As I have said many times, the golden age of Superman comics – for me at least – was the late 80s and early 90s, the period we now wax nostalgically for as the “Triangle Era.” I could honestly have just spent this year reading John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries (that’s still coming – at some point I’m going to do an “origins” week) and then continuing on until the triangles ended ‘round about 2000 or so. But instead, I made a list of some of the most important stories and high points of the time and, those that don’t necessarily fit into another theme I have planned, I’m trying to hit in roughly chronological order. And as of now, I’m only planning to read two of the longer storylines from the era (although I reserve the right to add more later if I feel I’ve got the room), and having moved forward appropriately in the timeline, it’s time to get into one of the defining storylines of the character. 

It’s October of 1992. I’m a 10th grade student with a subscription to the four Superman comics, eagerly awaiting their arrival each week and getting pretty darn mad when the US Postal service delivers them out of order (which happened, I must tell you, more than once). And even though I knew it was coming, even though it had been bandied about on TV and in newspapers for weeks prior to the beginning of the story, I didn’t know if I was really prepared for the story that — at the time – was called “Doomsday,” but that these days we typically refer to as “The Death of Superman.”

Wed., Feb. 26

Comics: Superman: The Man of Steel #18, Justice League America #69, Superman Vol. 2 #74, Adventures of Superman #497, Action Comics #684, Superman: The Man of Steel #19, Superman Vol. 2 #75

Notes: After a month of one-page prologues, the creature who would be known as Doomsday burst free from his subterranean prison in Man of Steel #18, and spends this issue stomping through the countryside, ripping up landscape and crushing animals before finding civilization. But the surprising thing, if you’re reading this for the first time, may be that Doomsday is the B-plot of this first issue. Most of the pages are used to deal with a running story from this particular series regarding a community of monsters in Metropolis’s underground. In the 90s, although the four separate Superman comics of the era continued into one another each week, each series tended to have its own subplots and stories to focus on, including the Underworlders. This issue also features Keith, an orphan who has befriended Superman and hopes to find his lost mother, and who would eventually be adopted by Perry and Alice White. 

I really love the Keith sequences in particular. The creative team on this book of Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove had previously done a wonderful run together on Marvel’s Power Pack, a comic book about a group of brothers and sisters who are all given powers by a benevolent alien. It was one of Marvel’s best comics of the era, and whenever Simonson writes children she brings a really authentic feel to them. Her children are inexperienced and naive at times, but never stupid or foolish. There is an inherent realism to her kids that I absolutely love. Keith was out of focus in the comics for a very long time, and with all the reboots that have happened over the years I wasn’t even sure he still existed in the DCU until recently, when Perry White was running for mayor and Keith showed up at an event with him. I hope, now that Perry is the mayor of Metropolis, we see a little more of Keith White.

Next up was what essentially was the end of Superman’s tenure with the Justice League, which had begun only nine issues before. The JLA is called in to stop Doomsday’s rampage, but Superman is on live TV doing an interview on the Cat Grant show and unaware of their battle, leaving his teammates to face the beast without their most powerful member. As Superman talks to a group of high school students, the League – if we’re being candid – gets their asses handed to them. Guy Gardner is hurt, Bloodwynd is chucked into a fire, and Blue Beetle is rendered comatose just as he was about to crack the mystery of who Bloodwynd really is. (If you remember a few weeks ago from the Justice League issues I read, that was Beetle’s primary preoccupation in this period, and if I may toot my own horn a mite, I remember solving that mystery myself when I read this issue, using the same clue that made it click for Blue Beetle. It wasn’t confirmed in the comics for several months, though.) The fight is intense, and rolls right into the next issue of Superman, #74. 

In fact, this was a running theme through the rest of this storyline. Each issue from this point on flowed seamlessly into the next and, starting with Adventures of Superman #497, each issue began to reduce the number of panels per page. Every page in that issue had four panels, the next three, then two, and in the final chapter the entire issue is told in full-page splash panels. What this does, essentially, is give the story a sense of ACCELERATION. Fewer panels means the story goes more quickly, each issue faster than the last, until we get to the final showdown on the streets of Metropolis in Superman #75. 

