▶ This video is an updated and reworked version of my two-part Death and Return of Superman video from June 2019, with new sections, quotes and info added, as well as improved audio and visuals. Hope you like it! If you enjoyed this video, consider supporting Owen Likes Comics on Patreon: www.patreon.com/owenlikescomics
Always love death of Superman content; I was a kid when this story was going on, and damn was I… shocked, to say the least. Definitely an interesting time in comic book history.
I forget where i heard this line, but its always stuck with me, "The death and return of Superman didnt kill Superman, it killed death" in the aftermath of using such a high stakes plot point it basically ruined it going forward. Death is now is just a story beat and killing a character has become almost a right of passage. Kamala Khan just got killed off to be revived a couple months later
I genuinely love how Death of Superman lead to so many massive character shifts like Parralax and Knightfall in DC. It made it feel like Supermans death and rebirth had a genuine world wide effect.
I remember that this event was so huge that news about it even reached newspapers back when I lived in Egypt. Simply put, The Death Of Superman was the most prolific death of a fictional character since Sherlock Holmes' fateful encounter with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls
I remember waking up getting ready for school .came down stairs my uncle telling me superman was dead I'm like wtf..sure enough good morning america came on and announced they were killing off superman..I was such a superman fan I didn't read the death of superman till after he came back from the dead
"Oh, don't act so shocked, you phonies! You know how this works. In a few months, some magic amulet will bring him back, or, we'll find some alternate dimension Superman that's exactly like the one we had before. HOW MANY OF YOU HERE HAVE ALREADY DIED?!"
The worst impact of the Death of Superman is that it’s the most adapted Superman story outside of his origin. There are so many other stories I want to see adapted, but because Death sold so well, movie executives keep going back to it.
I mean...you're kinda right. We've had two animated versions of it (3 if you count the JL episode where he gets sent to the future by Toyman) and the end of BVS. Between this and him fighting Zod, there's so much more you can do
I feel the same about The Flash. Just how many times do we have to see Flashpoint before we get sick of it? But I get it...when you adapt comics with close to a century's worth of stories, you pick the ones most people know. Just...gah...so many other interesting stories to tell....we don't have to keep coming back to the same ones over and over again.
@@Courageous91 I'd rather see them adopt the episode where he dies, but actually gets sent to the future. And just mesh it with some elements for the death of Superman. That's what I would do. Except I would also add, that when he gets sent to the future it's actually because the Legion of Superheroes teleported him to the future at that exact moment. So his future adventure is actually with the Legion.
@@WalkerRileyMC I know it's the same thing with Batman and adapting one story, but I do feel like creators seem to only want to focus on certain specific aspects of the character. This is kind of one of the reasons i didn't care for Matt Reeve's The Batman movie. I wish they wouldn't run from the other aspects of the character such as his campiness. I've been wanting the definitive live action version of Batman that brings together all the aspects that make up Batman. Taking the best from the previous live action movies, animated content, comics, video games, etc. and just putting it all together like a puzzle piece.
Not just the movies. Even TV shows as Superman and Lois seems to be going in that direction as that takes place after the standard mainstream storyline. Even Smallville did the death and rebirth and even brought in Dooomsday.
I think FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND is the unsung star of this run. Pretty much EVERYONE weighs in on how Clark’s death affects them, and it’s all very real and heart-felt. Everybody focuses on the BATTLE (which is, admittedly AWESOME!) and the RETURN (the mystery IS well written), but the actual FUNERAL is INCREDIBLY moving.
Facts. Funeral for a Friend was by far my favorite series in comic book history. You almost felt like you were a part of that universe mourning with others over the death of a friend.
Absolutely Funeral for a Friend is one of the best-written storylines ever... Because it really examined death in a way that most comics hadn't before that time... It was the first series to actually have death have an impact on the world on such a grand scale... It actually took the time to slow down and tell stories that were incredibly thoughtful.
I know the death and return of Superman was just to drive sales, but I really loved how the writers really setup to make a really dignified story that doesn't feel rushed and with convenient plot points or having to break character
I really think the way they handled clark's death was great and gave him quick but good closure on his relationship with lois. However doomsday in this is honestly a pretty lame villain that's really just a plot device, which can work for some characters, but for superman's killer you'd expect something more from him, or if you want to use a preexisting plot device, have supes killed by kryptonite that's used by a more interesting villain like hank henshaw or lex (maybe even have lex find some way to absorb green K like ultraman, so he and supes can have a climatic physical struggle). I like what S&L is doing with doomsday tho, having him be bizarro who's been killed and revived multiple times, carrying over what made doomsday cool, adapts to what killed him and big monster, but making him more interesting as he's just another form of another character, bizarro, which hypes him up even more since bizarro is established to be an (opposite) equal to clark, and doomsday is his hulked out form with less weakeness's and stronger.
Pretty sure "this new character that coincidentally is the only thing in the universe that can kill Superman kills Superman" is a convenient plot point.
@@evacody1249 maybe, but doomsday was made so long ago and not even by his father or an ancestor of his, so at most he's a slightly worse version of a silver age phantom zone prisoner who escape.
@@ProjektTaku Kryptonite was too obvious. Yes, Doomsday is a plot device, but he was a necessary one. As the video states, none of Superman's gallery was worthy to be the one to kill him. They'd been trying for decades, many of them even using kryptonite, and they had failed. What was needed was a villain who would be nothing more than an unstoppable force. Someone the general audience could buy would truly test Superman's power.
To be fair, there had been plenty of "The Death of Superman!" comics during the Silver Age... when half of the stories were imaginary. Also, even back in the 90s it said that there were only 3 permanent deaths in comics: Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy and Bucky. In the 90s I would've also added Jason Todd. With Tim Drake as the new Robin, and Nightwing around, it felt like keeping Jason dead made more sense than even bringing him back. I guess Uncle Ben is the only permanent death then.
"I've got some things to say. I should have said them when you were here, but... Despite our differences I have nothing but respect for you. I hope you knew - know that. You showed me that justice doesn't always have to come from the darkness. I'll miss... What did you always call it. Clark? The never ending battle." - Batman (Kevin Conroy), Justice League S2 Ep. 19: Hereafter [Part 1] (29 November, 2003)
A note for anyone who hasn't seen the episode, an explosion went off right as he was saying "I'll miss...". That last bit was delivered with a tone of "not this shit again," rather than the emotional heart-to-heart (er, heart-to-memorial) of everything before it.
The biggest problem with this idea is that Villians have been "dieing" since the beginning of comics, only to return later. This was going on before comics as well. Go back and see how many times Joker, Magneto, etc. died. Once the precedent was set, it would eventually extend to heroes as well.
Can't say about Joker, but Magneto hadn't die before? He had the whole "turned into a baby" in 77, but he just went comatose in 93 and later had the fake-out death in Genosha in 2001 and death of Xorn in 2003. Besides the insta revival of Krakoa, Xorn mess and Secret Invasion, he only died in 2022 and was ressurrected last month
@@analu-alp1372 go back to the beginning. Magneto died by falling off a helicopter into some rocks. Joker was on a boat that blew up on rocks. Then, a year or two later, they're back again. No one asks why, they just are. The X'Orn one though, were Wolverine cuts off his head and the next issue Mags is on island with Xavier was just bad writing.
@@jasonking3466 don't know about such instance, are you talking about his asteroid being hit in New Mutants #21? Or Doctor Doom just jumping from airship in Fantastic Four #17? Dr Doom is the one about fake-out deaths, and still, they weren't treated seriously
I remember this being a big deal in my local comic shop, when each issue came out you'd see people buying it just to see if he was going to die or come back a few issues later
I experienced this in real time while working as an artist at Wildstorm. Sales started falling right after this. Marvel tried some shady $hit that back fired, and brought down the whole retailer eco-system. By 1999, a lot of comics were only selling about 45K copies.
The Death and Return of Superman happened at just the right time to become iconic. There was still a big market for traditional comics (I was part of it) and still a dominant traditional media to push the narrative. It's inconceivable now to imagine such a broad awareness of a comic book event in pop culture.
My dream is a world where all these changes actually stuck and comics didn't revert back to the status quo. Imagine if Clark stayed dead with Steel and Superboy having to carry on his legacy. Or if Hal stayed dead after becoming Parallax and Kyle was the permanent new Green Lantern. Or if Barry stayed dead and didn't push Wally out of the spotlight. Or if Peter actually was the clone and moved away with MJ while Ben took on the role of Spider-Man and training Miles. Or if Batman's back was prominently broken and Tim and Dick had to defeat Azrael themselves while Bruce took on the role that he has in Batman Beyond.
In hindsight I do wish that was the case though I think fans also wouldn't let that happen so fans are also to blame for this unfortunately. I sometimes like to imagine not only death sticking, but also instead of multiverses, we'd get family trees. Imagine a world where Batman and Superman started out in the 30s like they originally did, aged, and the mantles get passed on to their sidekicks or children. Every generation would have their own unique version of the same basic character. That said though, hindsight is 20/20 right? Back then no one thought those characters would become pop cultural icons like they are today.
@@edmaldonado8207 Yeah, fans were mad that Hal Jordan turned into a villain. I don't think they would've wanted their favorite characters to go out like that.
That's how I first got into it. Back in mid '93 I bought the "Death" and "Funeral for a Friend" trades, then I got Adventures #500, and dove straight into the weekly "Reign" arc. I loved every minute of it
Oh ya I remember going to the comic store to pick up my copy along with my pull list. The store was full of normie moms waiting in line to prick up a copy for their kids.
I knew that the Reign of the Supermen and the return of Superman didn't draw the same kind of attention as the Death of Superman did, but it's fascinating to learn just how steeply the readership dropped off after the initial gimmick. Excellent video!
Thanks to speculators buying the death issue by the truckload thinking they could make a killing on them like some of the earliest superhero comics were getting. Once they realized it wasn't going to happen, they bailed. The people who were left were generally already reading the books, and if they were lucky, they picked up some new folks to replace the ones who may have stopped after the stunt.
I think one should also take into consideration, the fact that there was a very solid trade paperback of the entire saga, so people didn't have to hunt and peck down every issue. And I think that trade paperback was extremely popular. Which reminds me. I have the entire original series of this, and left it when I moved on accident.
