The Death of Superman: The Comic That Captured The 90s
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2020
- Joe Corallo joins the show to talk about The Death of Superman... the comic event in the 90s that became a legacy for DC and defined a decade for comics. From the storyline's hasty beginnings to the sell-out phenomenon that will go down as the only time in history Mike Carlin will ever have a line wrapped around a Macy's for his signature... The Death of Superman is one of comic's biggest stories ever. We break down how it happened, the reaction in the shops, the quality of the omnibus and much, much more.
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I loved that entire post Crisis run on Superman. They made him unique again, the sole Kryptonian again. De powered him, he felt like he wasn't omnipotent any longer, no more Kryptonite crutch where Vinnie the Eel had a suitcase of Kryptonite. Superman wasn't all knowing...he was like a normal guy seeing these insane things sometimes for the first time and not always knowing what to do.
Agreed the John Bryne set up did a hell of a lot right and Dan Jurgens still has one of best takes on superman (his return to the character a few years back was great)
Powerful but not absurd, actually the last of his kind, the relationships are more stripped down and more natural.
Post crisis superman was great
Also the animated series line was along similar lines and I started watching that aw well and like much of that take
I was a child when this came out and loved it. I honestly cried when Superman died.
The continuity stuff never bothered me. Although, I do remember thinking when Doomsday punched Supergirl and she turned into a purple thing that was some kind of new power Doomsday had.
Great video death of superman is what got me into comics
I was 10 and I thought he was gone for ever. My Mom and Uncle, who both knew comics were telling me he would be back, but I didn't believe them. He was dead and DC would never be the same... I remember apologizing to my Mom when he returned.
Here's the irony: the stated editorial reason, according to Mike Carlin, was to draw attention to the exceptional quality of the Superman books at that time. They were lauded as the best mainstream superhero comics by Comics Buyers' Guide, but they lacked the hype and sales that X-Men received. The Death storyline certainly provided the sales they were missing, but it also forever changed the character of the books and caused them to slide from the post-Byrne creative apex of 1987-1992.
Sure, they were still good, but not quite of the elite quality they had seen during the previous five years or so. After this event, Jerry Ordway, perhaps the flagship creator at that time, moved on. Jurgens started transitioning from writer/artist over to merely writing. They still had Roger Stern and Louise Simonson for a while longer, plus Karl Kesel, but it wasn't quite as impressive a lineup overall as it had been. The books were still good, sometimes very good, but not as amazing as they had been a few years earlier when Ordway, Perez, and Jurgens were all working as writer/artists on the same character at the same time. This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the "Death of Superman".
Another weird footnote I've always wondered about was the origins of Doomsday. He was described in the original press release as an "escaped mental patient". Then, only a week later, I read an article in the newspaper that DC's offices were being protested by mental health activists, so DC promised to "make changes". When Doomsday finally appeared, he had no origin, and it felt like something was missing. I've always wondered if the "mental patient" aspect was cut out at the last minute, which explains why the Death storyline was so imbalanced from a writing standpoint. Apparently, the Doomsday we got was very different, at least between the ears, than the one originally envisioned.
This is the comic that cost me about a thousand dollars. I had a pretty big comic collection but I had not bought a comic for years. Then one day I was browsing through a bookstore and I saw this comic. I thought wow, this can't be true. It brought me back into buying comics. I eventually left the fold again when I saw all the perversions being introduced into the industry.
Jesus, I complain a lot about comics, but at least I didn't loose a 1000 bucks.
If only the same was true for my steam game collection...
@@MisogynyMan Well, I didn't spend it all in one day. :-) However, now that I think about it, it probably cost me a lot more than
a thousand, especially if you adjust for inflation.
The whole problem was, “What do we do for an encore?”
Good grief, where did you find that footage, Perch? That's me at the 23:03 mark talking about cabbage patch dolls. They misspelled my name, and I lived in Dana Point, but when does the news ever get anything right?