Superman #74: Superman joins the League to take on Doomsday. In the battle, Booster’s power suit is destroyed, Fire burns out her powers, Guy Gardner’s face is swollen so badly he can’t see, and Ice and Bloodwynd are taken down. The only one to escape unscathed is Maxima, and only because she leaves early to bring the near-death Blue Beetle to a hospital. 

Adventures of Superman #497: When Superman has to go back to rescue a family and his teammates from the house Doomsday destroyed in the previous issue, he gets a head start and starts creating havoc, taking down military helicopters and smashing into a small town before Superman can catch up to him. Supergirl (the Matrix version) sees the destruction on TV and wants to help, but her boyfriend Lex Luthor Jr. (long story, just read the Wikipedia explanation) holds her back. Maxima returns but is taken out in short order, and Superman vows to defeat the beast alone. 

Action Comics #684: The fight with Doomsday crashes into a department store, where a TV ad for an upcoming pro wrestling match at the Metropolis Area causes the beast to take notice of his destination: “Mhh-Trr-Plss…” A road sign that matches the advertisement points him towards Superman’s city as the Daily Planet helicopter – carrying Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen – arrives to report on the carnage. The battle destroys an abandoned territory called Habitat, but the creature escapes and bounds towards Metropolis.

Superman: The Man of Steel #19: Doomsday arrives in Metropolis. Cameras broadcast the battle across the world, including Smallville, where the Kents watch their son’s battle for his life on television. Supergirl finally is sent to help, but one blow from Doomsday disrupts her synthetic body and takes her out. Emil Hamilton and Bibbo (perhaps the greatest supporting character ever) bring a laser cannon to the roof to try to help, but to no avail. The Metropolis Special Crimes Unit open fire with everything they have, but they don’t even chip his hide. And in the end, Superman vows to draw the line in Metropolis.

When I read this story in high school, this issue was a great fight scene, sure, but like so many things it hits different for me now, as a parent. It seems quite telling to me that most people, like Jimmy, have the attitude that he’ll be OKAY. He’s SUPERMAN. He always comes out of it okay. But his parents, Jonathan and Martha, voice the fears of parents: “They don’t think anything bad can really happen to him.” The implication, obviously, is that the Jimmys of the world are wrong…and wrong he is.

Superman #75: The end. 

I remember distinctly the day this issue arrived in the mail. I got home from school before either of my parents got home from work, before the school bus dropped off my younger brother and sister, and I found this issue sitting in the mailbox. I brought it into the house, didn’t turn on the TV, didn’t even turn on the lights. The window in the living room gave me all the sunlight I needed as I slit open the plastic bag and opened the pages to witness the end of Earth’s greatest hero in quiet and solitude.

The story is swift, as befits an issue where every page is a single panel. Superman and Doomsday tear through Metropolis, trading blows until finally, with one last all-powerful punch, each of them collapse on the street. Lois rushes to his side and cradles him, his last words asking if Doomsday is defeated, his last thought for the city he was trying to protect, before the light fades from his eyes.

Yeah, I will admit, I cried when I read that. I still get misty today, even knowing that this was just the beginning of a much longer storyline it still hits like a kick to the gut. And even in 1992, when this was released, nobody really believed that Superman would stay dead. It was a story, and at the end of the story the status quo would be restored. That’s how these things went. 

It didn’t make it hurt any less.

And that’s what makes it one of the all-time great comic book epics, that I can read it again today and still feel that pang of loss I had when I was 15 years old. 

Man, this is a heavy way to start the week.

Thur., Feb. 27

When I woke up this morning, I went through my usual routine of showering, dressing, getting together a lunch for work, and then popping online for a few minutes until it was time to leave. Usually I want to see what the weather is going to be, if there’s any traffic snarls I should be aware of, that sort of thing.

I did not expect to begin the day with the news of the death of Gene Hackman.

Hackman, of course, was a legendary actor, known for countless roles in dozens of classic films, but to me (and, I suspect, most people around my age) he is indelibly linked to the role of Lex Luthor. His Luthor was smooth, slimy, cheerfully manipulative and yet prone to brief outbursts of rage when faced with incompetence, which makes you wonder why he so often surrounded himself with incompetence. As much as Christopher Reeve shaped our perception of Superman and Margot Kidder our Lois Lane, so too did Gene Hackman shape our Lex Luthor.