I was a kid, but I was around when the Death of Superman became this big thing. And I recall it being predicted almost immediately that Superman would come back to life. It wasn't an unheard of thing in comics. But it's more disappointing how _quickly_ it happened. Right away DC went to work on the storyline that very clearly was going to have Superman return. And that really cheapened it, but also ruined an opportunity for them to do something different for at least a little while. Imagine if it had been a whole year before even the suggestion of Superman coming back? While DC probably would have still fumbled things, it could have been a far more interesting matter of the other heroes needing to fill that role and the DC world actually changing -- progressing forward in time -- in the absence of Superman. But also, the better "death of Superman" story that unfortunately came after this was the one where Superman's very cells were no longer properly absorbing solar radiation and he had to prepare for his demise even as Luthor was concocting a way to take his place. If _that_ had been the story that ended in the actual burial of Superman I think it would have been a much more powerful and memorable matter. And again, the trick would have been to keep Superman dead for _at least_ a year if not two and have the ripples of it truly pass through the entire DC universe so that when they eventually lost their courage and brought him back there would be genuine changes in the narrative world and _maybe_ even a question of whether or not the DC universe _needed_ Superman. It's that latter question that I'm sure DC was the most scared of and purely for the financial impact it would represent. But as I recall, it was a pretty short-lived stunt that was kind of like blink and you miss it. Because the whole thing was an act of desperation specifically to sell Superman comics.
I collected comics from 1985-1996ish. It was the Spider-man clone series that made check out. Your analysis is correct. I think the industry forgot how to just write a good story with one hero. Also, once you sell 4 million copies, anything less becomes a failure.
The opening video showing the announcement of Superman's death gets pretty Epic if we consider it an in-universe material. I literaly imagine that blonde reporter chick being a live-action version of Cat Grant
*Fun fact:* There is a "what if...?" Dark Multiverse story in which Lois obtains Clark's powers after his death and becomes a sociopathic killer that destroys everyone who gets in her way (including Batman). I love how accurate the author of this modern comic imitates the aesthetic of the 90s "Death of Superman" saga, especially the gorgeous design (brown and curly long hair, crimson full lips) Lois had at that time. A TRUE Superman fan 👍
@@stevenfunderburg1623 ... do you actually think Marvel has some kind of trademark on the term "what if"? It's a universally used term across all of fiction, lmao. If it didn't happen in the canonical main continuity, it's considered a what-if scenario.
It's annoying that the TV show could have that much influence on the source material that it held back the marriage of Clark and Lois, which ended up being rushed to match the show's doing the story. They were even forced to have the couple split up to hold on but then had to backpedal in one issue to get it all to happen and kind of weakened the whole experience. This is an example of a comic death done right however. The death mattered in-universe, they explored how important Superman was to the DC universe, and we got +2 superheroes out of the deal when it was all done who are still appearing in comics today. It did do a few things wrong, like destroying Coast City in a non-Green Lantern comic (Coast City being Hal Jordan's city in the comics), but overall it was a great story, something that so much of the "eventitis" driven stories they make now fail to do by placing epicness and deconstruction over good storytelling. I would hope they'd back off from that in the future but there's no indication that in the trade-driven story structures they make now there's a chance they'll fix that mistake.
I read this as 10 year old and Bibbo always stuck with me-especially his generosity towards a kid who’s struggling at his bar. He lends him some money for the bus and he asks if there’s enough. He replies ‘there’s enough there for plane money! Kid’ Weird how that line stuck with me but I think it taught me the importance of being generous and kind in times of hardship.
You could almost equate the intent and scope of this story to the myth of Icarus. The universal reaction to the death of Superman representing the flight towards the sun. In my view, the short term planning and return of Superman represented the crash and burn.
@@jmen4ever257 I’m not far behind, I bought about three quarters of it and I’m not even going to try and add up how much money I wasted on it. It’ll just make me cry.
The fall of comic sales also has to do with a maturing readership who lost interest in reading comics, and a generation never introduced to the comic book medium because of their computer screens, cellphones, and video games. There also are many who enjoy superhero movies but have never read a comic book, which some would argue is obvious due to the fact of how badly written and portrayed heroes are on the screen. For me the death of Superman was a story that in the end revealed another power and ability of the Man of Steel's in the form of being able to regenerate from near death and return to life. Just like when they turned Superman into Electric Blue and Electric Red Superman, I knew it was only temporary no matter how they tried to sell it and I simply enjoyed reading it all. And don't forget, when we speak of the (temporary) death of Superman we must also remember it was the (temporary) death of Doomsday, and Superman was the one and only hero capable of accomplishing the task.
Not really, as kids nowadays still read japanese comics and they have far more tech then 90s kids. Its more how they were produced (and still are). In Japanese (and old) comics like shonen jump, each issue there are multiple stories from different writers and artists, meaning if you read shonen jump for one story, lets say one piece, you could also get interesting in another story like naruto, achieving the same effect comic events do without being as annoying or interfering with the stories, and then you throw the weekly/monthly issue away, and if you want to reread one story, you buy the volumes. However western comics nowadays have 1 story each and are treated more like collectors items, where you collect each individual one and buy multiple of the same for "variants" and what not. If comics were produced like japanese comics, lets say dc released "Young dc" where they rolled most of their individual comics into each issue, then events would be less common and comics would also be cheaper and easier to get into.
I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas from. Growing up in the 90s, I was exposed to comics THROUGH my computer and video games and television. I'd have never known about them otherwise. My nephew, closing in on 10, is the same....his exposure to Superman was via videos and the lego games and whatnot. He found out about comics on his own.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp To achieve a definitive DC cinematic universe the writers and directors must be superhero comic fans, understand and accept that the origins, relationships, and histories of the heroes are already established, perhaps we don't need their personal vision and lack of respect for the subject. Stop reinventing that which has already been invented, it's often not an improvement.
Who else gives Owen an automatic thumbs up even before the video has started? Amazing work as always, Owen. The nuance you add to big events in comic’s history is always top notch. Can’t wait for the next video. 🙌
I wish they had gone with an already established character to do it like Mongul. Using Doomsday means this is his most defining arc and Doomsday has been a boring yawn in every story afterwards.
Tbh i think that the short answer for this is that if Superman would never be made ( which thankfully he was), then we wouldnt have DC, we wouldnt have Image, We wouldnt have Marvel and all that, the reason "death of Superman" broke comics is because the most iconic and arguably the greatest superhero to ever be created has died, and i think that "death of Superman" has showned what our world has turned into by killing the most optimistic and hopefull character to ever live in fiction.
I love Superman but when I hear the words optimistic and hopeful used to describe a fictional character, the character that comes to mind 1st is not clark but Luffy from One Piece
The Death of Superman broke comics because he was brought back to life so quickly. The sales proved that and we were on our way to that already with Image starting in 1992.
Finally, someone explaining how non- comic book readers felt. They were ANGRY that such an iconic character was killed. Unlike so many comic book readers commenting here, there was no hint that he would come back to life. It was believed his death represented the last Superman comic to ever be written. His return, although a sigh of relief, was seen as a cynical response to all the protests.
@THE_bchat eh not really. You'd think so but, COIE was completely planned out and was well executed by everyone involved. Whereas secret wars was made because marvel was approached by a toy company to do it. Death of Superman happened because DC just wanted to shake up sales, and what came after was a bit messy for other titles. And that did so well that marvel and DC have been doing half thought out events to get sales ever since. There are exceptions though.
@@husseinrose4883 Legends, Secret Wars II, Acts of Vengeance, Millenium, Xtinction Agenda, Armageddon 2001, Mutant Massacre, Inferno, Invasion, Infinity Gauntlet/War, and I'm probably missing a few. Marvel & DC saw that big events sold well because of "Crisis" & "Secret Wars", so they started cranking them out, long before "The Death of Superman".
This was the event that got me back into Superman fandom. I was a big Superman fan as a little kid because of the Christopher Reeve films, but as I got older I decided that Superman was lame and I was way more into characters like Todd MacFarlane's Spider-Man. So when I heard that Superman had been killed I was shocked. I started reading Superman comics starting with the Reign of the Supermen arc and loved it. That awesome Dan Jurgens 2-page spread of a restored Superman flying away from Engine City after defeating Henshaw practically made me stand up and cheer.
One thing I never understood about the death of Superman: When the media first reported it would happen, they described Doomsday as an "intergalactic escaped mental patient". Then, a few days later, the news had another story about mental health advocates protesting in the streets in front of DC offices. And so DC hurriedly removed all backstory from Doomsday, making the published story read oddly uneven. They later replaced Doomsday's origin with a one connected to Krypton, but it never seemed legit. What I still don't understand is, why did they cave to protesters and diminish their story? And I would love to see someone fully document how it all occurred.
I don't see it as diminishing their story. After all, none of that was actually present in the story. Doomsday was just a mysterious force when he killed Superman. His origins were never explored until Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey several years later. But as for caving in, why not? After all, as mentioned, it really had no impact on the story they were telling. And plus, it's not a bad thing to realize that maybe it's not a good idea to compare a psychotic, mass murderer to mental patients.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dan Jurgens at multiple cons with my dad. It’s awesome talking to him about this story and hearing what he thinks about adaptations of this story and seeing him interact with other creators from this era
This was an amazing video, well done Owen. When I was a kid I first heard about the death of Superman from my dad when he read it in the paper and it was the catalyst that got me into taking comic collecting more seriously, I never bought them to resell them when they went up in value, I bought them because I loved the stories. The Death and Return of Superman made me fall in love again with the character I had first been enamoured with through the Christopher Reeve films. The idea of killing a sci-fi/fantasy character then bringing them back is a really good story idea, however like a good trick or spice, it really only works when it's only done rarely, the problem is everyone else jumping on the bandwagon! As the years passed everyone, Ironman, Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, Optimus Prime and let's not forget good old Kenny from South Park all got killed and came back and then it became silly. The key is to kill the character, let life go on without them, then when things are at their worst they come back but most writers kill the character and bring him back within the same story. It's a good idea that's been copied improperly too many times.
I honestly enjoyed the entire death and return of Superman storyline, the fight with Doomsday, the death and earned funeral of Superman, the reign of the supermen, and Superman's true return.
I was one of the few who didn't buy into the "Death of Superman" hype. I knew from the moment it was announced, it wasn't going to stick, no one ever stays dead in comics. I remember my dad was trying to get me into it "it'll be a collector's item" (he really didn't understand the industry as well as i did, he was just trying to be supportive). To this day, I shun all Death & Return of Superman related stuff, I just didn't buy into it because I knew it was a cheap gimmick.