The funny part about that day when the reporter stopped me coming out of the store, I couldn't have been more hungover, rockin' some serious bed-head, thinking, "Nobody's ever going to see this footage. I mean, it's on OCN; nobody watches that station, right?" Everybody saw it. And here it is haunting me to this day. Thanks for the memory... I think. ;0)
P.S. Great commentary on the Death of Superman. Keep it up.
I didn't know much about superhero comics back in the 90s, so the weird and unexplained stuff in Death of Superman is what made it interesting for me.
Superman 75 really was a benchmark in my childhood comic book life. The hype was unbelievable. The playground arguments were legendary. I gobbled up the Funeral for a Friend and Reign of the Supermen storylines like they were the antidote. Constant kid debating over which of the new guys was the real deal (I was team Man of Tomorrow/Cyborg) and the weekly plot twists that came with the territory of four interconnected titles. That brief publishing break in which we thought Jonathan Kent had died was agonizing and STILL the reason why I prefer him alive over the Geoff John's and Richard Donner versions in which he HAS to be dead, for some reason. There was nothing like it back then.. What a hell of a time it was to love comics.
And also, though I detest the practice of trades and omnibus reprints not having the cover images as chapter breaks, I actually like the Death and Return of Superman Omnibus from 2007 because it uses a newsprint that makes it feel like reading the originals. If only comics would go back to that...
This reminds me of so many conversations I've had with Civilians. I try to explain what makes some comics valuable, and I explain why most are practically worthless.
They proceed to explain that I'm wrong, and ALL comics are worth a mint and that I'm sitting on a Goldmine. They've never set foot inside a comic shop or talked to any comic shop owner.
The Death of Superman was one was one of the first comics I ever brought and even to this day the death/funeral/reign/return arc holds up so well. I'll never forget Superman's first interaction - where Doomsday punches Superman's chest and he doesn't move, hes like a rock. It was a great pose. Then Doomsday does a quick leg kick and it takes Superman by surprise and hes goes flying backwards. The art was top notch.
42:58 - you show one of the panels I was talking about
The super girl and team Luther issue is part of the Funeral for a friend trade - guys, it’s no mistake this is not part of the omnibus.... it’s to frustrate you to buy the trade as well
Nice chat. I think your videos should be as long as they need to be. This story got me into comics and I've got the contents of that omnibus as boarded issues but I'm not sure I'll ever revisit them..
Bold new direction for the Perch channel! Love the interspersed news clips.
At the LCS there was a ton of people lined up to get Superman #75. A regular customer loudly asked the packed store, "How many people here have even bought a Superman comic book in the last 10 years?!?" Very few raised their hands. He continued, "That's what I fuckin' thought," and left the store.
I remember seeing this as a kid, and seeing it on the news, it was like america was going through a funeral
I remember reading Action Comics #363-5 arc as a kid and thought Superman was going to die for sure at the hands of Lex Luthor. They even had a farewell funeral for him. Obviously he made a recovery and was around for a few more issues.
Good thing no one ever tried making a movie out of this.
What?
Oh. Oh dear 😪😪😪
Rereading this recently, I was amazed at how effectively they showed the threat Doomsday was. The way he brutally and effortlessly tears through the Justice League really took me by surprise. No quipping, no showing off, just beating each character to a pulp and then moving to the next target.
Another thing that stood out was Bogdanove's art. For all I know, he might be a great dude in real life, but damn... I hated when I started a new "issue" and realized it was him doing the pencils.
I remember all the media hoopla surrounding Superman's death vividly...it truly was international news. Even the venerable, groundbreaking sketch comedy/variety series "Saturday Night Live" parodied the Man Of Steel's death with a now-classic skit featuring guest host Sinbad (remember him?) as Black Lightning.