As of when I write this, Thursday morning, the news is reporting that Hackman, his wife, and their dog were all found dead in their home in Arizona. Although foul play is not suspected, no cause of death has been determined. It goes without saying that my heart goes out to their families, those who knew and loved them personally. But also, it feels like a moment to raise a glass in tribute as another little piece of our childhood has left us forever. And at my age, it feels like we lose one of those pieces every other day. 

RIP, Mr. Hackman. See you in Otisburg. 

Comics: Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special #1

Notes: Am I going a little out of order? Absolutely. But it feels more appropriate to read this now than to do so chronologically. In 2022, DC released this special with new stories by the same writers and artists behind the original Death of Superman event, followed up the next year with a special for the 30th anniversary of his return. I’ll get to that one too.

In the first story, Lois and Clark’s son Jon (still 10 years old, this is set before the Bendis aging controversy) in school when a familiar survivor of the Doomsday attack comes to talk to his class. This, as it turns out, is the first time Jon learns that his father died before Jon was born. I love this story – Lois’s talk with Jon is a nice sort of postmortem for everybody who read that story back when it was first published, encapsulating the feeling and emotion of the day while maintaining a bit of hope for the future. But as if that weren’t enough, we get a hell of a fight scene as well, as a construction worker who kept a chunk of Doomsday’s shattered bone all these years is suddenly transformed into a new version of the monster. The battle scene in the streets of Metropolis is pretty epic, and shows that Dan Jurgens hasn’t lost a step. It could have been published in 1992 and fit right in. It just makes it feel like more and more of a crime that he was bumped from Action Comics after issue #1000 when the status quo was upended. DC, I plead with you, find some way to have Jurgens writing and drawing Superman regularly again, preferably doing stories of Lois, Clark, and Jon in the past, like this one.

We also get three more stories, the first reuniting Adventures of Superman creators Jerry Ordway and Tom Grummett for a focus on Jonathan and Martha Kent. In the original “Death of Superman” we saw glimpses of the two of them watching the fight on TV. This story expands upon that, as they talk about some of the dark places and brutal battles their son had been in over the years. It’s a pretty good recap of the ‘86-’92 era of Superman through the eyes of the people who made Clark Kent the hero that he is. Martha’s Superman scrapbook is legendary, but this issue takes that concept one step further, showing the invisible impact Superman has on the world. It’s a really nice look at the character from a different angle. 

The third story brings back Roger Stern and Butch Guice, then the creative team on Action Comics, for a story starring Guardian at Project Cadmus, which was one of their ongoing subplot. The story shows the events of the day of Superman’s death from Guardian’s perspective, and although it doesn’t really offer any new insight into the story, it’s really great to see Guardian, Dubbilex, Dan Turpin, and some of the characters that were so important to the books at the time.

Finally, Man of Steel creators Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove return for a story about John Henry Irons, the man who will be Steel, and what happened to him during the Doomsday rampage. Having recently been saved from falling to his death by Superman, John Henry is determined to help him fight Doomsday, but as he follows the path of destruction, he find himself stopping at one disaster after another, pausing to save other people even as Superman fights for his life. This is why I love John Henry as a character so much – out of the four “new” Supermen that rose after his death, he was always the one who most embodied the spirit of Superman. With no powers, no weapons, without even the armor he would soon build, John Henry risks his life again and again to save others. And that’s what a Superman is for. 

Fri., Feb. 28

Comics: Justice League America #70, Adventures of Superman #498, Action Comics #685, Superman: The Man of Steel #20, Superman Vol. 2 #76, Adventures of Superman #499, Action Comics #686, Superman: The Man of Steel #21, Superman Vol. 2 #77

Notes: Although I can’t recall quite where, I remember reading an interview once with the creators behind the Death of Superman saga where one of them (probably Dan Jurgens) said that the stories that they were really interested in telling, the ones they found most compelling, were those from the “Funeral For a Friend” storyline. How does the world cope with the loss of Superman? How do we move on? How do we choose to honor his memory? The Doomsday story was a necessity to get them to that point, the “Reign of the Supermen” was the necessity to bring him back, but these stories are the heart of the saga.