We should all look back on the death of Superman storyline as one of The Greatest High points and low points of the comic book genre It paved the way for storylines like Batman Knightfall And Spider-Man's Clone Saga I realized the late 80s and early 90s had a struggling time for comic book sales but it was also the greatest time period for comic book sales I love comic books Since I was a kid watching Spider-Man the animated series at 4 years old Which introduce me to the comics of Spider-Man And Batman the animated series introduced me to Batman Knightfall Along with Superman the animated series introducing me to comic books Such as The death and return of Superman Thank you Owen once again for an inciting video regarding one of the greatest Superman stories to ever change the course of comics history as we know it
I admit, i actually thought this death would be permanent back then(i mean, death typically is permanent after all). The mid 80s to mid 90s was the "grimdark" era of comics back then. I figured DC would make some lousy anti hero to take Supes' place as the cornerstone hero. Thankfully it didn't stick, although Batman got simliar treatment with "Knighfall", and about 4 years later after the grimdark era was at last put to bed. Kingdom Come was the unofficial rebuttal of the last decade of grimdark, followed by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's runs on JLA. The late 90s really turned things around for the industry.
The build up, the Death, the return, and the outcome of this run was actually really good. The problem is that now it’s done to death (no pun intended) and the character always comes back shortly after, it’s used as a gimmick now
Superman's death and Batman's broken back, by Bane, put the characters in the forefront. I was collecting Superman comics when artist John Bryne revamped him in the late 80s, early 90s.
The death of comic books started with the over complication of a simple superhero, the sheer number of superheroes left a yawning gap between them and any possible villains to fight. It all went from backstreet thugs mugging old ladies to literally unbelievable intergalactic super villains. Then came the old multiverse, which confused the hell out of every one. It all simply went up its own A$$ Hole.
The Death of Superman start a whole new cult for comics in the 90s, a lot of comic books shops opened by that time, and the death of superman has a lot to do with that, the death of superman gave a new energy to the comics in the 90s
Image & Valiant were already super popular by the time "The Death of Superman" rolled around, and comic shops were opening because of them. No need to rewrite history.
When this happened, I was sin Boston. It was MASSIVE NEWS!!!!! I remembered how stunned I was that he was killed, and I was/am a Marvel fan back then...everyone was talking about it...
Here's the problem - the deaths became unbelievable. Batman getting his back broken is novel, Spider-Man being a clone is just disrespectful for the reader, but Onslaught destroying the entire Marvel universe is downright dumb. Nobody believed Marvel would just wipe the slate clean, and there's only so much good will that a reader will grant. DC played Superman's death really well (the resurrection left a bit to be desired), but every other event around that time just so clearly looked like a cash grab
Just had the chance to talk to Dan Juergens yesterday and man… what a chill guy. I asked him how it felt to be the guy that wrote the death of superman and how it felt to be recognized as the writer for that being so huge as an event. I loved his response. “I felt a bit conceited like im the man you know?” I feel like everyone would feel that way.
Thank you for this Video. As a Comic book reader back in 80s and 90s I can say this Series from the Death of Superman Did kill the entire comic book industry creating a frenzy of books sold to people who only purchased the books to Sell for profit after comics made multiple Covers for books and started sealing comics in plastic. It destroyed the market for readers.
You truly are a wonderful storyteller and you deserve a standing ovation for your work on this event! One of the very best Superman stories ever written and I certainly think that you did an excellent job explaining the ins and outs and the ups and downs of its execution! Your videos are truly incredible. This story was so powerful and emotional. It truly is a staple of Comic Book history! Excellent job with this presentation! A Superman series I will always look back on fondly for sure!
The death of Superman represented the height of the hubris of the comic industry. They were pandering to people who dodgy understand why Action Comics #1. is so expensive. They just wanted the next Action comics #1 without the scarcity.
90s DC was peak and their stories hold up so much better than it’s competitors. DC had a lot of great runs/stories: Grant Morrison’s JLA, Doom patrol and Animal Man. Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come. Knightfall, Legends of the Dark Knight, and all of the Bat Title spinoffs (Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman, Birds of Prey) by Chuck Dixon and co which were all very good. Mark Waid’s legendary Flash run Starman and the Golden Age by James Robinson The Long Halloween Kyle Rayner taking over the Green Lantern mantle, and the Green Lantern runs of Emerald Twilight and Emerald Dawn Justice League international and its spinoffs Garth Ennis’s Hitman and his underrated Etrigan the Demon run The Spectre by John Ostrander The Power of Shazam Superman For All Sesons JLA Year One and Justice League The Nail JSA mini runs were all very good and the JSA finding their footing in the DC universe post Crisis. Plus the beginning to Geoff Johns epic JSA run The Vertigo line which included Hellblazer, Sandman and the Preacher The main man Lobo (which was pretty self aware and poked fun of the “extreme” and violence in 90s comics) Aquaman, Young Justice, and Supergirl by Peter David which were all very fun The Superman Triangle era, and while the Death Of Superman is definitely peak 90s for better or worse, it was a pretty epic run which brought us DC mainstay characters such as Superboy and Steel. Legion of Superheroes and Legionnaires DC in the 90s had a sense of legacy, characters grew into their new mantles rather than being shoehorned in (the Flash, Starman, Kyle Rayner, Azarel, and the titles felt more serialized, and only crossed over for an event every few years. I like the whole vibe, each character and team felt like they had their own little corner within the DC universe. Marvel was the “cool kid” in the 90s and the numbers show that, but overall most of the criticisms are pretty tired, particularly when there was a lot of quality runs coming our in thats decade, particularly at DC
The only real reason why this worked for DC was because they had Time/Warner's entire news division behind them. When Marvel released X-Men #1, even though they had 5 different covers, Did not have anywhere the same amount of mainstream media leading up to the issues release!
Imo All Star Superman was the best Superman story. Seeing Supes as a vulnerable good man trying to make things right before his impending demise actually made me cry. He was still Clark Kent, Jon and Matha's baby boy from Smallville. Raised to help people and live a honest humble life. Even when that life was soon to end.
Hal Jordan dying made me stop buying comics for 10 years, they done my boy dirty. I eventually came back, for a period at least - up to when the new 52 started, and hunted down the Green Lantern issues I had not purchased in revolt.
Deaths for heroes used to have meaning. Bucky, Flash, Supergirl, Valerie Richards, Jason Todd, Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, Mr. Terrific. Now its just a plot device. I remember the recent deaths of Wolverine and Captain America. Those deaths almost seemed real at the time. I don't even understand how they came back to life.
My first child, a son, was due to be born February, 1993. I went to the local comic shop every month or whatever in 1992 and paid anywhere from $70-100 per comic to give to my son as a collectible down the road. I didn't know at the time DC was flooding the market. So, bottom line, I couldn't get the price TODAY out of these comics that I paid back in 1992 to get them. My takeaway is that the industry is about profit and not giving the best experience to the fans.
I honestly don't entirely buy the part of the story where DC always intended to bring the original back. I think that's PR and retcon. I think DC saw that Marvel was killing them in sales and wanted to Marvel-ize their iconic heroes, perceived as "out of date". They needed to be "re-imagined for modern audiences" (a plague on comics to this very day) So Superman gets killed in order to replace him with the best-selling of 4 market-savvy, hip-wow-now, "better" Supermen. But none of them turned out to have the necessary gravitas, though DCe salvaged Superboy and John Henry Irons as spinoff heroes. As the video points out, the failure of Superman's re-imagining didn't stop DC from attempting to Marvel-ize the rest of their flagship heroes. All failing as far as I know. The moral of the story is really, "Don't let outside forces like Sales and Marketing dictate your characters."
I was managing a comic store during the death of Superman and it was INSANE! On a Saturday we made over 30.000 dollars in sales just selling that one book in black with the iconic bloody red S.
A key additional point is Investors, not readers, were fueling the boom in the 90s. Some journalist pointed out that iconic issues of classic comics outperformed most other investments in the long run. Demand surged for these issues sold to old guys who never intended to turn a page. They overbought and the industry was happy to oversell, but they didn't know when to slow it back down. Unfortunately, no one in the comic book industry has read about the Tulip Bulb crash 100 years earlier.
I think the Death of Superman was the most misunderstood event in comic book history. The whole point of Superman's death is that... he didn't truly die at all. He didn't cheat death, he wasn't resurrected nor was the timeline altered or anything like that, he was just plain not dead. The whole point of the event is that it was a "gotcha" while also reminding us that our heroes are unbreakable and that's a good thing. Instead, people saw this as "well if Superman's status quo of being invincible can be broken, any character's defining status quo can be too and death is just a temporary state". It's a shame because that was the whole point that everyone missed and most people still do; it was NOT the death of death nor the death of Superman at all because the big reveal was that Superman was NEVER dead. His status quo wasn't broken. He was just badly injured for the first time and needed time to recover.
The image at 27:55 hits me for a different reason: his best friend is Jimmy Olson. He loved him, too. We don't get enough male friendships in modern fiction. Jimmy was an audience surrogate, the regular guy who becomes friends with a god. And Jimmy was the regular guy a god became friends with.
Death of Superman, Nightfall, and Hal turning into Parallax are still some of my favorite stories. I reread them every few years. There are some negative side effects that persisted ever since, mostly all the endless event-driven mega-crossovers, many with superficial "tie-ins" that often contributed nothing more than someone acknowledging an event was happening in the universe. Dan Jurgens Superman is the definitive Superman for me. Any time I read through the triangle years, I always get excited to read Superman over the other three series. When I was a kid, I had a single comic subscription come in the mail and that was Jurgens' Superman.
I think it made the shock value of death too prominent in comics esp with him coming back. Now death is nothing i comics cause, like superman, we know they will be back. Hell ms marvel died and is back within a month
Great video. The Death of Superman trade paperback is what made me a life long fan of comic books and their characters. I've read it MANY times over the past 40 years. For my age group, this book...was everything. The only downside was like you said, the entire industry became too event heavy. Thankfully the books bounced back to respectable numbers and acclaim during the early aughts due to the intro of Ultimate Spider-Man
Kamala Khan dies Funeral for Kamala Khan: Wednesday Announcement of Kamala Khan coming back: Friday Death is a joke in superhero comics nowadays... thanks, Death of Superman!!
My big problem with Death of Superman is that they brought him back at all. Reign of the Supermen was a good idea, having these disparate successors popping trying to fill Superman's shoes up is a very interesting story. But to use them mainly as a vessel to bring the original Superman back, I think, was a mistake. Admittedly, Steel and Superboy did get their own titles, but it would have been nice if they had gotten to keep Man of Steel and Adventures of Superman as *their* books, you know? Separate but relatedly, Superman's "4 monthly titles that are actually 1 weekly title" was very confusing, especially to all the people that Death of Superman was bringing into comics for the first time. Having each successor take one was a good idea, marred by the fact that once Superman returned, they immediately went back to doing one title disguised as 4. The worst part is they were so close to what I think would have been a better solution, but I'm not about to "I could have done it better" maybe the most important 90s comic story.
