Superman 80th Anniversary Thread

[The Laughing Fish]

I was reading a back issue of Action Comics #542 (1983) a few days ago, and the story began with Superman and Lois arguing over his habit of constantly cutting their dates short every time an emergency appears. Lois accuses Superman of using his duties as an excuse because he's depriving himself from committing to a normal relationship and having a life. How does he react? As soon as Lois leaves, Superman not only punches a boulder in anger, he flies past two crises happening in Metropolis at that very moment and ignored any calls for his help. All because Lois' words had cut him so deep that he became oblivious to his surroundings.

Hahaha, and to think the average Superman know-it-all on Twitter argues he needs to be an abstract figure of "hope" and are too busy focused on how many times he smiles. Now, I'm not saying example I've describe is a perfect way to write how Superman should have a dilemma. What I'm saying is Superman can be given humane traits, both upstanding and flawed, like every other comic book character. Depriving him of that not only ignores his history, but ruins his relevance in pop culture.

[The Laughing Fish]

Here is a good review of the SNES version of The Death and Return of Superman.

As I said, the game is pretty faithful to the whole Death of Superman saga, but they definitely could've taken a page out of Maximum Carnage's book by adding different comic panels during cut scenes.

It's going to take a lot of innovation, and even risk taking, to make a successful Superman game. Right now, Superman-related games are limited to Injustice fighting games or boss battles e.g. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. I suppose game companies find it easier to make a story about Superman going bad.

[The Joker]

Wizard Superman character profile from May 1996:

[The Laughing Fish]

The original creative team behind The Death of Superman are reuniting for a new 30th Anniversary 80-page special.

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2022/07/27/death-of-superman-anniversary-special-with-stories-from-original-teams

[The Joker]

Now this brings back some memories.

[Travesty]

I remember the build up, and I also remember having to go to different comic shops to finally find a copy. It was sold out everywhere.

[The Dark Knight]

I remember the build up, and I also remember having to go to different comic shops to finally find a copy. It was sold out everywhere.

As a young kid it was the electric blue Superman story captured my imagination. At first it was disappointment and disgust that Superman no longer wore the red and blue, had bullets pass through him and used pure energy powers. But not long after that my apprehension became excitement. It was never going to last full time, but I enjoyed the experiment while it lasted and think the stunt had creative merit. I like those big, life changing events in fictional characters' lives and even if they were done to stoke declining sales, it felt like the Superman property was on the front foot. Back then it felt like the comics still mattered, but it seems much less so now.

[The Joker]

I remember the build up, and I also remember having to go to different comic shops to finally find a copy. It was sold out everywhere.

Yes. The build up to "Superman Vol. 2 #75" was pretty substantial for the time, and I too remember that day fairly vividly. My dad drove me around to 2-3 comic stores that day, and I distinctly remember every one had a sign or signs stating that #75 was "one per customer". Luckily, I was able to get the black bagged edition, and one first print regular edition to read. Going home that day and seeing the local and national news stations actually acknowledge this story line, just furthered how much of an "Event" this truly was.

I wasn't really a regular comic reader when "Spider-Man #1" with Todd McFarlane, or "X-Men #1" with Jim Lee pulling art duties, came out, so I can't really speak to that. However, with as many "big" things that came out of the 1990's like, for instance, the onset of Image Comics with Spawn, Wildcats, Youngblood, ect, the Knightfall storyline featuring the breaking of Batman's back, Wolverine losing his adamantium, the major shift during the "Clone Saga", and attempt to revamp the entire line of Spidey books with Ben Reilly, Hal Jordan losing the mantle of Green Lantern following becoming Parallax, "Infinity Gauntlet", "Heroes Reborn/Return", Onslaught, ect ect ect ..... ALL of it pales in comparison to the impact Superman Volume 2 #75 had the day of release.

That was truly one for the ages.

[thecolorsblend]

Yes. The build up to "Superman Vol. 2 #75" was pretty substantial for the time, and I too remember that day fairly vividly. My dad drove me around to 2-3 comic stores that day, and I distinctly remember every one had a sign or signs stating that #75 was "one per customer". Luckily, I was able to get the black bagged edition, and one first print regular edition to read. Going home that day and seeing the local and national news stations actually acknowledge this story line, just furthered how much of an "Event" this truly was.