And the nineties were indeed a bleak and uncertain decade for the comic book industry...not only had Image come out of nowhere and turned the entire industry on its ear with Spawn (and other titles), but multiple publishers--including stalwarts Marvel and DC--were attempting to reverse dwindling sales and readership by using gimmicks such as variant covers, hologram covers, and die-cut covers. The collector's market was absolutely insane way back then...collectors were literally hoarding multiple issues and then reselling them at exorbitant prices. Along with 1991's X-Men #1E (the ad-free, prestige format edition, complete with Jim Lee's incredible quadruple gatefold cover), the black polybagged Superman #75 was a highly coveted collectable; I was intrigued by the blood-soaked Superman shield prominently displayed on the bag, as well as the publicity surrounding the issue in general. Sadly, in today's market, both X-Men #1E and Superman #75 have significantly decreased in value since the nineties...I actually own both issues, and they're barely worth only a couple bucks; I'm currently not going to retire comfortably in Florida when I finally reach social security age (God willing).
I still own my Death Of Superman trade paperback, albeit in rough shape, after nearly three decades; I remember going to the now-defunct bookstore B. Dalton way back in the day on my birthday and buying it right off the shelf. It is still (undoubtedly) the best selling trade paperback in history.
Superman had died dozens of times in "imaginary" stories before but for a few days I thought he was gone for reals this time because the news was hyping it up.
It was a great storyline. Easily one of Superman's best. It has the makings of a gimmick, Doomsday was a little bit over the top but what it ends up being is a storyline about the loss of a loved one, the death of a celebrity, the fall out from that, coping with loss, denial, legacy, impersonation, identity, resurrection and rebirth.
My only major hang up with the storyline is the destruction of Green Lantern's city. That is such a major universe shake up in a book that isn't a Green Lantern book and is such a devastating blow to his character, you can't help but feel it was an aside or disservice to him.
When the story happened, news of the event even reached newspapers here in Egypt.
Simply put, The Death of Superman was the biggest and most prolific death of a fictional character since Sherlock Holmes' fateful encounter with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls in Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of The Final Problem".
I got the bagged, the unbagged, and a 2nd print of a #75. LOL
It was the first major comic book superhero death and they spun it as if he was really going to die. Plus comics were selling like hot cakes at the time and media paid more attention to comics back then as opposed to now where there are so many other things competing for media attention, video games, movies namely have gobbled up the ground that comics once held
this was a really great video
Thanks for watching!
He wasn't just one of us, he was the best of us.
It was a comic event that got me to buy more comics. I added the four fill in Superman books to my pull list. I remember Geppi's World having more copies of that issue than anybody else as usual. Like everything else back then, comics were still cheaper than they are now. The comic dictated to the show as I remember cause they got married in the comic first and then later on the show. Superman dying tied into everything from Parallax to Armageddon.
I remember the hype. But I was sure they would bring him back.
I only read trades/omnibus’, and I tend to prefer trades because omnibuses tend to leave out key issues, and they rarely get the binding right to make them enjoyable to read - I appreciate that Near Mint Condition touches on it!
The death of Superman the Trade collection was the the first comic in high school I read. My friend was into comics and i already started to draw around that point.
In all fairness the 80s time capsule is the dark knight returns. It literally paved the way for most modern comics.
I'll throw born again in there too.
I was in college and the speculator market was in full force. I bought a single copy and unbagged it and read it. People were afraid to do it, but I was always thinking that the black bag was crap and would deteriorate. Plus, you know, there was a million copies out there. It wasn't going to make anyone rich. But there were a LOT of gimmicks like that back then and a LOT of people thinking that the million selling books would be their tickets to riches. One of my buddy's childhood friend was buying 6 copies of every big issue "just in case." I wonder if he's paid off those credit cards by now.
Also, years later, Death appeared in Legion to take the Earth. So I guess Gaiman got over it by then.
Slight correction: there were not just two Superman monthly titles in the seventies. Aside from Superman and Action Comics, there was also World's Finest and DC Presents. That's not counting the spinoffs: Superboy/Legion of Superheroes and Superman's GF Lois Lane, Supergirl and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson, which all were merged into Superman Family.