Reagarding the challenge to find someone who hasn't at least heard about the death of Superman. We comic readers tend to overestimate the significance of these things. My wife wouldn't have a clue that Superman once died, or know a single Superman story, so I found someone immediately. Almost no one I work with would know. Most people know nothing about these things.
the absolute best time of comics,......my father died at the same time, like, literaly, funeral for a friend got me thru a really bad time, i was 12, my dad would bring me to the comic shop, but then he died, so did superman. it all happened at once, somehow, that really helped.
The truth is that the comic book industry has been dying for decades with every passing generation. The main fans of DC and Marvel is the late baby boomers to the early generation X. With the invent of Video games, the internet to the current smartphones comic books has become a relic of a bygone era. In fact comic books has become a form of a commodity with the comic book store and conventions.
When my co-workers told me in 1993 that Superman had died, I scoffed and said, "Pffff, like he's gonna stay dead!" Sure enough, he was alive and kicking again before the year was out.
I have to admit... The insistance on Superhero comics or at least the Big Two, on sticking to a single continuity is also a reason why deaths have no meaning. If they planned ahead and rebooted every 10 years or so, deaths and the like would be more impactful.
It's less that continuity is a factor. It's more a case of reluctance by the big two to let popular characters die and remain dead. Bruce Wayne's death defeating Darkseid in Final Crisis. Kraven the Hunter ending his own life in Kraven's Last Hunt. Green Goblin impaled by his own glider. Jean Grey choosing to die in the Dark Phoenix Saga. These are all key moments with defining characterisation that brought all these characters to a satisfying narrative conclusion. But Marvel and DC just can't let them go.
@@pious83 I think there is a difference between say batmans death that was never intended to be permanent and say kraven where the death was intended to be permeant until later writers intervened
@@FemboyCatGaming That difference shouldn't have existed in the first place. Bruce Wayne was given a fitting end. A mere man facing down the God of Evil. In the follow up story - Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader? He was given an effective send off too. Wherein it was stated there will always be a Batman. But it won't always be Bruce Wayne. Morrison should have omitted any reference to his return. Dick and Damian were the new Dynamic Duo. Which paid homage to the legacy of the mantle.
@@pious83 the ending of whatever happened the cape crusader is that Bruce Wayne will always be Batman. His reward for dying is getting a brief period of happiness as a child before being Batman again. There is a reason why you see many deaths of Bruce Wayne. He’s trapped in an eternal cycle
@@FemboyCatGaming Well no. You’re confusing stories. The ‘death loop’ plays out in Morrison’s Return of Bruce Wayne. ‘Whatever Happened’ is Neil Gaiman. It’s metaphor. The end you cite is Bruce Wayne saying goodbye to his life. Having it all flash before his eyes before he finally lets go. The quote I cited happened before that last scene.
the main problem of American comics is that they are focused on a roster of characters, while Japanese manga is about making a complete story and move on to the next story with new characters. This allows Japanese manga to tap easier on novelty than American comics can, this is why American comics get trapped in the idea of going up and up with higher and more powerful enemies and heroes, disconnecting from regular people and running out of imagination and this is why they were forced to kill superman, because it was the only way to tap into novelty, watching superman kill yet another supervillain every new arc was not novel enough, killing superman was the only novel thing left for them to try.
This killed death in comics. After this, nothing was permanent. Readers lost interest when there are no real stakes, and that has largely persisted until today. Comics in a way have stagnated ever since (from the major publishers). Comics effectively act as ways to maintain IP of existing properties, which means little changes. There is also, unfortunately, nothing new in terms of creating new properties unless they act to expand the reach or readership of an existing one. Can you imagine Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel being printed today? I can't.
The one thing I remember most at that time (other than Superman's death)... Doomsday literally beat the entire Justice League with one arm tied behind his back.
The point of it wasn't to kill Superman, of course. The title and plot were a homage to a classic story, and it was meant to draw attention to the great work the Superman creative teams were doing. In that sense, it succeeded because sales remained higher for a good while. In another sense, the event signaled the beginning of a slow erosion in the quality of the books, so by the time a lot of people were noticing the comics, their prime era was fading. Perez had already left Action. Ordway left Superman. Jurgens gave up art and only wrote. The books were still good, but not quite as good as before, and something about them just felt different than before.
7:32-7:33 Wait, I spy members of others' rogues galleries. Like Cheeta (Wonderwoman), Two-face (Batman), Catwoman (Batman), Riddler (Batman) Captain Cold (Flash), Black Adam (Shazam), and Black Manta (Aquaman). 8:12 Okay, a bit pedantic, but I think "genetically engineered Kryptonian abomination" fits a bit better than "...Kryptonian deformity."
You're wrong. Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths did it first. Watchmen did it because it started a trend of deconstructing the genre and Crisis did it because it started a trend of grand events oriented stories
Oh please. Everyone who heard about this (or read comics/watched tv) KNEW that he was not dead/wouldn't stay dead, that it was just a gimmick to sell alternative covers. THAT is what broke the comic book industry. 'Cause one moment he was dead, two episodes later he was alive. And everyone who who didn't know that and spent their allowance money thinking it was going to be worth something was giving away the comic book for free. It was neither iconic nor cleaver.
I can still go back and re-read this epic saga, and it hits just as hard as always. I love that it's told in three acts: His death is just a kickass battle spread across several issues with each one building to #75 told in just full on splash pages. The Funeral for a Friend issues are beautiful, meditative moments for the characters and readers. And his return is another epic saga bringing together a variety of characters into one big confrontation. So overall, it's still a good story. Very well done in terms of pacing and storytelling. But like all things that make money, the corporate suits took away the wrong lesson and just wanted to rinse and repeat hoping for the exact same level of success. It's very much the exact same thing that happened with the MCU. They made so much money, others rushed out to repeat that success and bombed spectacularly. The reason is they only see the bottom line. All those dollar signs. And not the context that led to that success.
All of these events caused an over speculation in the comic book market. Not every comic that was considered sold was truly sold. These sold comics where being counted only to the comic shops, not the general population. The market became over saturated with all of these events. People that were not real fans, but investors, found out that these new books were not valued the same as the original classic golden or silverage books. Most of the comics from the 70s and 80's had to do with the introduction of new characters that had later gained popularity. And all of these books had low print runs.
Not only did "The Death of #Superman" eventually have a detrimental impact from a business standpoint, killing characters only to bring them back to life has always been a pet peeve of mine. Jason Todd's resurrection bothers me more, and Avengers: Endgame represents the most egregious example of this given that half a universe is resurrected, but "The Death of Superman" set a precedent. Resurrecting characters lessens the impact of the death in question and others and also reduces the stakes moving forward. I often cite one of the most brilliant decisions made for The Dark Knight Trilogy being the omission of Lazarus Pits. Chris Nolan and co. managed to retain the spirit of Ra's al Ghul being immortal by having him continue to haunt Bruce in Liam Neeson's The Dark Knight Rises cameo in The Pit without actually using a Lazarus Pit. I was ecstatic when the Lazarus Pits were destroyed in the Arrowverse, although by that point, the damage had been done. Despite these complaints of mine however, I love #BATMANvSUPERMAN and #JusticeLeague, I consider The Death of Superman to be the best film in the Damian Wayneverse, and I am immensely enjoying S4 of Superman & Lois so far. I also am very fond of Doomsday as a character, with the adaptation in S8 of Smallville being my favorite iteration. A lot of amazing things did come from this event.
"I challange you to find someone who hasn't at least heard about the time superman was killed" Bro, that's literally me before this video popped on my yt feed.
I was watching at the time. The real reason it hit so hard was because it was a slow news day nationally. The cable news networks picked up the story and it just caught on at the right hour and took off.
the thing is comic books were on the high of a fad in the early 90s. there were new series being tried out everywhere by everything especially archie comics. dc just had perfect timing to have their most important story at the peak of it. and maybe it's because i'm obsessed with teenage mindsets, but i love superboy being a character added and having a pseudo father/uncle relationship with his clone - at least before they made him all grouchy because he's now part luthor.
![Dinomorphia & Anti-Spell Fragrance/Eradicator Epidemic Virus [Yugioh Master Duel] #9](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d1dkDPNf8kk/mqdefault.jpg)
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▶ This video is an updated and reworked version of my two-part Death and Return of Superman video from June 2019, with new sections, quotes and info added, as well as improved audio and visuals. Hope you like it!
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Gotcha
Always love death of Superman content; I was a kid when this story was going on, and damn was I… shocked, to say the least. Definitely an interesting time in comic book history.
Mo’ Superman, less problems.
@@TevyaSmolkahey Tevya 😂 you’re always showing up when I least expect ya.
@@Akkbar21 lol 😂 indeed
I forget where i heard this line, but its always stuck with me, "The death and return of Superman didnt kill Superman, it killed death" in the aftermath of using such a high stakes plot point it basically ruined it going forward. Death is now is just a story beat and killing a character has become almost a right of passage. Kamala Khan just got killed off to be revived a couple months later
That is an excellent point. It removed the stakes and left death as an inconvenience. Once you have died and come back…what’s next?
erm idk where you get your info from but kamala's funeral was last week, she is certainly not back from the dead
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868They already announced she’s returning in August
I am 99 % sure this line is from "Death and Return of Superman" short
It's from the Max Landis short film.
I genuinely love how Death of Superman lead to so many massive character shifts like Parralax and Knightfall in DC. It made it feel like Supermans death and rebirth had a genuine world wide effect.
Literally killed an entire industry. . .
That’s y it’s dumb tho. Look at what Endgame is doing to movies you’re the bad guy when you take Superman away
I remember that this event was so huge that news about it even reached newspapers back when I lived in Egypt. Simply put, The Death Of Superman was the most prolific death of a fictional character since Sherlock Holmes' fateful encounter with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls
In Uruguay was similar! We were like minimum 6/5 Tess behind. From Editorial Novaro from Mexico. But the Dead was a news important for a week.
I remember waking up getting ready for school .came down stairs my uncle telling me superman was dead I'm like wtf..sure enough good morning america came on and announced they were killing off superman..I was such a superman fan I didn't read the death of superman till after he came back from the dead
The Black Plastic version came with a Funeral Arm Band
Even then I was cynical enough to know he wouldn't stay dead.
do you know what prolific means
"Oh, don't act so shocked, you phonies! You know how this works. In a few months, some magic amulet will bring him back, or, we'll find some alternate dimension Superman that's exactly like the one we had before. HOW MANY OF YOU HERE HAVE ALREADY DIED?!"
I was hoping someone would comment this. XD
🤡🤡🤡 comment
The first one was Jean Grey...
