heroes emerged in Superman's place, one in each title, each claiming in some way to be Superman. In Adventures of Superman #500, we followed Jonathan Kent into the Afterlife. In a possible hallucination, he convinced Superman's soul to come back with him to the living. The only "evidence" that this was not a hallucination was the fact that shortly after Jonathan reawoke, 4 individuals arrived in Metropolis claiming to be Superman. This storyline was known as Reign of the Supermen!
Each of the Supermen was designed and ideas taken from some of the monikers that Superman is often associated with. The four new heroes were:
- The Man of Steel: John Henry Irons was an ironworker and ex-weapons designer for the military who wears a suit of armor and wields a hammer. He did not claim to actually be Superman, but rather to represent the spirit of Superman and continue his legacy. Steel appeared in Superman: The Man of Steel starting with #22.
- The Man of Tomorrow, also called the Cyborg Superman, arrived with augmented Kryptonian technology. He was scientifically proven to be Superman but claims amnesia in explanation to his part-mechanical nature. The Cyborg Superman appeared in Superman starting with #78.
- The Metropolis Kid, who hated being called Superboy, is a reckless teenage clone of Superman. This Superman appeared in the Adventures of Superman starting with #501. He is the result of the brief time Cadmus attempted to clone Superman.
- The visored Last Son of Krypton is an energy-powered alien who dealt with criminals lethally. The Last Son of Krypton appeared in Action Comics starting with #687. He claims to have memories as the original Superman’s but his emotional distance makes Lois uncertain.
The first issue for each of the new heroes featured a cardstock cover and a poster of the new hero.
The first half of the Reign of the Supermen! story focuses on each of the Supermen “resuming” his duty as protector of Metropolis and gain acceptance from the public. The reader is teased with clues that provide each Superman the validity to being the real one, or at least a piece of the original Superman’s soul being in him. Of the four, the cyborg Man of Tomorrow and the merciless Last Son of Krypton were easily bought in by the people as the possible real Superman, this is most likely to the fact that both of them are closest to the original in appearance. However, Lois could not approach any of them without risking the exposure of her fiancé’s secret.
In actuality, the Last Son of Krypton stole Superman's body and put it in a regeneration matrix in the Fortress of Solitude, drawing on his recovering energies to power himself, as bright light blinded him. It is revealed that the Last Son is the Eradicator, an ancient Kryptonian weapon, and the Cyborg is the deranged consciousness of Hank Henshaw, which used Superman's birthing matrix to create a physical duplicate of his body.
The regeneration matrix broke open, and the original Superman emerged, greatly depowered, but alive. Meanwhile, the Cyborg helped Mongul destroy Coast City, believing he killed the Last Son in the explosion, and captured Superboy, holding him in Engine City, a towering construct erected where Coast City once stood. Superboy escaped and flew back to Metropolis to get Man of Steel to help him fight the Cyborg. Before he could tell the whole story, however, a overbearing Kryptonian Battlesuit rose out of the harbor, and the two heroes attacked it. After suffering heavy damage, the suit opened, revealing a still-weak Superman, who had used it to walk all the way back from the Fortress of Solitude. Despite his weakened state, he quickly joined the other Supermen in attacking Coast City. During the battle, the Cyborg launched a devastating missile at Metropolis, with the intent of destroying it and putting a second Engine City in its place. Superboy managed to grab onto the missile as it launched, riding it all the way to Metropolis, which he narrowly saved from destruction.
Green Lantern Hal Jordan had returned from space to find his hometown destroyed. He immediately attacked Engine City and fought Mongul, shattering the Man of Steel's hammer across his face. Meanwhile, the Last Son/Eradicator joined the fight after recovering in the Fortress, and blocked the Cyborg from dousing Superman with lethal Kryptonite gas. The gas interacted with the Eradicator as it passed through and into Superman, returning his powers rather than killing him. The Eradicator's body degenerated into a lifeless husk, and the Cyborg looked for Superman's body in the debris and Kryptonite mist. Superman blindsided him with an attack using his super-strength, and he punched a hole right through the Cyborg. He destroyed his body, but his consciousness survived. Supergirl used the remnants of the black Kryptonian suit to re-create Superman's traditional costume, and the group returned to Metropolis.