I wasn't counting those because they weren't solo Superman books like Man of Steel, Action Comics (to a point) Superman and Adventures of Superman. I was aware of those. But thank you for mentioning those. I'm a huge Legion fan and read all the Superboy/Legion stuff.
90's Kid: DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE, My 'Death Of Superman' copy was gonna put me through college, but instead, I get 'Fort Night' DLC!.....Wait.
I recall a comic shop owner patting a stack of Superman 75 saying over and over "that there's as good as gold!" He was out of business two months later.
I just bought bought the trades for Death of Superman, World Without A Superman, and the Return of Superman.
I was one of the dummies who bought into they were really killing him off permanently. I was 16 at the time, and it felt like anything considered to be old and busted had to be cast aside for the new hotness not only in comics, but from music to movies.
I guess my outlook was cynical even then that has only gotten worse with the endless remakes and reboots that we see today.
You'd think with Superman #75 having a large print one there would be loads a plenty in the dollar boxes but I almost have never found a polybag sealed of #75 in them.
Video idea, Tell us about the comic book stories that were so big that they made the news. The only 2 I know about are death of superman and spidey getting married.
Cap dying was in there, start of Image make the talk show circuit. Batman’s wedding did... that’s a good topic.
Rudderless? Too many Superman books? Please: the triangle era (especially 1989 - 1993, before they got carried away with events trying to replicate the success of Death of Superman) was AMAZING!
They also did explain that they implanted memories into Superboy.
Dam this one was great I remember being a kid it was fun for sure
That issue is from November 1992 but cover dated January 1993 I think
The death of Superman was a really interesting event as a whole plus hey without this story we wouldn’t have gotten superboy Conner kent who in my opinion is really awesome and badass.
Excuse you. His name was The Kid.
panthergod okay fair enough
As someone that came into comics in this era (well post death but the stuff was floating around). Post crisis superman was not really hard to figure out.
Supergirl being whatever she was was better to me even as a 10 year old than there being a bunch of kryptonians. Superman seemed to make more sense as a concept as the last of his kind. Luthors clone body plot was weird and unnecessary but not weirder than stuff I saw from previous versions of superman.
The post crisis superman really did rework all the stuff that I knew about the character from the silver age kept me away from superman until I read the post crisis stuff.
I was more into Knightfall, but all my friends gobbled this run up.
The interesting thing is some people since have criticized ( I dont mean here) the way Doomsday is introduced before "killing superman". But it makes sense superman knows his various enemies fairly well. But a powerful enemy out of nowhere with no context, no known weakness to exploit no history to work off? Thats dangerous.
And to me at least I thought it made additional sense most villains show up and you get most the details about them with time. If a berserker shows up whose to powerful to survive taking down your not going to get any details about him.
*"THE COOCHY SUPERBOY?"* 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Poochy. :)
@@ComicsPerch Makes more sense🤣🙃👌
Perch is an old man if he still had a shop back then🙃🙃
The news clips from normie media talking about *comic* books is painful as always. I didn't read DC back then, just Wizard. I read the Roger Stern novelization a couple years later to get a large part of the story. I was only in middle school, but I thought it was just a stunt. I never bought a single issue.
you don't know how much I was hoping cyborg superman was the real one lol
I think the nineties was the death of Superman stories for me until Frank Miller and JRJr did Year One. A good Superman story should not be about his fantastic powers. A good Superman story is a game of building tension. Superman is so powerful that the real story is how much can be heaped on superman. The audience should be on edge for that moment Superman says enough and goes Kryptonic on the baddies. But that moment should be to save humans from themselves, the innocent at the last moment, or for the ones he loves who are suffering. Superman should have no choice left and the audience should be cheering him at that point as him going full super will have a righteous quality and the audience lets out a collective "Finally!" A story about just how powerful SM is, is quite boring for my part. Make sense?
Who's the creator he keeps gushing over 'wizzie'?? - is it Simonson? in my opinion MVP's were Jurgens & Grummett
Louise Simonson. "Weezie". Absolute legend of a writer; her work here and in X-Factor remains incredible.