Justice League America #70 picks up moments after the end of the battle with Doomsday, picking up the same dialogue – even the same narration – from the final pages of Superman #75. (And let’s hear it for Dan Jurgens, getting paid to write the same pages twice. Nice trick, sir!) The League is in a shambles: Blue Beetle comatose, Fire’s powers burned out and not returning, Ice injured, and Booster Gold’s future technology completely destroyed. As they try to pick up the pieces, the rest of the DCU’s heroes begin to assemble at JLA headquarters in New York to pay their respects to the fallen hero. It’s a touching book, with words of deep mourning and emotion that fit the grim day. For all intents and purposes, this was the end of Superman’s tenure with the League until it was restructured a few years later by Grant Morrison, but for what it was and when it was, this was a suitable ending.

Adventures of Superman #498 also picks up on the heels of Superman #75, showing the efforts to resuscitate the Man of Steel, and the ultimate futility of the attempt. This issue takes us everywhere: Supergirl tries to pull herself back together, Gangbuster is angry at himself for not being there, and in Smallville Jonathan and Martha Kent cling to one another and pray for a miracle. Somehow, even now, the thing that hits me hardest is the scene of Bibbo strapping on one of Professor Hamilton’s force field belts so he can withstand the jolt as he tried to hit Superman with hyper-charged defibrillator paddles. Bibbo is just one of those characters that’s too wholesome for the world – a big, gruff bruiser with the brains of a kid and the heart of a prince. The inherent goodness in him, in a man that the world would have cast aside, is what makes him such a perfect member of the Superman supporting cast. He’s another one we don’t see nearly enough nowadays. 

Action Comics #685 picks up that evening, as a Daily Planet extra edition announces the news no one wants to hear: “SUPERMAN–DEAD: METROPOLIS MARVEL KILLED IN ACTION.” Paul Westfield and Project: Cadmus get into a fight with Guardian and Supergirl over the right to claim the body, while everywhere else we see the world beginning to mourn. Meanwhile, at the Daily Planet, people are starting to worry about Lois. In the wake of the fight with Doomsday, thousands of people are missing – and one of them is her fiancé, Clark Kent. When they say that this is the section of the story the creators were most interesting in telling, this is the issue that I always come back to. The final page is one of the single most affecting pages I’ve ever read in a comic book, as Bibbo – having cleared out his bar so he can be alone – gets down on one knee, says a “Hail Mary,” and prays…not for Superman, but for the protection of the world he left behind. 

Superman: The Man of Steel #20 gives us the funeral. On a rainy day in Metropolis, millions of people line the streets to watch the processional as his body is brought to a hastily-erected monument in Centennial Park. In Kansas, meanwhile, the Kents hold a solemn, quiet ceremony of their own. Again, this issue shows us the impact of Superman on the world – people recalling the times he saved them, Batman deciding to take care of a guy with a bomb “Superman’s way,” and so on. We also get more of those Simonson-written kids that I like so much. 

In issue #76 of Superman, it’s Christmas! Doesn’t quite feel that way, though, with Superman gone. So in his memory the Justice League and a few others gather in Metropolis to carry out one of Superman’s annual traditions – reading and answering letters from people in need. This is a great issue, a sequel to an earlier story where we saw how Superman spends Christmas, and which I’ll no doubt read and write about this December. We also get a pair of subplots: Jimmy Olsen and Bibbo help out Mitch Anderson, the kid whose house Doomsday destroyed, and the Kents come to Metropolis with Lana Lang to hold a private wake with Lois, as four of the only people who knew who Superman really was. 