I wasn't really a regular comic reader when "Spider-Man #1" with Todd McFarlane, or "X-Men #1" with Jim Lee pulling art duties, came out, so I can't really speak to that. However, with as many "big" things that came out of the 1990's like, for instance, the onset of Image Comics with Spawn, Wildcats, Youngblood, ect, the Knightfall storyline featuring the breaking of Batman's back, Wolverine losing his adamantium, the major shift during the "Clone Saga", and attempt to revamp the entire line of Spidey books with Ben Reilly, Hal Jordan losing the mantle of Green Lantern following becoming Parallax, "Infinity Gauntlet", "Heroes Reborn/Return", Onslaught, ect ect ect ..... ALL of it pales in comparison to the impact Superman Volume 2 #75 had the day of release.

That was truly one for the ages.

To piggyback off this a little bit, I always thought the whole Doomsday/Funeral For A Friend/Reign Of The Supermen trilogy of stories was fascinating. I mean, the stories themselves are good. Obviously.

But the meat and potatoes of how people processed those stories.

The Doomsday storyline was definitely one for the ages. But I also think it was one for the masses as well. Pretty much anybody could buy those issues as they came out and follow I'll say 90% of the story. Maybe they didn't understand what Underworld was, what the Justice League was, how Lex Luthor came about becoming a svelte 20-something a beard and long hair or why Supergirl suddenly turned into gray Jell-O when Doomsday punched her. But they were able to follow the central premise of the story. Namely, that Superman kicks the bucket. Not to sound snooty, but Doomsday is for the masses. And Funeral For A Friend was for anyone with a heart.

But Reign Of The Supermen? That one was for THE FANS. If you didn't have a working knowledge of Superman comics starting from at least 1989 going into 1992, very little about Reign Of The Supermen would've made sense to you. ROTS pivots on Hank Henshaw, Mongul, Warworld, the Eradicator/Krypton Man and other stuff which was super obscure at the time. I've often wondered what a jarring experience it must have been for new readers to go from a largely accessible story like Doomsday to a super emotional story like FFAF and then got tossed right into the deep end with a nigh-impenetrable story ROTS.

I remember when ROTS was coming out trying to explain what Supergirl was all about to someone. "Well, she's a protoplasmic shapeshifting clone of Lana Lang from a parallel universe who came to this universe, fell in love with Lex Luthor and became allies with Superman". His eyes crossed after the seventh or eighth word.

Apparently, the original plan was to simply and cleanly bring Superman back from the dead in Adventures Of Superman #500. But after Doomsday became a huge media spectacle, the creative team completely redesigned the storyline where Superman comes back to life. They added in bunches of new twists and turns and red herrings and surprises. New storylines, new characters, new everything.

I can't prove that they wanted to craft ROTS to be a valentine to the fans who followed the character BEFORE Doomsday came along. But I wouldn't be surprised if that was exactly what they had in mind.

Anyway, to your original point, I think the fact that Superman is such an iconic character and the Doomsday storyline is so easy to follow is why that comic book event tends to stand out far above most of the other things you mention.

What I've always found amusing is that the Batman office was all in with Knightfall. After a certain point, the wheels were in motion and nobody could stop them. It came as a big surprise to Denny O'Neil when he found out what the Superman office was up to with Doomsday. By that point, he couldn't stop what was already in progress. But he did say at least once that if he'd known what was going on with the Superman books, he never would've allowed Knightfall to happen because it looked (to some people) like the Batman titles were copying what the Superman titles were doing and that just wasn't true at all.

The mindboggling thing is that you could argue that Knightfall/Knightquest/KnightsEnd were FAR better planned and executed than the Superman stuff. In January of 1992, the Batman creative teams largely knew exactly what they would be publishing in July of 1994. I sometimes think the Batman titles will never get the full amount of praise they deserve for their concepts and executions simply because they're so superficially similar to what the Superman titles did and, let's face it, Superman got their story out first (by accident).

[The Joker]

To piggyback off this a little bit, I always thought the whole Doomsday/Funeral For A Friend/Reign Of The Supermen trilogy of stories was fascinating. I mean, the stories themselves are good. Obviously.

But the meat and potatoes of how people processed those stories.

The Doomsday storyline was definitely one for the ages. But I also think it was one for the masses as well. Pretty much anybody could buy those issues as they came out and follow I'll say 90% of the story. Maybe they didn't understand what Underworld was, what the Justice League was, how Lex Luthor came about becoming a svelte 20-something a beard and long hair or why Supergirl suddenly turned into gray Jell-O when Doomsday punched her. But they were able to follow the central premise of the story. Namely, that Superman kicks the bucket. Not to sound snooty, but Doomsday is for the masses. And Funeral For A Friend was for anyone with a heart.

