The Death of Superman

Epic Comic Book Wednesday
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[@OnlyTheBestFantasyNovels]

"This big bastard is too heavy to lift" is the best description for the best kind of book out there, lol. That's a spectacular edition, I didn't even know it was a thing!

[@tonette6592]

LOVED that!

[@MagusMarquillin]

Is it practically worth it though if you can't hold it? Unless one was to read Superman from a church lectern, which I'd be down for.

[@MylesNewman-cc1tx]

Hypothetical: if Superman had been self-aware and able to participate in plotting sessions, would he have agreed to die?

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@MylesNewman-cc1tx I suspect not.

[@dethbyhashi]

I think Superman would take one for the team if he saw it as a way to possibly win.

[@TheJohno95]

That damned comic did more damage to the comic industry than probably any other single event. It was a slow news week, so the tv news and newspapers really went all-ine with the whole Death of Superman thing. And of course, it got the rubes thinking that it was going to be the end of Superman so everyone wanted to run out and buy a copy because it was such a tragic event. Now, short-term, this created some of the biggest sales in comics history. I remember people paying way too damned much for each part of the story, but especially the death issue. People were paying their eye teeth to get it...Even though you could get it a couple of weeks later in the drugstores and news stands. But...FOMO. And the crazy prices started making people on the street think that comics were the new stock market. Like you said, every comic company started killing, replacing, or crippling their characters for sales. And people would run from one to the other trying to flip them for cash or hold them back for college money a couple of years later. What they found was of course that Superman came back. And the big death just ended up being a decent comic, but not worth all that much. I mean, it's got SOME value to it still. But not like at the time. And all those people trying to unload their comics and finding they were worth less than they paid for them created a gigantic collapse in the industry. The bubble popped, FOMO sales stopped, and comic companies discovered what they should have known...People were buying multiples to try to resell them. So...Those huge investments hurt folks in the short AND long term. Trying to sell those 90's books at a store now make comic store owners laugh. The nicest I've ever heard one tell one of those people that comics in with a bunch of random crap from the 90's was that their best bet was to use them for kindling, because they burn pretty easy and they're cheaper than wood. I will say, as a reader, the Superman book got really good when the return started. I bought Superman pretty faithfully for a year or two, until they returned to the status quo and I dropped the books.

[@RushedAnimation]

The omnibus doesn't have everything. It's still missing the Team Luthor one-shot

[@russworks2882]

It was a tragedy all right. The earlier "Death of Superman" from the 60's is kind of fascinating, because even though it was one of those "Imaginary" tales, it packed a deeper psychological punch in context. The writer was Jerry Siegel, Superman's badly-treated creator, which adds a layer of bizarre catharsis to the epic, drawn-out agonizing of it, and incorporates imagery of the contemporary trial of war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Then there's pulp writer Edmond Hamilton's "Last Days of Superman" , a "real" story from about a year later, in which Superman (and the entire world) believes he is slowly dying, and it takes on a monumental elegiac tone, where the pantheon of heroes pay tribute and Superman, getting progressively weaker, nevertheless spends his last days in tasks designed to leave behind a better world. The way the writer and editor got out of Superman's problem was particularly contrived, but it's still an amazing story for the era.

[@ellesse3862]

I really liked the designs for the four characters that appeared after the "Death of..", my favourite part of the whole storyline was following those characters too. That omnibus, DC has a thing for making them too big for ordinary mortals with weedy bookworm physiques.

[@pgofsf]

What about the Ted Kord Blue Beetle? Doomsday put him in a coma and no one seems to care. 😢

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@pgofsf poor Ted! I always liked him.

[@user-om3oc8xi2s]

Thank you Michael as always! It’s wonderful to see you back in Action! It felt like Doomsday while you were gone those days in June, but I should have known that you can’t keep a Man of Steel like yourself down for long!!!

[@bigaldoesbooktube1097]

This was so big at the time. It literally made the news, even in the uk. I remember the super mullet being less egregious back in the 90’s 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@glockensig]

I still have the issue in the bag.... I remember when they were selling for $100 shortly after release..... As for the mullet.....it was the 90's....of course no one noticed!

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@glockensig 😅

[@bartmcfartmaster5084]

What killed comics was the spectator's market and neverending variant covers among other things but it was crashing long before d.o.s.comic

[@kdj3000]

I agree with you 100% on this. World Without a Superman is my favorite part of the whole saga. I can read it and still be moved to this day.

[@brianjkinney]

I have an older edition of that omnibus. I really like the cover on your edition though. I also think your edition has the fold out page, which mine doesn’t. I didn’t read everything back in the day but I liked what I did read back then. I also had the Super Nintendo game based on the event. That omnibus was the first omnibus I bought because I wanted to finally read the full run. I had a lot of fun revisiting the stories. Might be time for a reread.

[@JohnAllenRoyce]

Well told and interesting, I never knew about this epic series. Thanks Michael!

