How DC Comics colluded with the media to sell millions of copies of the Death of Superman in 1993

In the early 90s DC Comics was getting their butts handed to them in terms of sales by their crosstown rival, Marvel Comics. Despite flourishing public interest in comics, almost all of the attention seemed to be garnered by Spider-Man, the X-Men, and something called the Avengers. DC meanwhile, despite some success with the Dark Knight, and Tim Burton’s Batman movies, still came off as old fashioned and childish to the teenage readers and aging fans of the silver age. So, in order to garner some attention, Mike Carlin, the editor of the Superman comics, came up with the idea of killing off Superman….permanently….or at least that’s what we were led to believe. Somehow the story got conveniently leaked, either accidentally, or deliberately, and Superman became headline news throughout the United States.
Sales for the comic were extraordinary, attracting not just die hard fans, but even numerous casuals and outsiders, who erroneously believed that perhaps, one day, the special sealed Black Death bag containing the lurid comic would be worth serious money. Well, its 30 years later, and the comic is basically as worthless as ever. What happened? And is there is lesson to be learned here?
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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:50 - overview of various times Superman died in comics
3:21 - the Death of Superman was widely covered in the media from 1992 to 1993
5:42 - the Death of Superman was bogus from day one
6:20 - the public reaction to the Death of Superman was overwhelming….why?
8:11 - someone please buy my chicken nuggies
10:54 - comic collection economics 101
13:36 - to what degree did the media and DC collude with each other?
15:12 - conclusion: we ought to think critically about stuff the media sells us

[@mrbransformer4184]

I’ve always kinda liked the Phantom Stranger. Him and the Spectre and the Question always had weird cool stories. The Dan Didio run was pretty good.

[@creativecatproductions]

I have to admit that we never knew anything about the Phantom Stranger until making this video. I was never much of a DC guy, but I acknowledge that the concept of such a character is really cool! Thanks for watching dude! 😎

[@DragonmasterDan]

I worked at a comic store in the mid 90s, while a bit after the death of superman occurred. The various distributors Capital City and Diamond distribution being the two most common had catalogs that stores used to pre-order their product. Usually you had some level of preview and a synopsis of any issue of any comic in those catalogs which were available months before the issues were shipped. For events like that often times comics would be listed with "Part 3 of the age of apocalypse storyline" or whatever the "event" was in popular series. I'm pretty certain the "Death of Superman" scenario was widely known to the public months before Superman #75 shipped. Much like Azrael being the "New Batman" for Batman 500 was widely reported months beforehand. There's a lot of misconceptions about the comic crash, but I just wanted to clarify that the "leak" would have been public knowledge months before the issue hit shelves.

[@creativecatproductions]

Thank you very much for watching and for the thoughtful comment! 😎 I was pretty young around this time, but I was also an avid comic fan. I couldn’t believe the hype surrounding this series. I ended up collecting all 7 issues even though I was almost exclusively a marvel fan. Like so many 90s kids. One thing that shocked me, however, was how dull the actual series turned out to be, and how incredibly fast they brought superman back with all those pretender issues about steel and the wacky new teenage superman. I was back to spiderman and x-men after that….until spiderman got cloned and separated from Mary Jane! 😝

[@DragonmasterDan]

@@creativecatproductions A fun story about the "Clone Saga" there was a "Mighty Marvel Fan line" where you could call some number with a New York area code and hear about upcoming Marvel news as read by a sometimes irritated Stan Lee. I found out about the clone saga six or so months before it happened from listening to that line and bought 8 or so copies of Amazing Spider-man #149 (a 20+ year old back issue at that point where the clone was first introduced), and unloaded 6 or so of them for 20 times what I paid for them less than a year later

[@creativecatproductions]

The comics trade was nuts in the 90s!

[@BigGainer98]

What a high quality video. This types of videos are a drug to me.

[@creativecatproductions]

Thanks for watching dude! 😎

[@ModelJames13]

Kinda like chicken nuggies and warm mayo?

[@randallscott4581]

I think the recent two part animated film is the best version because he tells Lois his secret.

