The 1992 media blitzkrieg revolving around the “Death of Superman” series makes it the only Man of Steel “death” story absolutely everyone knows. In fact, “death” stories have gone on for years, starting in 1961 all the way through 2009, and they all have one thing in common.
They made buckets of money.
“It goes with the territory,” said Michael Brenden, who works at Heroes, a Campbell, California comic book shop. “As much as we'd like [comic books] to be an art form, they're here to make money.”
1992 – The Death of Superman
“'The Death of Superman' story in the early 1990s was undoubtedly the biggest, most influential 'death' story for the Man of Steel,” said Steve Younis, editor-in-chief of the Superman Homepage. “It was what got me into collecting comics.”
The news that DC was about to finish off its longest-running character made front-page news. Roger Stern, who co-wrote Superman during that era, said the coverage was a result of a slow news day, according to superman.nu.
“The media storm that followed was greater than anything we could have hoped for,” Stern said, according to superman.nu, “but it was all thanks to the story's power.”
The villain to do the deed, a hulking beast from space called “Doomsday” for his destructive tendencies and invincibility, was brand new to the Superman world.
Younis said Doomsday was crucial to the story — because Superman is not violent by nature, “It's only something he resorts to when everything else fails.”
“Doomsday wasn't a villain that could be reasoned with or talked down,” he said, “Doomsday was just a destructive killing machine that only brute force could stop. Because the story (and the idea) called for Superman to confront an opponent who couldn't be reasoned with, Lex Luthor (or another of his established rogues gallery) wouldn't have worked.”
If the TV series “Lois and Clark” hadn't been in the works at the time, 1992 would have held a much more positive fate for Superman.
“The creative team's plan to marry Lois and Clark (was) pushed back because the powers that be wanted the event to coincide with the marriage on the TV series, 'Lois & Clark,'” Younis said. “So instead, the creators had to come up with another story arc.”
Writer Jerry Ordway jokingly suggested that if they couldn't get Superman married, they ought to just kill him, Younis said.
"To this day, I still encounter people who believe that the 'Death and Return of Superman' was a marketing-driven publicity stunt,” said Roger Stern, according to superman.nu. “But, quite to the contrary, these stories — and the attention they received — all just sort of snowballed.”
1961 – The Death of Superman!
Superman #149
The most obscure death of Superman was also the first. In 1961, penned by Jerry Siegel himself.
During the notoriously silly silver-age, Superman might, say, use red kryptonite to change his head into that of an ant in order to communicate with and march away troops of invading mutant ants.
If silly, “The Death of Superman!” is quite depressing.
It traumatized writer Geoffrey Johnson as a kid, when he saw the freshly published comic book in his local barber shop.
“I sat, stunned, staring at that cover until my barber summoned me to the high red chair,” wrote Geoffrey Johnson in a 1992 article in the Chicago Reader. “It was 1961, I was eight years old, and a door had just closed on the Age of Innocence.”
Apparently terrified of ramifications made possible by killing their lead character, disclaimers begin and end each episode of the three-part saga, emphasizing that this story does not affect the “real” stories.
“An exciting three part IMAGINARY novel (which may actually never happen, but then again, MAY!) full of astounding surprises!"
In prison, Lex Luthor uses “Element Z” to build an elixer to cure cancer, earning a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Lex's new pal Superman protects him from gangland, which is displeased with Lex's sudden good-guy leanings, in the most logical way possible — he builds Lex an outer-space lab, so he can keep researching to benefit mankind.
Trouble: Element Z may apparently also be used to construct kryptonite.
Luring Superman to his outer-space lab, Lex shoots him with a kryptonite ray, forcing the staff of the Daily Planet to watch through plate glass as their beloved hero dies a writhing death.
“Ha ha! Oh, how simple it was to outwit you!” cackles Luthor as he straps Superman to a table to be further poisoned by kryptonite.
Simple indeed — all he had to do was cure cancer, gain Superman's trust, pretend to have turned on gangland, have Superman build him an outer-space laboratory, build a kryptonite ray, lure Superman there, strap him to a table and shoot him.
“You can have him back — Now that he's dead! Ha-ha!” Lex cackles as he kicks the Planet and Superman's corpse out of the spaceship he lands on earth.
The funeral is well-attended. Batman shows up, in full costume.
The saga ends with a final disclaimer, "Well, let's not feel TOO badly! after all, this was only an IMAGINARY story ... and the chances are a million to one it will NEVER happen!"
“It did not help that this particular Superman tale was only 'imaginary,'” Johnson wrote. “Of course Big Blue was back in action a month later (in what I suppose might be called one of his unimaginary tales), but I never returned to his adventures with the same enthusiasm. He got along fine without me.”
1999 – The Kingdom
There are grudges and then there are grudges. If Gog has a grudge against you, it's easier and less painful to just lay down and die.
"My name is Gog,” he spat at Superman, “and I am truth. My staff contains the fire of a dozen red suns. Together, they burn almost as brightly as my loathing for you.”
Then, he killed Superman, which was enough for Doomsday, but not for Gog.