God, I love robot chicken D.C specials
And Oliver is sitting there 😂
The worst impact of the Death of Superman is that it’s the most adapted Superman story outside of his origin. There are so many other stories I want to see adapted, but because Death sold so well, movie executives keep going back to it.
I mean...you're kinda right. We've had two animated versions of it (3 if you count the JL episode where he gets sent to the future by Toyman) and the end of BVS.
Between this and him fighting Zod, there's so much more you can do
I feel the same about The Flash. Just how many times do we have to see Flashpoint before we get sick of it?
But I get it...when you adapt comics with close to a century's worth of stories, you pick the ones most people know.
Just...gah...so many other interesting stories to tell....we don't have to keep coming back to the same ones over and over again.
@@Courageous91 I'd rather see them adopt the episode where he dies, but actually gets sent to the future. And just mesh it with some elements for the death of Superman. That's what I would do. Except I would also add, that when he gets sent to the future it's actually because the Legion of Superheroes teleported him to the future at that exact moment. So his future adventure is actually with the Legion.
@@WalkerRileyMC I know it's the same thing with Batman and adapting one story, but I do feel like creators seem to only want to focus on certain specific aspects of the character. This is kind of one of the reasons i didn't care for Matt Reeve's The Batman movie. I wish they wouldn't run from the other aspects of the character such as his campiness. I've been wanting the definitive live action version of Batman that brings together all the aspects that make up Batman. Taking the best from the previous live action movies, animated content, comics, video games, etc. and just putting it all together like a puzzle piece.
Not just the movies. Even TV shows as Superman and Lois seems to be going in that direction as that takes place after the standard mainstream storyline. Even Smallville did the death and rebirth and even brought in Dooomsday.
I think FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND is the unsung star of this run. Pretty much EVERYONE weighs in on how Clark’s death affects them, and it’s all very real and heart-felt. Everybody focuses on the BATTLE (which is, admittedly AWESOME!) and the RETURN (the mystery IS well written), but the actual FUNERAL is INCREDIBLY moving.
Was that the Comic that came with the Funeral Arm Band?
@@General_Klytus i think that the Superman 75 was the one with the Arm Band polybagged inside.
Facts. Funeral for a Friend was by far my favorite series in comic book history. You almost felt like you were a part of that universe mourning with others over the death of a friend.
Absolutely Funeral for a Friend is one of the best-written storylines ever... Because it really examined death in a way that most comics hadn't before that time... It was the first series to actually have death have an impact on the world on such a grand scale... It actually took the time to slow down and tell stories that were incredibly thoughtful.
I'm disappointed that they didn't show the villains partying and high-fiving each other at Clark's funeral.
I know the death and return of Superman was just to drive sales, but I really loved how the writers really setup to make a really dignified story that doesn't feel rushed and with convenient plot points or having to break character
I really think the way they handled clark's death was great and gave him quick but good closure on his relationship with lois. However doomsday in this is honestly a pretty lame villain that's really just a plot device, which can work for some characters, but for superman's killer you'd expect something more from him, or if you want to use a preexisting plot device, have supes killed by kryptonite that's used by a more interesting villain like hank henshaw or lex (maybe even have lex find some way to absorb green K like ultraman, so he and supes can have a climatic physical struggle).
I like what S&L is doing with doomsday tho, having him be bizarro who's been killed and revived multiple times, carrying over what made doomsday cool, adapts to what killed him and big monster, but making him more interesting as he's just another form of another character, bizarro, which hypes him up even more since bizarro is established to be an (opposite) equal to clark, and doomsday is his hulked out form with less weakeness's and stronger.
Pretty sure "this new character that coincidentally is the only thing in the universe that can kill Superman kills Superman" is a convenient plot point.
@@ProjektTakuexpect the fact that you learn that Doomsday was made on his hone planet makes it much more shocking.
@@evacody1249 maybe, but doomsday was made so long ago and not even by his father or an ancestor of his, so at most he's a slightly worse version of a silver age phantom zone prisoner who escape.
@@ProjektTaku Kryptonite was too obvious. Yes, Doomsday is a plot device, but he was a necessary one. As the video states, none of Superman's gallery was worthy to be the one to kill him. They'd been trying for decades, many of them even using kryptonite, and they had failed.
What was needed was a villain who would be nothing more than an unstoppable force. Someone the general audience could buy would truly test Superman's power.
To be fair, there had been plenty of "The Death of Superman!" comics during the Silver Age... when half of the stories were imaginary. Also, even back in the 90s it said that there were only 3 permanent deaths in comics: Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy and Bucky. In the 90s I would've also added Jason Todd. With Tim Drake as the new Robin, and Nightwing around, it felt like keeping Jason dead made more sense than even bringing him back.
I guess Uncle Ben is the only permanent death then.
Too bad the use him so much in alternate universes.
The death of superman was good, it’s unfortunately that everyone copied it.
Barry should have stayed dead.
And Thomas and Martha Wayne.
@@balrog262 And Ted Kord, except they keep bringing him back and then killing him again. Poor Booster Gold...
I really felt sorry for Jimmy Olsen in this story. The shot of a lifetime presents itself, and he's standing in the exact opposite of the right spot.
The thing was that this wasn't a bad story. It was a really good one. Which is the problem. Everyone wants to make the next Death of Superman.
They should have kept him dead.
Why who would take his place
"I've got some things to say. I should have said them when you were here, but... Despite our differences I have nothing but respect for you. I hope you knew - know that. You showed me that justice doesn't always have to come from the darkness. I'll miss... What did you always call it. Clark? The never ending battle."
- Batman (Kevin Conroy), Justice League S2 Ep. 19: Hereafter [Part 1] (29 November, 2003)
A note for anyone who hasn't seen the episode, an explosion went off right as he was saying "I'll miss...". That last bit was delivered with a tone of "not this shit again," rather than the emotional heart-to-heart (er, heart-to-memorial) of everything before it.
The biggest problem with this idea is that Villians have been "dieing" since the beginning of comics, only to return later. This was going on before comics as well. Go back and see how many times Joker, Magneto, etc. died. Once the precedent was set, it would eventually extend to heroes as well.
They should have kept him dead.
Can't say about Joker, but Magneto hadn't die before? He had the whole "turned into a baby" in 77, but he just went comatose in 93 and later had the fake-out death in Genosha in 2001 and death of Xorn in 2003. Besides the insta revival of Krakoa, Xorn mess and Secret Invasion, he only died in 2022 and was ressurrected last month
@@analu-alp1372 go back to the beginning. Magneto died by falling off a helicopter into some rocks. Joker was on a boat that blew up on rocks. Then, a year or two later, they're back again. No one asks why, they just are. The X'Orn one though, were Wolverine cuts off his head and the next issue Mags is on island with Xavier was just bad writing.
@@jasonking3466 don't know about such instance, are you talking about his asteroid being hit in New Mutants #21? Or Doctor Doom just jumping from airship in Fantastic Four #17? Dr Doom is the one about fake-out deaths, and still, they weren't treated seriously
@@analu-alp1372 That's exactly what I am talking about. When the death of villains doesn't matter, why should the death of heroes?
I remember this being a big deal in my local comic shop, when each issue came out you'd see people buying it just to see if he was going to die or come back a few issues later
I experienced this in real time while working as an artist at Wildstorm. Sales started falling right after this. Marvel tried some shady $hit that back fired, and brought down the whole retailer eco-system. By 1999, a lot of comics were only selling about 45K copies.
The Death and Return of Superman happened at just the right time to become iconic. There was still a big market for traditional comics (I was part of it) and still a dominant traditional media to push the narrative. It's inconceivable now to imagine such a broad awareness of a comic book event in pop culture.
My dream is a world where all these changes actually stuck and comics didn't revert back to the status quo. Imagine if Clark stayed dead with Steel and Superboy having to carry on his legacy. Or if Hal stayed dead after becoming Parallax and Kyle was the permanent new Green Lantern. Or if Barry stayed dead and didn't push Wally out of the spotlight. Or if Peter actually was the clone and moved away with MJ while Ben took on the role of Spider-Man and training Miles. Or if Batman's back was prominently broken and Tim and Dick had to defeat Azrael themselves while Bruce took on the role that he has in Batman Beyond.
Problem is the books likely would not have sold as well and long time fans of those characters would have been alienated.
@@camerondalton1495 exactly
In hindsight I do wish that was the case though I think fans also wouldn't let that happen so fans are also to blame for this unfortunately. I sometimes like to imagine not only death sticking, but also instead of multiverses, we'd get family trees. Imagine a world where Batman and Superman started out in the 30s like they originally did, aged, and the mantles get passed on to their sidekicks or children. Every generation would have their own unique version of the same basic character. That said though, hindsight is 20/20 right? Back then no one thought those characters would become pop cultural icons like they are today.
@@edmaldonado8207 Yeah, fans were mad that Hal Jordan turned into a villain. I don't think they would've wanted their favorite characters to go out like that.
@@camerondalton1495 Yeah. I get it too.
I still have my trade version.
When I was a kid, I was a skulking presence at my local comic shop.
Hard to believe it's been 30yrs.
That's how I first got into it. Back in mid '93 I bought the "Death" and "Funeral for a Friend" trades, then I got Adventures #500, and dove straight into the weekly "Reign" arc. I loved every minute of it
Oh ya I remember going to the comic store to pick up my copy along with my pull list. The store was full of normie moms waiting in line to prick up a copy for their kids.
It’s still amazing how the story left so much of an impact not just in comics but the world over
i dont think it was that hype in japan tho....
I knew that the Reign of the Supermen and the return of Superman didn't draw the same kind of attention as the Death of Superman did, but it's fascinating to learn just how steeply the readership dropped off after the initial gimmick. Excellent video!
Thanks to speculators buying the death issue by the truckload thinking they could make a killing on them like some of the earliest superhero comics were getting. Once they realized it wasn't going to happen, they bailed. The people who were left were generally already reading the books, and if they were lucky, they picked up some new folks to replace the ones who may have stopped after the stunt.
I think one should also take into consideration, the fact that there was a very solid trade paperback of the entire saga, so people didn't have to hunt and peck down every issue. And I think that trade paperback was extremely popular. Which reminds me. I have the entire original series of this, and left it when I moved on accident.
I was a kid, but I was around when the Death of Superman became this big thing. And I recall it being predicted almost immediately that Superman would come back to life. It wasn't an unheard of thing in comics. But it's more disappointing how _quickly_ it happened. Right away DC went to work on the storyline that very clearly was going to have Superman return. And that really cheapened it, but also ruined an opportunity for them to do something different for at least a little while. Imagine if it had been a whole year before even the suggestion of Superman coming back? While DC probably would have still fumbled things, it could have been a far more interesting matter of the other heroes needing to fill that role and the DC world actually changing -- progressing forward in time -- in the absence of Superman.