After this issue the stories take a turn. The immediate aftermath of his death and the period of mourning over, the story now becomes the struggle over his remains. In Adventures #499 we see that Westfield – defeated on the day Superman died – has burrowed into his tomb to steal his body for genetic experimentation. Action Comics #686 shows us that Cadmus is hoping to clone Superman, a storyline that obviously would become prominent later. Superman: The Man of Steel #21 takes us back to Smallville, where Jonathan’s memories of his lost son become overwhelming. In Metropolis, flooding helps Lois uncover the theft of Superman’s body, and takes the story to the front page. Finally, in Superman #77, after Supergirl and Lois recover Superman’s body and put it back where it belongs, Lex Luthor II (Lex pretending to be his own son) takes a moment to gloat in the tomb. In Smallville, though, Jonathan has been rushed to the hospital after collapsing in his field. After an issue of memories of his son, “Funeral For a Friend” ends with a chilling flatline.

The second half of “Funeral For a Friend” isn’t bad at all, but it’s there largely for setup. It plants a lot of seeds that would bear fruit in the upcoming “Reign” storyline. For pure emotional impact, the first half is one tearjerker after another, with a few more coming in the final two issues as Jonathan’s personal grief overtakes him. I know I say this a lot, but reading these issues as a parent makes them far, far more powerful than they were when I was a kid. As painful as it is to see Superman fall, seeing the utter devastation to the father who helped shape him into the hero he is may be the most heartbreaking part of the entire saga. 

Other Comics: Justice League of America #17, New Adventures of Superboy #32

Sat. March 1

Animated Film: The Death of Superman (2018)

Notes: Everywhere else, it’s just Saturday, but here in Louisiana it’s the weekend before Mardi Gras. And while I’m not a particularly enthusiastic paradegoer, my son is, and as such I make the effort to take him. Today was the Krewe of Lul parade, a nice little family-friendly small-town parade local to my community, and even better, I’ve got a cousin who lives on the parade route and always invites us to watch the parade there. It was a great day, and someone on one of the floats threw my son a ridiculously large stuffed snake, which my wife doesn’t yet know about as she had to work today, and I cannot WAIT to see her face when she gets home.

Parades are a little exhausting, though, especially when it’s hot outside, and I’m still a little too sun-dazzled to want to read anything today. So my Year of Superman continues at the moment with the 2018 The Death of Superman animated movie. This was actually the second attempt at animating the story, but as the first condensed the entire trilogy into one film rather than splitting it into two like this one, I’m waiting until after I finish reading the whole thing before I rewatch it. It’ll come soon enough.

This film was made during the period of DC animation where the movies were all set in a single universe largely based on the New 52 incarnations of the characters. As such, the story is tweaked appropriately to make it fit: the Justice League that faces Doomsday is that incarnation of the team rather than the Jurgens-era lineup, for example. And while Lois and Clark weren’t a couple in the New 52 era, here they’re in the early stages of a budding romance. Lois wants to keep their relationship a secret from their coworkers at the Planet, she hasn’t met his parents yet, and – probably most importantly – she does not yet know the secret of his duel identity. Other changes aren’t necessarily New 52 related, but help to condense the story: Doomsday’s coming to Earth, for example, is connected to the disaster that kills Hank Henshaw’s crew and sets him on the path of villainy he’ll occupy in the next movie. 

I’ve always been a fan of the voice cast here. It’s a little bit of stunt casting, placing real-life husband and wife Jerry O’Connell and Rebecca Romijn as Clark and Lois, but I like them both in their assigned roles. Rainn Wilson, meanwhile, is a deliciously wicked Lex Luthor, and Patrick Fabian has always sort of straddled the line between clean-cut and white collar crook, which somehow fits Hank Henshaw very well. We also get Rosario Dawson as a highly convincing Wonder Woman and Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern that a lot of us thought he should have played in live action (although I have every confidence he’ll nail Guy Gardner). 

There’s a considerable amount of buildup here – it’s almost halfway into the movie before Doomsday’s rampage begins – but I think it’s necessary. This movie leans more heavily on the developing Lois/Clark romance, and that buildup is focused largely on that. We see Clark agonizing over whether to tell her his secret, Diana berating him for not telling Lois who he really is yet, even asking for advice from the soon-to-be-married Barry Allen about his relationship with Iris. That buildup to what should be the happiest moment of their lives, the engagement (and the reveal of the secret) is well-done, and thus when the battle with Doomsday begins and the inevitable happens, the whole thing feels even more tragic. The reveal is handled well too – I love the fact that Lois’s first reaction, once the shock wears off, is “This is so unethical! You’ve been writing stories about yourself!” The emotional resonance echoes after the battle too, as we see the Kents unable to get close to their son’s funeral, then see Bibbo’s beautiful prayer sequence recontextualized into a montage over the city in mourning. 