[@charliedogg7683]

All the people who rushed out and bought multiple copies of the black-bagged comic because of course it would skyrocket in value were the same people who had learned nothing from their boxes of X-Men #1 in 1991 because of course it would skyrocket in value. At least the Superman issues, being polybagged, should resist insect and rat predation for longer. I think you are spot-on in your analysis of this story, Michael, DC's main game was definitely to explore a Superman-less world. Regarding the hair, I remember thinking at the time that this was someone's attempt at DC to suggest a renewed Superman, but someone who had no interest in hairstyles, particularly his own.

[@Tim_with_Tomes_and_Tales]

They did have a Superman comic every week, I remember. There was Action, Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Man of Steel. It was a major event, and I enjoyed the new Superboy when written right.

[@glockensig]

According to Chuck Dixon, they wanted to do the same with Batman, but the different books artists' styles were too varied .....and moods of the books were historically too different for that to work!

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@Tim_with_Tomes_and_Tales yeah, I forget when they started doing the Man of Steel comic. Love that era of Superman.

[@Tim_with_Tomes_and_Tales]

@michaelk.vaughan8617 they kept it going for quite some time. I hope you get around to reviewing Our Worlds at War or Superman Godfall soon. I actually did a review for Godfall myself and would like to hear your thoughts on it.

[@stevezeidman7224]

Super mullet hair was a tragedy! 😂 Very good, Michael.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

I love this series. I am also a big fan of the novelization by Michael Stern. I need to read it again. It have been 20+ years since I read it. That Omnibus of the comic run is beautiful. I need to get a copy for my collection. You are right though. It did give the industry an excuse to kill anyone off and just bring them back. Great video!

[@mediumjohnsilver]

I followed the saga every week at the time, and liked it. It always bothered me, though, that the Superman of the 1960s or 1970s would know how to handle Doomsday, a creature that could not fly and showed no sign of super speed. Wrap the sucker up quickly in steel cables, and before he can snap them, haul him out to Jupiter and drop him in. A fistfight is counterproductive. It also bugged me that the Daily Planet showed no sign of investigating Doomsday’s origin.

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@mediumjohnsilver you are right! Bronze Age Superman would have had Doomsday handled in one issue.

[@lukethomas216]

Don’t know about the US but here in the UK, the mullet is fully back in fashion. This truly is the End of Days….

[@إسماعيلسعيد-خ8ذ]

An Excellent Choice. This episode is important.DC COMICS frequently wanted to kill the Man of Steel. An earlier Attempt was in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW , as well as WORLD FINEST COMICS #178 THE HAS-BEEN SUPERMAN in 1968. Uncalled for aesthetically but a pressing need to get rid of copyright issues with Jerry and Joe . More of this later perhaps.

[@IsmaelSaeed-ox9ls]

Whatever happened to the man of Tomorrow. Right?

[@nunyabizness6595]

The great Harlan Ellison did a video where he said he hated this and said it was just a gimmick. So true.😂😂😂😮

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@nunyabizness6595 I just watched it, thanks to you, and it’s great. I miss Harlan.

[@gavinmcintosh5716]

I remember reading the novel version and liking it.😊

[@ComicSwag]

I read a few of this issues I remember a lot of action but not a lot of story . I have to read the complete story sometime

[@stretmediq]

Still waiting for Ferro Lad to come back

[@tonette6592]

Another winner. Michael. I guess I could say that every time.

[@freelivefree7221]

I am pretty sure I read this as a kid though I wasn't much of a Superman fan as a kid. That's not true anymore. I have been watching Superman: The Animated Series and My Adventures with Superman. My opinion is that Animated series is more consistent with better plots but Supes gets more characterization in Adventures. The later also changed the ethnicity of many characters because...I don't really mind this, but it at times seems to be just mucking around with characters. Superman already had a fairly diverse cast. It would have been a better choice to make some of the minority characters more prominent like say Steel.

[@w.adammandelbaum1805]

Original death of Superman was the New Testament. Sold many editions.

[@GrammaticusBooks]

I'm not a DC guy but this was a great recap video of Death of Superman! I really enjoyed this!

[@DDB168]

Looks like they were trying to cash in on the Billy Ray Cyrus phenomenon. 🤭 Shame it started the kill off the superhero gimmick. War comics (which are way cooler) don't do that.

[@nunyabidness4220]

That's been Alan Moore's entire career -- killing off other peoples characters and getting famous from doing it. The second any comic book company gave Alan Moore a book to work on, the first thing he'd say was, "I'm going to kill them!" That's where Watchmen came from -- DC bought all the old Charlton superheroes and wanted Moore to do something with them. He said, "I'll kill them all!" but they'd paid too much for them to let him do that, so he had to do something he's never been comfortable with -- coming up with his own characters (heavily patterned after Charlton's) and then killing THEM off. I hate Alan Moore...

[@michaelk.vaughan8617]

@@nunyabidness4220 and he hates you….and all the rest of us.

[@nunyabidness4220]

@@michaelk.vaughan8617 True dat! :)