But also, the better "death of Superman" story that unfortunately came after this was the one where Superman's very cells were no longer properly absorbing solar radiation and he had to prepare for his demise even as Luthor was concocting a way to take his place. If _that_ had been the story that ended in the actual burial of Superman I think it would have been a much more powerful and memorable matter. And again, the trick would have been to keep Superman dead for _at least_ a year if not two and have the ripples of it truly pass through the entire DC universe so that when they eventually lost their courage and brought him back there would be genuine changes in the narrative world and _maybe_ even a question of whether or not the DC universe _needed_ Superman. It's that latter question that I'm sure DC was the most scared of and purely for the financial impact it would represent.
But as I recall, it was a pretty short-lived stunt that was kind of like blink and you miss it. Because the whole thing was an act of desperation specifically to sell Superman comics.
I collected comics from 1985-1996ish. It was the Spider-man clone series that made check out. Your analysis is correct. I think the industry forgot how to just write a good story with one hero. Also, once you sell 4 million copies, anything less becomes a failure.
The opening video showing the announcement of Superman's death gets pretty Epic if we consider it an in-universe material. I literaly imagine that blonde reporter chick being a live-action version of Cat Grant
*Fun fact:* There is a "what if...?" Dark Multiverse story in which Lois obtains Clark's powers after his death and becomes a sociopathic killer that destroys everyone who gets in her way (including Batman). I love how accurate the author of this modern comic imitates the aesthetic of the 90s "Death of Superman" saga, especially the gorgeous design (brown and curly long hair, crimson full lips) Lois had at that time. A TRUE Superman fan 👍
Damn that's interesting.
Which Elseworlds (What If ...? is Marvel) comics does that happen in? I would check that out.
@@stevenfunderburg1623
Check the "Tales of the Dark Multiverse" one-shots
I own that whole collection! Fantastic!
@@stevenfunderburg1623 ... do you actually think Marvel has some kind of trademark on the term "what if"? It's a universally used term across all of fiction, lmao. If it didn't happen in the canonical main continuity, it's considered a what-if scenario.
It's annoying that the TV show could have that much influence on the source material that it held back the marriage of Clark and Lois, which ended up being rushed to match the show's doing the story. They were even forced to have the couple split up to hold on but then had to backpedal in one issue to get it all to happen and kind of weakened the whole experience.
This is an example of a comic death done right however. The death mattered in-universe, they explored how important Superman was to the DC universe, and we got +2 superheroes out of the deal when it was all done who are still appearing in comics today. It did do a few things wrong, like destroying Coast City in a non-Green Lantern comic (Coast City being Hal Jordan's city in the comics), but overall it was a great story, something that so much of the "eventitis" driven stories they make now fail to do by placing epicness and deconstruction over good storytelling. I would hope they'd back off from that in the future but there's no indication that in the trade-driven story structures they make now there's a chance they'll fix that mistake.
I read this as 10 year old and Bibbo always stuck with me-especially his generosity towards a kid who’s struggling at his bar. He lends him some money for the bus and he asks if there’s enough. He replies ‘there’s enough there for plane money! Kid’ Weird how that line stuck with me but I think it taught me the importance of being generous and kind in times of hardship.
You could almost equate the intent and scope of this story to the myth of Icarus. The universal reaction to the death of Superman representing the flight towards the sun. In my view, the short term planning and return of Superman represented the crash and burn.
Just hearing the words “Spider-Man: The Clone Saga” gives me a headache 🤕😂
The entire mess costed over 350 bucks, and I regret, i bought them all.
@@jmen4ever257 I’m not far behind, I bought about three quarters of it and I’m not even going to try and add up how much money I wasted on it. It’ll just make me cry.
The fall of comic sales also has to do with a maturing readership who lost interest in reading comics, and a generation never introduced to the comic book medium because of their computer screens, cellphones, and video games. There also are many who enjoy superhero movies but have never read a comic book, which some would argue is obvious due to the fact of how badly written and portrayed heroes are on the screen. For me the death of Superman was a story that in the end revealed another power and ability of the Man of Steel's in the form of being able to regenerate from near death and return to life. Just like when they turned Superman into Electric Blue and Electric Red Superman, I knew it was only temporary no matter how they tried to sell it and I simply enjoyed reading it all. And don't forget, when we speak of the (temporary) death of Superman we must also remember it was the (temporary) death of Doomsday, and Superman was the one and only hero capable of accomplishing the task.
can you rephrase that? more people enjoy superhero movies because the movies portray superhero Badley?
Not really, as kids nowadays still read japanese comics and they have far more tech then 90s kids. Its more how they were produced (and still are). In Japanese (and old) comics like shonen jump, each issue there are multiple stories from different writers and artists, meaning if you read shonen jump for one story, lets say one piece, you could also get interesting in another story like naruto, achieving the same effect comic events do without being as annoying or interfering with the stories, and then you throw the weekly/monthly issue away, and if you want to reread one story, you buy the volumes.
However western comics nowadays have 1 story each and are treated more like collectors items, where you collect each individual one and buy multiple of the same for "variants" and what not. If comics were produced like japanese comics, lets say dc released "Young dc" where they rolled most of their individual comics into each issue, then events would be less common and comics would also be cheaper and easier to get into.
I'm not sure where you're getting your ideas from. Growing up in the 90s, I was exposed to comics THROUGH my computer and video games and television. I'd have never known about them otherwise. My nephew, closing in on 10, is the same....his exposure to Superman was via videos and the lego games and whatnot. He found out about comics on his own.
I've been wanting a definitive version of the DC cinematic universe.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp To achieve a definitive DC cinematic universe the writers and directors must be superhero comic fans, understand and accept that the origins, relationships, and histories of the heroes are already established, perhaps we don't need their personal vision and lack of respect for the subject. Stop reinventing that which has already been invented, it's often not an improvement.
For me, it's that death isn't permanent in comics. I remember this event well, I was like 9 or so when it happened
They should have kept him dead.
Who else gives Owen an automatic thumbs up even before the video has started?
Amazing work as always, Owen. The nuance you add to big events in comic’s history is always top notch. Can’t wait for the next video. 🙌
I wish they had gone with an already established character to do it like Mongul. Using Doomsday means this is his most defining arc and Doomsday has been a boring yawn in every story afterwards.
Tbh i think that the short answer for this is that if Superman would never be made ( which thankfully he was), then we wouldnt have DC, we wouldnt have Image, We wouldnt have Marvel and all that, the reason "death of Superman" broke comics is because the most iconic and arguably the greatest superhero to ever be created has died, and i think that "death of Superman" has showned what our world has turned into by killing the most optimistic and hopefull character to ever live in fiction.
Wow... That was really nice & thoughtful.
I love Superman but when I hear the words optimistic and hopeful used to describe a fictional character, the character that comes to mind 1st is not clark but Luffy from One Piece
The modern audience became Lex Luthor sadly
The Death of Superman broke comics because he was brought back to life so quickly. The sales proved that and we were on our way to that already with Image starting in 1992.
Finally, someone explaining how non- comic book readers felt. They were ANGRY that such an iconic character was killed. Unlike so many comic book readers commenting here, there was no hint that he would come back to life. It was believed his death represented the last Superman comic to ever be written. His return, although a sigh of relief, was seen as a cynical response to all the protests.
Death of superman started a chain reaction of poorly planned event comics, that is still going to this day
"Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Secret Wars" had already done that about a decade before.
@THE_bchat eh not really. You'd think so but, COIE was completely planned out and was well executed by everyone involved. Whereas secret wars was made because marvel was approached by a toy company to do it. Death of Superman happened because DC just wanted to shake up sales, and what came after was a bit messy for other titles. And that did so well that marvel and DC have been doing half thought out events to get sales ever since. There are exceptions though.
@@husseinrose4883 Legends, Secret Wars II, Acts of Vengeance, Millenium, Xtinction Agenda, Armageddon 2001, Mutant Massacre, Inferno, Invasion, Infinity Gauntlet/War, and I'm probably missing a few. Marvel & DC saw that big events sold well because of "Crisis" & "Secret Wars", so they started cranking them out, long before "The Death of Superman".
This was the event that got me back into Superman fandom. I was a big Superman fan as a little kid because of the Christopher Reeve films, but as I got older I decided that Superman was lame and I was way more into characters like Todd MacFarlane's Spider-Man. So when I heard that Superman had been killed I was shocked. I started reading Superman comics starting with the Reign of the Supermen arc and loved it. That awesome Dan Jurgens 2-page spread of a restored Superman flying away from Engine City after defeating Henshaw practically made me stand up and cheer.
One thing I never understood about the death of Superman: When the media first reported it would happen, they described Doomsday as an "intergalactic escaped mental patient". Then, a few days later, the news had another story about mental health advocates protesting in the streets in front of DC offices. And so DC hurriedly removed all backstory from Doomsday, making the published story read oddly uneven. They later replaced Doomsday's origin with a one connected to Krypton, but it never seemed legit.
What I still don't understand is, why did they cave to protesters and diminish their story? And I would love to see someone fully document how it all occurred.
"why did they cave to protesters"
Reason$$$
I don't see it as diminishing their story. After all, none of that was actually present in the story. Doomsday was just a mysterious force when he killed Superman. His origins were never explored until Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey several years later.
But as for caving in, why not? After all, as mentioned, it really had no impact on the story they were telling. And plus, it's not a bad thing to realize that maybe it's not a good idea to compare a psychotic, mass murderer to mental patients.
That original idea was stupid
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Dan Jurgens at multiple cons with my dad. It’s awesome talking to him about this story and hearing what he thinks about adaptations of this story and seeing him interact with other creators from this era
This was an amazing video, well done Owen. When I was a kid I first heard about the death of Superman from my dad when he read it in the paper and it was the catalyst that got me into taking comic collecting more seriously, I never bought them to resell them when they went up in value, I bought them because I loved the stories. The Death and Return of Superman made me fall in love again with the character I had first been enamoured with through the Christopher Reeve films.
The idea of killing a sci-fi/fantasy character then bringing them back is a really good story idea, however like a good trick or spice, it really only works when it's only done rarely, the problem is everyone else jumping on the bandwagon! As the years passed everyone, Ironman, Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, Optimus Prime and let's not forget good old Kenny from South Park all got killed and came back and then it became silly.
The key is to kill the character, let life go on without them, then when things are at their worst they come back but most writers kill the character and bring him back within the same story. It's a good idea that's been copied improperly too many times.