The animation isn’t my favorite, to be honest. The characters are a bit too blocky, and they’re using the New 52-era designs, which means excessive lines EVERYWHERE, and Superman’s suit is too dark and kind of bland. But once we finally get to the fight with Doomsday it’s brutal and pretty epic. The killing blow is actually far more graphic than I expected, with Superman actually hitting Doomsday hard enough to make his head spin around, and it doesn’t look “cartoony” at all. 

Also, Bibbo is in this movie. So, y’know, I like it. 

Sun. March 2

Comics: Superman Vol. 6 #23, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #4, Power Girl Vol. 3 #18

Notes: I’m taking a quick break from the Death and Return saga to check in on this week’s new Superman-related titles. First up: Superman Vol. 6 #23, the latest in Joshua Williamson and Dan Mora’s ongoing saga. Doomsday is now the Time Trapper, and his control over the timestream is giving Lois a chance to pause while the contemporary Doomsday and Radiant battle it out in Metropolis as the Superman family tries to hold the line. I like what Williamson is doing here, using the original Death of Superman storyline (so I guess I’m not TOTALLY taking a break) as the framework for this new story, and giving us a neat focus on the characters . There’s a great speech from Lois when she talks about how she wept on the day Superman died, and how her tears may not have been for exactly the reasons one may have expected. It’s not a retcon, but rather a subtle recontextualization of the moment that I think actually works really well. And as usual, Dan Mora is killing it. I can’t say enough good things about his artwork. Over the past few years he’s become probably my favorite current artist in comics, and he’s earning his place on the Superman Mt. Rushmore with the likes of Curt Swan, John Byrne, and Dan Jurgens.

I’m not done with Mora yet, though – he also drew this week’s Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #4, this time teamed up with writer Mark Waid. The terrorist group called Inferno is unleashing havoc all over the world, with global fires crippling the Martian Manhunter and perhaps even killing Swamp Thing. In response, Mr. Terrific tries to recruit Alec Holland’s daughter Tefe, while Batman sees to the fallen J’onn J’onzz. Superman’s actual participation in this issue is minimal, appearing in just a few panels helping with the evacuation efforts from the wildfires while the big brains and the magic users try to solve the problem, but that’s actually one of the reasons I like this book so much. Waid has really stacked the deck by including virtually every hero in the DCU. It would be really tempting to still spend most of the time with the Big Guns, but Waid has done a great job crafting a story that allows for the lesser-known characters to rise to the front lines instead of Superman and Wonder Woman to be the A-team every single issue. It may be tangential to my “Year of Superman,” but it’s still maybe the best book DC is publishing right now.

Last but not least, Power Girl Vol. 3 18 continues Leah Williams and David Baldeon’s tale of the housewarming from hell. The grand opening celebration for the new Star building, complete with a bunch of guests from Asgard, is disrupted when a strange barrier traps everyone inside. Superman and Steel (John Henry) try to crack it open from the outside, while inside, Power Girl, Omen, and Steel (Natasha) attempt to get to the bottom of their predicament. This is an issue that feels very much like a middle chapter, incomplete and with a lot of questions. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t know if they structure the story quite enough to get us started before the story begins. We kick it off with the barrier already in place, then after several pages, flash back to how we got there. I don’t object to in medias res, but I don’t know if it really works well for this issue. Hopefully the next chapter of this particular story will clarify things a bit. 