Again, like the previous two storylines, the collected edition of Reign of the Supermen did not use its original title, DC Comics instead chose to use The Return of Superman.
[edit] Aftermath
[edit] Superman
Superman's inexplicable hair growth between his awakening in the Fortress to his arrival in Metropolis was never explained. His wedding was postponed to coincide with Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. At that point, he finally cut his hair.
[edit] The Surviving Supermen
Superboy (who turned out to be only a partial "clone" of Superman) and The Man of Steel (whose name became simply "Steel") went on to become recurring characters in the DC Universe, each eventually getting his own monthly title. Superboy was a member of Young Justice and the Teen Titans, before perishing in Infinite Crisis. Steel appeared in some episodes of the animated series, as well as his own film, and became a member of the Justice League. The Eradicator became leader of a new team of Outsiders. The Cyborg Superman became a recurring nemesis in the Superman titles.
[edit] Death in comics
Superman's death started a long line of death/resurrections in the DC Universe. Green Arrow, Hal Jordan, Metamorpho, Jason Todd, and others have all experienced comic book death and resurrections. This has been attributed physically and figuratively. The door between life and death has been kept open since Superman died. Kid Eternity said he would've closed it after going through because he "wasn't raised in a barn."
This was also examined in the Deadman miniseries, where Deadman visited the different heroes who had died before and since Superman.
[edit] Audience and media response
The Death and Life of Superman storyline brought in millions of readers to DC Comics, despite the entirety of the story being intertwined through numerous different comic series, including Action Comics, Superman, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Adventures of Superman, among others. The cover of Superman #75 (shown above) became a famous image: Superman's tattered cape wrapped around a pole, marking a makeshift grave.
Because of Superman's place as an American icon, his death became a multimedia event, covered by newspapers, television and radio. Certain prints of Superman (2nd series) #75 contained a black armband with the familiar "S" symbol adorning it. Many comics fans publicly wore the armband immediately following Superman's death, including, perhaps most famously, Jay Leno.[citation needed]
The death of Superman took place roughly months before the breaking of Batman's back in the "Knightfall" storyline. Some critics praised DC for boldly doing the unthinkable and innovatively drawing in more readers. However, many others were highly critical, citing the two concurrent storylines as publicity stunts, with knowledgable comic book readers knowing full well that DC would not permanently eliminate its most popular characters. Some years later, Chuck Rozanksi, owner of retailer Mile High Comics, would pen a controversial essay in the Comics Buyer's Guide which blamed the Death of Superman promotion for playing a significant role in the collapse of the comic book industry in the late 1990's.
[edit] Adaptations
Roger Stern adapted the death of Superman storyline into a novel, entitled The Death and Life of Superman, in the summer of 1993. It was released in hardcover form and then in paperback a year later. (Hardcover ISBN 0-553-09582-X, Paperback ISBN 0-553-56930-9) A young adult version book was written by Louise Simonson under the title Superman: Doomsday and Beyond and released at the same time as the hardcover of Death and Life.
A scrolling beat-em-up video game called The Death and Return of Superman was released by Sunsoft for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis game consoles.
Several attempts were made at making a movie version of The Death and Life of... storyline as Superman Reborn (aka Superman Lives). At one point, Tim Burton was slated as director, Kevin Smith had written a screenplay, and Nicolas Cage set to portray Superman. But with skyrocketing projected budgets, increased delays, and Christopher Reeve's tragic accident which paralyzed him for the remainder of his life, the film project was eventually abandoned.