Actually the responsible for doing that was the Dark Phoenix saga...
I honestly enjoyed the entire death and return of Superman storyline, the fight with Doomsday, the death and earned funeral of Superman, the reign of the supermen, and Superman's true return.
I remember buying two copies of that comic with the armband. One to keep and one to open and wear the armband.
Great essay, Owen.
I was ground floor at that time.
Marvel kid, but read Wally's books.
It was a shocker.
I hate the bubble burst all those years ago.
It's crazy that, while Marvel was destroying DC in book sales, they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
I was one of the few who didn't buy into the "Death of Superman" hype. I knew from the moment it was announced, it wasn't going to stick, no one ever stays dead in comics. I remember my dad was trying to get me into it "it'll be a collector's item" (he really didn't understand the industry as well as i did, he was just trying to be supportive). To this day, I shun all Death & Return of Superman related stuff, I just didn't buy into it because I knew it was a cheap gimmick.
We should all look back on the death of Superman storyline as one of The Greatest High points and low points of the comic book genre It paved the way for storylines like Batman Knightfall And Spider-Man's Clone Saga I realized the late 80s and early 90s had a struggling time for comic book sales but it was also the greatest time period for comic book sales I love comic books Since I was a kid watching Spider-Man the animated series at 4 years old Which introduce me to the comics of Spider-Man And Batman the animated series introduced me to Batman Knightfall Along with Superman the animated series introducing me to comic books Such as The death and return of Superman Thank you Owen once again for an inciting video regarding one of the greatest Superman stories to ever change the course of comics history as we know it
I admit, i actually thought this death would be permanent back then(i mean, death typically is permanent after all). The mid 80s to mid 90s was the "grimdark" era of comics back then. I figured DC would make some lousy anti hero to take Supes' place as the cornerstone hero. Thankfully it didn't stick, although Batman got simliar treatment with "Knighfall", and about 4 years later after the grimdark era was at last put to bed. Kingdom Come was the unofficial rebuttal of the last decade of grimdark, followed by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's runs on JLA. The late 90s really turned things around for the industry.
Really? I had no question he'd be resurrected. Was just a big gimmick to me.
I much, MUCH preferred the art and writing of the first half of the 90s.
I have never actually seen a video on this story arc & I have to say this is very interesting. Great work.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The build up, the Death, the return, and the outcome of this run was actually really good. The problem is that now it’s done to death (no pun intended) and the character always comes back shortly after, it’s used as a gimmick now
Superman's death and Batman's broken back, by Bane, put the characters in the forefront. I was collecting Superman comics when artist John Bryne revamped him in the late 80s, early 90s.
That was Pre Zero Hour Dc as Well( They are in DC Convergence).
The death of comic books started with the over complication of a simple superhero, the sheer number of superheroes left a yawning gap between them and any possible villains to fight. It all went from backstreet thugs mugging old ladies to literally unbelievable intergalactic super villains. Then came the old multiverse, which confused the hell out of every one. It all simply went up its own A$$ Hole.
I still have my copies. One opened and two unopened.
The Death of Superman start a whole new cult for comics in the 90s, a lot of comic books shops opened by that time, and the death of superman has a lot to do with that, the death of superman gave a new energy to the comics in the 90s
Image & Valiant were already super popular by the time "The Death of Superman" rolled around, and comic shops were opening because of them. No need to rewrite history.
When this happened, I was sin Boston. It was MASSIVE NEWS!!!!! I remembered how stunned I was that he was killed, and I was/am a Marvel fan back then...everyone was talking about it...
Here's the problem - the deaths became unbelievable. Batman getting his back broken is novel, Spider-Man being a clone is just disrespectful for the reader, but Onslaught destroying the entire Marvel universe is downright dumb. Nobody believed Marvel would just wipe the slate clean, and there's only so much good will that a reader will grant. DC played Superman's death really well (the resurrection left a bit to be desired), but every other event around that time just so clearly looked like a cash grab
Just had the chance to talk to Dan Juergens yesterday and man… what a chill guy. I asked him how it felt to be the guy that wrote the death of superman and how it felt to be recognized as the writer for that being so huge as an event. I loved his response. “I felt a bit conceited like im the man you know?” I feel like everyone would feel that way.
Thank you for this Video. As a Comic book reader back in 80s and 90s I can say this Series from the Death of Superman Did kill the entire comic book industry creating a frenzy of books sold to people who only purchased the books to Sell for profit after comics made multiple Covers for books and started sealing comics in plastic. It destroyed the market for readers.
You truly are a wonderful storyteller and you deserve a standing ovation for your work on this event! One of the very best Superman stories ever written and I certainly think that you did an excellent job explaining the ins and outs and the ups and downs of its execution! Your videos are truly incredible. This story was so powerful and emotional. It truly is a staple of Comic Book history! Excellent job with this presentation! A Superman series I will always look back on fondly for sure!
The death of Superman represented the height of the hubris of the comic industry. They were pandering to people who dodgy understand why Action Comics #1. is so expensive. They just wanted the next Action comics #1 without the scarcity.
90s DC was peak and their stories hold up so much better than it’s competitors. DC had a lot of great runs/stories:
Grant Morrison’s JLA, Doom patrol and Animal Man.
Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come.
Knightfall, Legends of the Dark Knight, and all of the Bat Title spinoffs (Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman, Birds of Prey) by Chuck Dixon and co which were all very good.
Mark Waid’s legendary Flash run
Starman and the Golden Age by James Robinson
The Long Halloween
Kyle Rayner taking over the Green Lantern mantle, and the Green Lantern runs of Emerald Twilight and Emerald Dawn
Justice League international and its spinoffs
Garth Ennis’s Hitman and his underrated Etrigan the Demon run
The Spectre by John Ostrander
The Power of Shazam
Superman For All Sesons
JLA Year One and Justice League The Nail
JSA mini runs were all very good and the JSA finding their footing in the DC universe post Crisis. Plus the beginning to Geoff Johns epic JSA run
The Vertigo line which included Hellblazer, Sandman and the Preacher
The main man Lobo (which was pretty self aware and poked fun of the “extreme” and violence in 90s comics)
Aquaman, Young Justice, and Supergirl by Peter David which were all very fun
The Superman Triangle era, and while the Death Of Superman is definitely peak 90s for better or worse, it was a pretty epic run which brought us DC mainstay characters such as Superboy and Steel.
Legion of Superheroes and Legionnaires
DC in the 90s had a sense of legacy, characters grew into their new mantles rather than being shoehorned in (the Flash, Starman, Kyle Rayner, Azarel, and the titles felt more serialized, and only crossed over for an event every few years. I like the whole vibe, each character and team felt like they had their own little corner within the DC universe. Marvel was the “cool kid” in the 90s and the numbers show that, but overall most of the criticisms are pretty tired, particularly when there was a lot of quality runs coming our in thats decade, particularly at DC
The rare instance where the remake is better than the original!
The only real reason why this worked for DC was because they had Time/Warner's entire news division behind them. When Marvel released X-Men #1, even though they had 5 different covers, Did not have anywhere the same amount of mainstream media leading up to the issues release!
Imo All Star Superman was the best Superman story. Seeing Supes as a vulnerable good man trying to make things right before his impending demise actually made me cry. He was still Clark Kent, Jon and Matha's baby boy from Smallville. Raised to help people and live a honest humble life. Even when that life was soon to end.
Hal Jordan dying made me stop buying comics for 10 years, they done my boy dirty. I eventually came back, for a period at least - up to when the new 52 started, and hunted down the Green Lantern issues I had not purchased in revolt.
Deaths for heroes used to have meaning. Bucky, Flash, Supergirl, Valerie Richards, Jason Todd, Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, Mr. Terrific. Now its just a plot device. I remember the recent deaths of Wolverine and Captain America. Those deaths almost seemed real at the time. I don't even understand how they came back to life.
the creation of Doomsday gives me flashbacks to the Simpsons when the Simpsons created the new Itchy & Scratchy character of Poochy
My first child, a son, was due to be born February, 1993. I went to the local comic shop every month or whatever in 1992 and paid anywhere from $70-100 per comic to give to my son as a collectible down the road. I didn't know at the time DC was flooding the market. So, bottom line, I couldn't get the price TODAY out of these comics that I paid back in 1992 to get them. My takeaway is that the industry is about profit and not giving the best experience to the fans.
I honestly don't entirely buy the part of the story where DC always intended to bring the original back. I think that's PR and retcon. I think DC saw that Marvel was killing them in sales and wanted to Marvel-ize their iconic heroes, perceived as "out of date". They needed to be "re-imagined for modern audiences" (a plague on comics to this very day)
So Superman gets killed in order to replace him with the best-selling of 4 market-savvy, hip-wow-now, "better" Supermen. But none of them turned out to have the necessary gravitas, though DCe salvaged Superboy and John Henry Irons as spinoff heroes. As the video points out, the failure of Superman's re-imagining didn't stop DC from attempting to Marvel-ize the rest of their flagship heroes. All failing as far as I know.
The moral of the story is really, "Don't let outside forces like Sales and Marketing dictate your characters."
They should have kept him dead.
I was managing a comic store during the death of Superman and it was INSANE! On a Saturday we made over 30.000 dollars in sales just selling that one book in black with the iconic bloody red S.
A key additional point is Investors, not readers, were fueling the boom in the 90s. Some journalist pointed out that iconic issues of classic comics outperformed most other investments in the long run. Demand surged for these issues sold to old guys who never intended to turn a page. They overbought and the industry was happy to oversell, but they didn't know when to slow it back down. Unfortunately, no one in the comic book industry has read about the Tulip Bulb crash 100 years earlier.
I think the Death of Superman was the most misunderstood event in comic book history. The whole point of Superman's death is that... he didn't truly die at all. He didn't cheat death, he wasn't resurrected nor was the timeline altered or anything like that, he was just plain not dead. The whole point of the event is that it was a "gotcha" while also reminding us that our heroes are unbreakable and that's a good thing. Instead, people saw this as "well if Superman's status quo of being invincible can be broken, any character's defining status quo can be too and death is just a temporary state". It's a shame because that was the whole point that everyone missed and most people still do; it was NOT the death of death nor the death of Superman at all because the big reveal was that Superman was NEVER dead. His status quo wasn't broken. He was just badly injured for the first time and needed time to recover.
The image at 27:55 hits me for a different reason: his best friend is Jimmy Olson. He loved him, too. We don't get enough male friendships in modern fiction. Jimmy was an audience surrogate, the regular guy who becomes friends with a god. And Jimmy was the regular guy a god became friends with.
I love your vídeos Owen! As a suggestion, I would like to see your analysis about the confusing Donna Troy origin stories. Take care!