“Gog killed a whole slew of Superman throughout time,” Younis said. “Meaning, he went back in time, a day at a time, killing Superman each day.”
This went on for years. As “The Kingdom” opens, freshly murdered Superman is ushered into a waiting room of dead Supermen in some kind of purgatory.
Gog kills Superman in a variety of ways. Once, he impales Superman with a piece of Kryptonian shrapnel. Another time, a specially engineered bomb sends Superman hurdling into space, to die a thousand-year, agonizing death as his cells slowly turn to “living Kryptonite.”
Concerns about continuity arise amidst the mind-splitting, parallel-dimension stuff DC is so fond of.
Fanzing quoted author Mark Waid: “The entire rationale behind Hypertime was simply to once more throw open the doors at DC, to remind readers that continuity should follow stories, not vice-versa, and that the DCU should be a place where ANYTHING can happen.”
Originally William, Gog was the sole survivor of a big nuclear disaster that killed everyone else and leveled Kansas. William became a minister and decided Superman was the new Jesus.
When Superman stopped by to let Gog know that he wasn't a deity, and in fact, Kansas got out of hand because he'd turned his back on the human world, Will decided Superman must instead be Satan.
Gog's plan was to kill every Superman in time and make the nuclear Kansas incident happen twenty years early, in 1998, and show the world that it was all Superman, the anti-Christ's, fault.
You might call Gog a religious fanatic.
By the saga's end, Superman is alive. Before it wraps up, he's been killed 1,000 times in different planes of existence.
“The Kingdom” was a companion to 1996's “Kingdom Come.” Critics of “The Kingdom” preferred “Kingdom Come's” artistic and written style.
Few thought it was a complete loss. Tony Chester summed it up in his review: “If you were upset when continuity considerations forced DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, followed by the endless re-writings of superheroes’ origins, the implications of this book’s finale should bring a smile to your face.”
2008 - All-Star Superman
“... I felt compelled to make something for the ages – a big definitive statement about superheroes and life and all that, not only drawn by my favorite artist but starring the first and greatest superhero of them all.” - Grant Morrison, writer; Newsarama
The Man of Steel's long, slow death, in the “All-Star Superman” series contrasts the violence of other deaths.
Lex Luthor is at it again, having orchestrated an elaborate plot to get Superman so close to the sun that yellow sun rays overload his cells. Most simply, Superman is dying of radiation.
Determined to get everything done before his death, his efforts unleash a parade of classic icons of Superman mythology, including the bottled city of Kandor, Bizarro, the Daily Planet — all the well-known, iconic elements of Superman get respectful lip service in Grant Morrison's tale.
Perhaps the human characteristics forced upon Superman make the story relatable.
Blogger Scott William Foley, admitting that he usually gives Superman a pass, wrote, “Morrison addresses all those psychological aspects that make Superman super, none of which have anything to do with the ability to leap a tall building in a single bound.”
Unlike the thrashing, gory deaths of other Super-death tales, Superman transforms into pure energy and ceases to exist in the name of helping humanity.
Of all the deaths of Superman, said Brenden, “All-Star Superman” is “the only one that I felt really had an impact,” adding that it's the “most well-written Superman story ever.”
Superman vs. America
For better or worse, Superman is lumped in with Mickey Mouse and hot dogs as things all Americans who happen to be alive know about. When writers get around to penning tales of his death, there's an impact — and not always the hankee-clenching variety.
Vicki Quade sums up the basic sentiment in a 1992 article in the Chicago reader, describing a scene outside a comic book shop during the release of the Doomsday “Death of Superman” comics:
"'Superman is dead. Long live Superman,' shouts a 30-ish guy, fist clenched, arm waving wildly in the cold night air.
A kid of about ten calls back, 'I'm glad he's dead. He's boring!'
A pack of fans hisses at the kid."
Naturally, if Superman died every year, the “Super” part of his moniker might be suspect. Steve Younis said the passage of time between deaths isn't so important as the quality of the story.
“(Nearly 20) years on, characters dying in comic books is not the big shock it once was,” said Younis. “We know characters can always come back somehow. Death in comic books is rarely permanent, so to do a 'death of' story it really needs to have a great hook and an even better reason to even attempt it.”
Sources:
- Interview with SupermanHomepage editor-in-chief Steve Younis
- Interview with Michael Brenden, from Campbell CA's Heroes store
- Siegel, Jerry. 1961. The Death of Superman!
- Jurgens, Dan; Ordway, Jerry; Simonson, Louise; Stern, Roger. 1992. The Death of Superman
- Waid, Mark. 1999. The Kingdom
- Superman.nu. 2007. The Death and Return of Superman
- Johnson, Geoffrey. 1992. Love, Death, Superman. The Chicago Reader
- Quade, Vicki. 1992. So Long, Superman. The Chicago Reader
- Fanzing.com. 1999. Interview with Mark Waid!
- Smith, Zach. 2008. All-Star Memories: Grant Morrison on All-Star Superman. Newsarama.com
- Chester, Tony. 1999. Review: The Kingdom. Concatenation.com
- Foley, Scott William. 2008. All-Star Superman: Review
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