Mon., March 3

Comics: Legacy of Superman #1, Supergirl/Team Luthor Special #1

Notes: After the conclusion of the “Funeral For a Friend” storyline, DC took the rather bold – for the time – step of ceasing publication of the four Superman titles for a few months. They resumed in the spring with Adventures of Superman #500, and I have to give them credit for not doing what they would do today – namely, restart each series with a new first issue. Actually, in the gap they would have published four separate miniseries for the four Supermen who took his place, THEN restarted each series with a new first issue. But I digress. In the gap, they published a few specials about what was happening in Metropolis in the wake of the Death of Superman

Legacy of Superman includes five short stories about different defenders of Metropolis. First was a Guardian story, set during the time before Lois and Supergirl retrieved Superman’s body from Cadmus, about their efforts to map Kryptonian DNA. As several of the characters wrestled with the ethics of the situation, we are introduced to the hyper-advanced Guardian clone called Auron, a character who, as I recall, seemed like he was going to be more important that he eventually turned out to be. Next was a story that brought back the old character(s) Rose and Thorn. Rose Forrest is secretly the vigilante called Thorn – a secret that even she herself does not know. It’s what at the time was called Multiple Personality Disorder, or at least a comic book-level understanding of it. With Superman dead, crime in Metropolis is on the rise, and Thorn comes back to help out. It’s a perfectly fine story, but other than reintroducing Thorn, it’s not particularly significant. Of more significance is the Gangbuster story. The longtime Superman supporting cast member is trying to step up and fill his shoes, but the fight against Metropolis’s criminals is getting harder on him, wearing him down, and making him more brutal. Story number four features Sinbad, a young boy with telekinetic powers who had appeared in a three-issue storyline a few years prior. This story, like the issues that introduced him, was by the creative team of William Messner-Loeb and Curt Swan, and I’m pretty sure it’s the last time the character ever appeared. 

The last story features Waverider, and for reasons I cannot fathom, it is not included in the DC Universe Infinite edition of this comic book. I swear that app seems less and less Infinite all the time. Fortunately, I’ve got the week off work and I’ve got the issue in my collection. Waverider (from the Armageddon 2001 storyline) has at this point joined the Linear Men (from the Time and Time Again storyline) and, upon learning of Superman’s death, is determined to use their time travel powers to save him. That is until their leader, Matthew Ryder (an alternate-timeline variant of Waverider himself) starts listing people whose contributions to history could have been greater had they lived longer and asking where they drew the line. It’s a good argument, but I’ve always wondered why Dan Jurgens didn’t take it a step further to the logical conclusion – that manipulating time for your own ends is as dangerous as the enemies to the timestream you fight, and that doing so (even with good intentions) has rarely ended well.

The Supergirl/Team Luthor Special has two stories. The first, by Roger Stern and June Brigman, focuses on Supergirl and “Lex Luthor II”’s private police force stepping up to help fight crime in Metropolis, similar to some of the stories in the previous volume. Louise Simonson writes the second story, where Supergirl encounters some of the Underworlders whose story has been one of the major plots in Superman: The Man of Steel. Both of these stories, while perfectly fine, seemed somewhat insignificant at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I see that they were planting seeds for stories that would play out in the next Supergirl miniseries and the accompanying Superman titles featuring the collapse of Project: Cadmus, the fall of the Underworld, and the end of Luthor’s charade – stories that, I’m fairly certain, wouldn’t be published for nearly a year. They plotted things REALLY well, those Triangle Era Superman writers. 

Tues., March 4

Magazines: Newstime, Wizard Superman Tribute Edition

Notes: In addition to the two one-shot comics published during the Superman Gap, DC also released a one-off edition of Newstime, a fictional news magazine that Clark Kent worked for briefly in the comics. The magazine, featuring a “photograph” on the cover taken by Jimmy Olsen as Superman lay dying, is a sort of defictionalized artifact of a news magazine from the DC Universe, giving us in the real world a glimpse into how the DCU reacted to Superman’s death. There are, as expected, news articles written about the battle with Doomsday, the reaction of the world to Superman’s death, and the chaos that the Justice League was left in with Superman dead and so many of their members injured or powerless. The magazine fits really nicely in with the comics, with bits updating the status of some of the celebrities that were reported missing in the comic books after Doomsday’s rampage. Baseball player Hank “The Hammer” Halloran, you’ll be happy to note, survived the attack, but comedian and actor Morty Beckman died in a collapsing building. Daily Planet reporter and former Newstime editor-in-chief Clark Kent is still among the missing. 