I agree. That's a fair statement, and a good point. The Doomsday/Death story line was absorbing and simplistic enough that engaging new readers to climb on board the Superman books was indeed a thing (I think Dan Jurgens has spoke to this numerous times). I was certainly one of them, and yeah, to be perfectly honest, I remember being a bit confused seeing Supergirl's face become jell-o, and Lex Luthor with a beard and hair, but the fun in all of that back then was going back to the back issue bin and finding out!

But Reign Of The Supermen? That one was for THE FANS. If you didn't have a working knowledge of Superman comics starting from at least 1989 going into 1992, very little about Reign Of The Supermen would've made sense to you. ROTS pivots on Hank Henshaw, Mongul, Warworld, the Eradicator/Krypton Man and other stuff which was super obscure at the time. I've often wondered what a jarring experience it must have been for new readers to go from a largely accessible story like Doomsday to a super emotional story like FFAF and then got tossed right into the deep end with a nigh-impenetrable story ROTS.

I remember when ROTS was coming out trying to explain what Supergirl was all about to someone. "Well, she's a protoplasmic shapeshifting clone of Lana Lang from a parallel universe who come to this universe, fell in love with Lex Luthor and became allies with Superman". His eyes crossed after the seventh or eighth word.

Apparently, the original plan was to simply and cleanly bring Superman back from the dead in Adventures Of Superman #500. But after Doomsday became a huge media spectacle, the creative team completely redesigned the storyline where Superman comes back to life. They added in bunches of new twists and turns and red herrings and surprises. New storylines, new characters, new everything.

I can't prove that they wanted to craft ROTS to be a valentine to the fans who followed the character BEFORE Doomsday came along. But I wouldn't be surprised if that was exactly what they had in mind.

Yes indeed. As a very new reader to Superman in 1992, the Post-Crisis Superman continuity was distinctly different than what was readily available with Superman, as far as tv shows and movies go, but damn was it good stuff. The Superman crew at DC Comics making the decision to put emphasis on Superman's supporting characters and such just made the backdrop of Metropolis feel that much grander in scale, and as a consequence, more intriguing to read about. To me, the Superman cast of characters at that time, was one those vital Post-Crisis 'updates' that really worked in it's favor.

Anyway, to your original point, I think the fact that Superman is such an iconic character and the Doomsday storyline is so easy to follow is why that comic book event tends to stand out far above most of the other things you mention.

Yeah, I guess so. DC was known as being very emphasized on continuity at the time, but with Marvel, ideally something like "Infinity Gantlet" should be as easily accessible to new readers as something like "Secret Wars" was back in the '80's, but I'm not sure if it was or not? I think something like "Heroes Reborn" simply came too late. As, sure, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld returning to Marvel comics seemed like a big deal, but this was (i think) following the big speculator bubble bursting during the mid 90's, and whatever impact those guys might have had on Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers, was just flat out diminished due to the climate of the entire industry that stage....

Ha! Your comment about attempting to explain the protoplasmic shapeshifting being that was Supergirl at the time instantly reminds me of occurrences where I attempted to explain the Spider-Man "Clone Saga" (yeah, good luck!), or getting that 'deer in the headlights' look whenever mentioning the differences between Pre-Crisis/Post-Crisis, ect.

"Yeah, well there's three different Supermen. Three different Wonder Women."

"Uhhhh ........." 

What I've always found amusing is that the Batman office was all in with Knightfall. After a certain point, the wheels were in motion and nobody could stop them. It came as a big surprise to Denny O'Neil when he found out what the Superman office was up to with Doomsday. By that point, he couldn't stop what was already in progress. But he did say at least once that if he'd known what was going on with the Superman books, he never would've allowed Knightfall to happen because it looked (to some people) like the Batman titles were copying what the Superman titles were doing and that just wasn't true at all.

The mindboggling thing is that you could argue that Knightfall/Knightquest/KnightsEnd were FAR better planned and executed than the Superman stuff. In January of 1992, the Batman creative teams largely knew exactly what they would be publishing in July of 1994. I sometimes think the Batman titles will never get the full amount of praise they deserve for their concepts and executions simply because they're so superficially similar to what the Superman titles did and, let's face it, Superman got their first (by accident).

I can see how Denny's Batman crew could study and improve upon their own execution with Superman's titles hitting the bases first, but I guess they were not without their own risks as well. I recall Denny O'Neil stating he was mortified at the thought that readers would end up loving the more brutal Azbats during the whole Knightquest arc. Which didn't happen of course, but there was some validity to his concerns. The '90's most definitely had it's share of violent superheroes, and it was a thing. Enough of a thing to concern Denny at least.