[@creativecatproductions]

The DC animated films are pretty great! I really enjoyed Superman Red Son (I think thats what its called) where its an alternate reality that has Superman arrive in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. It’s an awesome concept. Thanks for watching dude 😎

[@KoopaMedia64]

I kept anticipating this would somehow include mention of the Death and Return of Superman video game, whichbyonestly sounds like a mockery of the whole thing. Also, Brad from Toys R Us is back!!

[@creativecatproductions]

Brad had sort of become our favorite character! 😆 Thanks for watching dude 😎

[@bryantenorio368]

@@creativecatproductions I'm already loving Javier Hope to see more of him

[@creativecatproductions]

My daughter did all the animation portion and I was a little worried about how Javier would turn out. I gave her little direction…..but that dude did turn out really funny.

[@starsoldier1]

Gotta love marketing hype, I'll take the wimpy old grey World Championship 1990 cart over the million dollar selling Super Mario Bros. any day. Sadly we also got another lackluster Superman beat em up out of the deal too.

[@creativecatproductions]

Yeah that superman beat em up was pretty weak. Especially when you compare it to Batman returns which was actually pretty great. Thanks for watching champ! 😎

[@bryantenorio368]

Hot homemade (light brown) mayonnaise.... I think I found my kryptonite. That's a good point about the hype around the issue making it freely available, and thus not even valuable. Makes me wonder if it is really just a fluke to have a well preserved highly in demand nostalgic item. Like if someone had an unopened Super Mario 64 game. That already is super valuable, and a piece of gaming history. Will unopened copies of Red Dead Redemption 2 for XBOXONE be worth a lot of money in 50 years?

[@creativecatproductions]

Yeah that mayonnaise was gross! I recorded the audio and had my daughter just draw everything however she saw fit. I had a few notes, like I wanted Javier to have a cowboy hat, and I wanted me to be standing someplace outside, like a park, but she basically came up with all of this stuff. I only wish she added a sploosh sound effect for the mayo! Even grosser. 😝 Yeah, I think ending up with a truly valuable collectable really IS a fluke, because the only way to achieve that would be to own a thing that’s either not popular, or difficult to preserve (like an 90 year old cheap paper comic book), and then somehow retaining it until that day it becomes popular? It’s almost a totally self-contradictory proposition, because why would a thing become popular decades later? It’s possible! But, my word, other than first prints of ancient comic books, or baseball cards, I can’t think of many examples of this phenomenon. I think unopened copies of Red Dead will be worth like $15.00…..but probably sell for $50. Thanks Biden. 😂 Thanks for watching dude! 😎

[@creativecatproductions]

Is a shrink wrapped Mario 64 really worth anything? Dang! I should never have opened that. 😢

[@x7heDeviLx]

Pertaining to the rareity of issue 1. The paper drives of World War 2 are a big reason for the scarcity of the old comic books. So yet another random reason issue 1 is worth bank. So just stick to collecting princess Di beanie babies and such

[@creativecatproductions]

I’ve never collected beanie babies but I did have a wicked Spider-Man comic book collection back in the day. I was really into it, but eventually I had to move on. I bet my stash was worth dozens of dollars. 😝 Thanks for watching dude! 😎

[@Mittens_Explains_It_All]

Great vid ……………dad.

[@creativecatproductions]

Thanks……dudes! 😝

[@creativecatproductions]

Great work guys

[@ModelJames13]

Superman........... we still miss you. 😥

[@creativecatproductions]

It was such a surreal thing for DC to do! 😂

[@ModelJames13]

@@creativecatproductions And then Batman's back got broken. Rough year.

[@creativecatproductions]

@@ModelJames13 I remember that!

[@superitgel1]

that nuggies bit is too annoying.

[@creativecatproductions]

Thank you for your honesty and thanks for watching! 😎

[@michaelhughes432]

I agree. It is annoying!

[@creativecatproductions]

In hindsight I think we definitely over did it! 😝 But we’re learning. Thanks for watching dude 😎