Other things in the magazine are somewhat odd, like the article featuring quotes from assorted famous people about the death of Superman. Many of them are DC characters like Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor II, Wonder Woman, and so on. Others, though, are from real-world figures, and they don’t all seem to be written from an in-universe perspective. A quote from William Shatner tells about how he used to dress as Superman when he was a child, Penn Jillette comments that Superman will have to die a few more times before he’ll be impressed, and John Goodman regales us with a bizarre story of his own personal encounter with Mr. Mxyzptlk following Superman’s death. I’m forced to wonder if some of these are legitimate comments they got from these people. After all, Superman’s death is one of the few comic book stories (especially back then) that made the major news cycles. 

The book finishes off with a few pages of fake movie and music reviews and lots of fake ads, and I have to give the DC crew credit for how well it’s all put together. Except for the fact that the “photos” are mostly panels taken from the comics, this looks and feel like a real news magazine, albeit much thinner than most of them. And just in case anyone thought that they’d let a book like this go without any foreshadowing, there’s a two-page ad early in the book that was meaningless when the magazine was originally published, but became quite jarring in hindsight just a few months later. 

There’s one last thing I wanted to read from the “Death of Superman” era before we begin with the return tomorrow, and that’s this special Wizard Magazine tribute edition. I was a big fan of Wizard in its early years and was a subscriber for quite a long time. Eventually I got rid of all my old issues, a move which I now deeply regret, especially in the case of those few issues in which they published letters I wrote. But I held on to this Superman special, a nice little package released after the Death storyline but before the return really wrapped up. I haven’t read it in many years, though, and it’s interesting to go back and look at what the contents include.

There’s a piece by legendary Superman artist Curt Swan about his time with the character, to start. Jack Curtain provides a fairly comprehensive (although somewhat cynical) history of Superman, while Joel W. Tscherne gives us a good piece of the history of the post-Crisis Superman to date. Reading this article again, I’m jarred to realize that more time has passed for the most recent incarnation of Superman (the one we’ve had since DC Rebirth sort of merged the 90s Superman with the New 52 version) than had passed between John Byrne’s Man of Steel and the Doomsday story. Good grief, somebody get Waverider in here to make time slow down.

We get a retrospective on great Superman artists throughout history, a piece that is dying for a contemporary update to include all the greats who have worked on the character since then (including Stuart Immonen, Barry Kitson, Ron Frenz, Jim Lee, Ed McGuinness, Tim Sale, Frank Quitely, Alex Ross, Patrick Gleason, Jamal Campbell, and my current favorite Dan Mora – and that’s just off the top of my head). Next is a look ahead at the return of Superman, including interviews with the creators, especially Jerry Ordway, who ended his tenure as a Superman writer with Adventures of Superman #500. Then the writers for “Reign of the Supermen” talk about the four characters we’re going to meet very soon. Action Comics’s Roger Stern says that their Superman will be more “Kryptonian,” but cautions us that it’s not going to be someone trying to turn Earth INTO Krypton, like in the Eradicator storyline. Stern, you cheeky monkey. Ordway’s successor Karl Kesel talks about how Adventures of Superman will give us a more “modern” Superboy (he didn’t like being called that) who ties himself to WGBS, a TV station, rather than a stodgy old newspaper. Dan Jurgens talks a bit about the Cyborg Superman, although to me the part of this section that stands out is where he discusses Lois’s skepticism. Good for you, Lois. And Louise Simonson talks about John Henry Irons, even giving a lot of backstory about his family that I don’t know has ever been explored very much in the comic books, which is a shame. 

There’s a lot more in here, including a piece from Elliot S! Maggin about Superman as a pop icon, Andy Mangels talking about Superman’s history on TV and in film, and lots of other articles about various pieces of Superman’s history. I’ve gotten psyched to go back and read more of these, and I probably will in the coming weeks, but hopefully the stuff I’ve talked about will give you the impetus to dust off your copy (or find one on eBay) to go back and revisit this interesting time capsule of who and what Superman was in those months between his death and his return.

And speaking of his return…

…well, I’ll see you tomorrow. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!