Where was wonderwoman batman green lantern and the flash during this arc
He sounds like Jeff Goldblum
Straight-up~!!
The mainstream media getting a hold of this and running with itwhen most people didn't even read comics. "OMG Superman's dead!" Even SNL did a skit about it.
Perch the new reprint woth the black cover from 2019 have the supergirl issue
I’ve never understood why they don’t actually kill off characters, especially villains and keep them dead. I understand keeping the top few alive but killing characters off good would not only make death mean more but help build new characters to take their place.
These villains should go to prison and get the death penalty and die. It makes sense. I mean otherwise it makes no sense why you would allow villains to live if they are going to kill thousands of people.
$$$
If you kill the wrong character people will drop the title over night. It pains me to say this, but we as comic book fans can be pretty petty. It's why you never see serious changes. Just look at the letter pages from any X-book in the 90's. It's just "screw you Marvel you killed so and so, I'm done" over and over again.
kal kella I’m talking about killing villains and secondary characters. You keep the big ones around, maybe get rid of one every decade.
So they try to do a Lois Lane skit, but don't bother to even make sure they're spelling her name right. Epic fail!
Lois now goes by the name "Louis" and prefers the pronoun of "they/them."
The weakest aspect of Death of Superman for me was having to sit through Bogdanov's art, which I've always detested. The story was well-written and actually made me excited to read Superman for the first time post-Crisis. I know John Byrne is a fan favorite but he did little for me- this was actually compelling stuff. Reign of Supermen was disappointing. It answered the question of "what can you do after you kill Superman?" Turns out, not much.
I enjoy Bogdanov's art, but it's very stylized so I totally understand how people wouldn't like it.
I totally know that Jon Bogdanove's art is crazy divisive, but I'm among those who love it. It's easily the roughest, strangest and most out of place of the styles used by the art teams at the time, but for some reason I love it. That page of Superman flying upward under the "DOOMSDAY Part One" banner in Man of Steel #18 is one of my all time favorite Supes illustrations and I would buy the original in a heartbeat.
Bognadov's Steel was POWER incarnate. DOOMSDAY! GOTTA stop DOOMSDAY!
Miracleman fights were waaay better than the Death of Superman fights. Reading that, then the Death story-line, well, it makes Superman comics look Super-Lame. This whole project had the stick of editorial desperation. My friends and I knew this even as high school kids.
Never bought it. Wasn’t interested because I knew it wasn’t the death of Superman. Read a copy years later; pretty boring, though well illustrated.
great talk, next time cut into 20 mins parts next time. i am bailing around 28 min mark. i got stuff to do!!!
Come back to it later. :) But thanks for the feedback, I’m experimenting with formats and will try to find the right balance.
@@ComicsPerch I prefer the mini-doc format, one large offering that someone can tackle in bits, if it's too much for them.
@@ComicsPerch Anything shorter wouldn't have done it justice. Good job as it is!
STUPIDEST STORY IN COMIC BOOK HISTORY. Six issues of Superman punching like an idiot. No way Doomsday should have ever laid a hand on him. Somehow he "forgot" the one power that gave him an advantage--his superspeed. All he had to do was take an easy step left or right and dodge every blow. Then run behind him, pick him up, then throw or fly him out of orbit. Over and done in 3 pages.
Can't believe just how frickin' DUMB that story was.
And to be clear about Superman's speed, it was already established Superman was as fast as Wally West Flash. Wally was already established as being so fast that a fired bullet struck his neck, triggered his superspeed, and he moved out of the way before it broke his skin. Plenty fast enough to dodge a lumbering oaf's punch.
Doomsday had superior reflexes to Superman
@@panthergod = Useless when Superman is out of reach. But there Superman was, going toe-to-toe when it was dumb to do so.
Did you ever actually read the comic? Early on they establish that Doomsday is insanely fast one person guesses he is faster than west and superman struggles to keep up with him. Superman tries a couple times to fly doomsday up but hes too unruly to keep ahold of.