Great suggestion!
Death of Superman, Nightfall, and Hal turning into Parallax are still some of my favorite stories. I reread them every few years. There are some negative side effects that persisted ever since, mostly all the endless event-driven mega-crossovers, many with superficial "tie-ins" that often contributed nothing more than someone acknowledging an event was happening in the universe. Dan Jurgens Superman is the definitive Superman for me. Any time I read through the triangle years, I always get excited to read Superman over the other three series. When I was a kid, I had a single comic subscription come in the mail and that was Jurgens' Superman.
I think it made the shock value of death too prominent in comics esp with him coming back. Now death is nothing i comics cause, like superman, we know they will be back. Hell ms marvel died and is back within a month
Great video. The Death of Superman trade paperback is what made me a life long fan of comic books and their characters. I've read it MANY times over the past 40 years. For my age group, this book...was everything. The only downside was like you said, the entire industry became too event heavy. Thankfully the books bounced back to respectable numbers and acclaim during the early aughts due to the intro of Ultimate Spider-Man
Kamala Khan dies
Funeral for Kamala Khan: Wednesday
Announcement of Kamala Khan coming back: Friday
Death is a joke in superhero comics nowadays... thanks, Death of Superman!!
They should have kept him dead.
City of Heroes killed off their Superman homage during issue one and never brought him back.
I was 9 years old and captivated. DC lifer 💯
My big problem with Death of Superman is that they brought him back at all. Reign of the Supermen was a good idea, having these disparate successors popping trying to fill Superman's shoes up is a very interesting story. But to use them mainly as a vessel to bring the original Superman back, I think, was a mistake. Admittedly, Steel and Superboy did get their own titles, but it would have been nice if they had gotten to keep Man of Steel and Adventures of Superman as *their* books, you know?
Separate but relatedly, Superman's "4 monthly titles that are actually 1 weekly title" was very confusing, especially to all the people that Death of Superman was bringing into comics for the first time. Having each successor take one was a good idea, marred by the fact that once Superman returned, they immediately went back to doing one title disguised as 4.
The worst part is they were so close to what I think would have been a better solution, but I'm not about to "I could have done it better" maybe the most important 90s comic story.
Reagarding the challenge to find someone who hasn't at least heard about the death of Superman. We comic readers tend to overestimate the significance of these things. My wife wouldn't have a clue that Superman once died, or know a single Superman story, so I found someone immediately. Almost no one I work with would know. Most people know nothing about these things.
You're the only person I know who is aware of Superman's death- and I don't know you.
Great point!
the absolute best time of comics,......my father died at the same time, like, literaly, funeral for a friend got me thru a really bad time, i was 12, my dad would bring me to the comic shop, but then he died, so did superman. it all happened at once, somehow, that really helped.
The truth is that the comic book industry has been dying for decades with every passing generation. The main fans of DC and Marvel is the late baby boomers to the early generation X. With the invent of Video games, the internet to the current smartphones comic books has become a relic of a bygone era. In fact comic books has become a form of a commodity with the comic book store and conventions.
When my co-workers told me in 1993 that Superman had died, I scoffed and said, "Pffff, like he's gonna stay dead!"
Sure enough, he was alive and kicking again before the year was out.
They should have kept him dead.
Bro wtf that bimbo line and readin brought me to tears 13:53
I have to admit... The insistance on Superhero comics or at least the Big Two, on sticking to a single continuity is also a reason why deaths have no meaning. If they planned ahead and rebooted every 10 years or so, deaths and the like would be more impactful.
It's less that continuity is a factor. It's more a case of reluctance by the big two to let popular characters die and remain dead. Bruce Wayne's death defeating Darkseid in Final Crisis. Kraven the Hunter ending his own life in Kraven's Last Hunt. Green Goblin impaled by his own glider. Jean Grey choosing to die in the Dark Phoenix Saga. These are all key moments with defining characterisation that brought all these characters to a satisfying narrative conclusion. But Marvel and DC just can't let them go.
@@pious83 I think there is a difference between say batmans death that was never intended to be permanent and say kraven where the death was intended to be permeant until later writers intervened
@@FemboyCatGaming That difference shouldn't have existed in the first place. Bruce Wayne was given a fitting end. A mere man facing down the God of Evil. In the follow up story - Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader? He was given an effective send off too. Wherein it was stated there will always be a Batman. But it won't always be Bruce Wayne. Morrison should have omitted any reference to his return. Dick and Damian were the new Dynamic Duo. Which paid homage to the legacy of the mantle.
@@pious83 the ending of whatever happened the cape crusader is that Bruce Wayne will always be Batman. His reward for dying is getting a brief period of happiness as a child before being Batman again. There is a reason why you see many deaths of Bruce Wayne. He’s trapped in an eternal cycle
@@FemboyCatGaming Well no. You’re confusing stories. The ‘death loop’ plays out in Morrison’s Return of Bruce Wayne. ‘Whatever Happened’ is Neil Gaiman. It’s metaphor. The end you cite is Bruce Wayne saying goodbye to his life. Having it all flash before his eyes before he finally lets go. The quote I cited happened before that last scene.
the main problem of American comics is that they are focused on a roster of characters, while Japanese manga is about making a complete story and move on to the next story with new characters. This allows Japanese manga to tap easier on novelty than American comics can, this is why American comics get trapped in the idea of going up and up with higher and more powerful enemies and heroes, disconnecting from regular people and running out of imagination and this is why they were forced to kill superman, because it was the only way to tap into novelty, watching superman kill yet another supervillain every new arc was not novel enough, killing superman was the only novel thing left for them to try.
This killed death in comics. After this, nothing was permanent. Readers lost interest when there are no real stakes, and that has largely persisted until today. Comics in a way have stagnated ever since (from the major publishers). Comics effectively act as ways to maintain IP of existing properties, which means little changes. There is also, unfortunately, nothing new in terms of creating new properties unless they act to expand the reach or readership of an existing one. Can you imagine Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel being printed today? I can't.
The one thing I remember most at that time (other than Superman's death)... Doomsday literally beat the entire Justice League with one arm tied behind his back.
The point of it wasn't to kill Superman, of course. The title and plot were a homage to a classic story, and it was meant to draw attention to the great work the Superman creative teams were doing. In that sense, it succeeded because sales remained higher for a good while. In another sense, the event signaled the beginning of a slow erosion in the quality of the books, so by the time a lot of people were noticing the comics, their prime era was fading. Perez had already left Action. Ordway left Superman. Jurgens gave up art and only wrote. The books were still good, but not quite as good as before, and something about them just felt different than before.
Great watch. Thank you for all the research and effort put into this
Glad you enjoyed it!
7:32-7:33 Wait, I spy members of others' rogues galleries. Like Cheeta (Wonderwoman), Two-face (Batman), Catwoman (Batman), Riddler (Batman) Captain Cold (Flash), Black Adam (Shazam), and Black Manta (Aquaman).
8:12 Okay, a bit pedantic, but I think "genetically engineered Kryptonian abomination" fits a bit better than "...Kryptonian deformity."
You're wrong. Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths did it first. Watchmen did it because it started a trend of deconstructing the genre and Crisis did it because it started a trend of grand events oriented stories
Oh please. Everyone who heard about this (or read comics/watched tv) KNEW that he was not dead/wouldn't stay dead, that it was just a gimmick to sell alternative covers. THAT is what broke the comic book industry. 'Cause one moment he was dead, two episodes later he was alive. And everyone who who didn't know that and spent their allowance money thinking it was going to be worth something was giving away the comic book for free.
It was neither iconic nor cleaver.
Also the tag line that documentaries presented as the motivation was "what if superman faced the hulk." And not in that amalgam or dc v marvel bs.
I can still go back and re-read this epic saga, and it hits just as hard as always. I love that it's told in three acts: His death is just a kickass battle spread across several issues with each one building to #75 told in just full on splash pages. The Funeral for a Friend issues are beautiful, meditative moments for the characters and readers. And his return is another epic saga bringing together a variety of characters into one big confrontation. So overall, it's still a good story. Very well done in terms of pacing and storytelling.
But like all things that make money, the corporate suits took away the wrong lesson and just wanted to rinse and repeat hoping for the exact same level of success. It's very much the exact same thing that happened with the MCU. They made so much money, others rushed out to repeat that success and bombed spectacularly. The reason is they only see the bottom line. All those dollar signs. And not the context that led to that success.
All of these events caused an over speculation in the comic book market. Not every comic that was considered sold was truly sold. These sold comics where being counted only to the comic shops, not the general population. The market became over saturated with all of these events. People that were not real fans, but investors, found out that these new books were not valued the same as the original classic golden or silverage books. Most of the comics from the 70s and 80's had to do with the introduction of new characters that had later gained popularity. And all of these books had low print runs.
Not only did "The Death of #Superman" eventually have a detrimental impact from a business standpoint, killing characters only to bring them back to life has always been a pet peeve of mine. Jason Todd's resurrection bothers me more, and Avengers: Endgame represents the most egregious example of this given that half a universe is resurrected, but "The Death of Superman" set a precedent. Resurrecting characters lessens the impact of the death in question and others and also reduces the stakes moving forward. I often cite one of the most brilliant decisions made for The Dark Knight Trilogy being the omission of Lazarus Pits. Chris Nolan and co. managed to retain the spirit of Ra's al Ghul being immortal by having him continue to haunt Bruce in Liam Neeson's The Dark Knight Rises cameo in The Pit without actually using a Lazarus Pit. I was ecstatic when the Lazarus Pits were destroyed in the Arrowverse, although by that point, the damage had been done. Despite these complaints of mine however, I love #BATMANvSUPERMAN and #JusticeLeague, I consider The Death of Superman to be the best film in the Damian Wayneverse, and I am immensely enjoying S4 of Superman & Lois so far. I also am very fond of Doomsday as a character, with the adaptation in S8 of Smallville being my favorite iteration. A lot of amazing things did come from this event.
Because I was a kid at the time, Superboy was my favourite of the supermen.
"I challange you to find someone who hasn't at least heard about the time superman was killed"
Bro, that's literally me before this video popped on my yt feed.
I was watching at the time. The real reason it hit so hard was because it was a slow news day nationally. The cable news networks picked up the story and it just caught on at the right hour and took off.
the thing is comic books were on the high of a fad in the early 90s. there were new series being tried out everywhere by everything especially archie comics. dc just had perfect timing to have their most important story at the peak of it. and maybe it's because i'm obsessed with teenage mindsets, but i love superboy being a character added and having a pseudo father/uncle relationship with his clone - at least before they made him all grouchy because he's now part luthor.