The Bruce Timm animated series Justice League has an episode entitled "A Better World, Part One", in which the Justice League was tricked and captured by the Justice Lords, who took their place. At the same time, Doomsday arrives from outer space in a meteor. In one scene, both the Justice Lord Superman and Doomsday punched each other out at the same time, resulting a shockwave which destroyed several buildings. However, this did no damage to Doomsday and only nearly knocked out the alternate Superman. In the end, alternate Superman used his heat-vision to lobotomize him.
In the episode "Hereafter" (written by Dwayne McDuffie and directed by Butch Lukic), Superman is sent into the future by a device of Toyman's, only to wake up to a red-sunned Earth populated by giant bugs, mutant wolves, and Vandal Savage. This was, in all intents, an adaptation of the comic story "Under the Red Sun" (one of Timm's favorites). However, since Toyman's device looks like it disintegrates Superman into nothingness, the first half of the two-part episode deals with Superman's funeral, and it takes some direct elements from the Death of Superman storyline - the memorial statue, Batman watching Superman's coffin being pallborne from the rooftops, and so forth. It is not quite determinable whether this adaptation, loose though it may be, is intended seriously or in parody, as the episode balances moments of sincere emotion (Wonder Woman's almost-murder of Toyman, Batman's words to the memorial on his own) with moments that seem either deliberately exaggerated or blatantly irreverent (Lois' over-the-top outburst at Luthor, Kalibak's mockery of the old line "This looks like a job for Superman", and the inclusion of Lobo in the story).
At Comic-Con '06 Bruce Timm denied that he will be coming back into the DCAU but near the end, after the lights went out, he unveiled that he will do the Death of Superman story as a direct-to-DVD.
[edit] Awards
The trade paperback The Death of Superman received the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Novel or Album for 1992 The storyline of The Reign of the Supermen won the Comics Buyer's Guide Award Favorite Comic Book Story for 1992.
[edit] Trivia
- The graphic novel of The Death of Superman is the best-selling graphic novel of all time.[citation needed]
- A September 1993 storyline in the comic strip FoxTrot had Jason drawing comic strips at Paige's expense, including one where she is shown to be responsible for Superman's death ("He saw me in a bathing suit"). A week later, Paige gets back at Jason by drawing the same cartoons with him as the butt of the jokes, including what killed Superman ("I told him we were related").
- In Shortpacked! strip made shortly after John Paul II's death, Mike sarcastically claims the Pope resurrected like Superman; Supermen parodies included [1].
- Following Superman's death, MAD Magazine published a satirical poem claiming that Superman had been spiraling into depression when Doomsday struck.
- In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic mini-series, there was a top ten list of reasons to buy the comic, the #1 reason being that Sonic wasn't going to be killed off anytime soon. This was accompanied by a picture of Sally and Sonic acting out the final panel artwork of Superman #75.
- Saturday Night Live did a parody skit of the funeral of Superman.
[edit] External links
- "Death of Superman" Promotion of 1992
- Review and summary of every issue in sequence for the "Death of Superman" storyline (by Neal Bailey)
| Superman | |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster |
| Characters: | Superman (Clark Kent) • Lois Lane • Jimmy Olsen • Perry White • Jor-El • Ma Kent • Pa Kent • Lana Lang • Steel • Supergirl • Superboy (Kon-El) • Krypto |
| Villains: | Lex Luthor • Bizarro • Brainiac • Cyborg Superman • Darkseid • Doomsday • Eradicator • General Zod • Metallo • Mongul • Mr. Mxyzptlk • Parasite • Toyman • Ultra-Humanite • Intergang • Phantom Zone villains |
| Locations: |
Daily Planet • Fortress of Solitude • Krypton • Metropolis • Smallville |
| Storylines: | Relationship of Clark Kent and Lois Lane • Alternate versions of Superman • Publications • Superman in popular culture |
| Miscellanea: | Kryptonite • Powers • Symbol |
