Curious zoomer here: how did readers react to Superman's death in the 90s?
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Curious zoomer here: how did readers react to Superman's death in the 90s?
It was a pretty big deal. Harlan Ellison was less impressed.
Based as frick.
It's the part about the fancy bagged edition being 2.50 that really sticks out to me because just... goddamn. I wish comics were only 2.50 again.
Why Zoomers, OP-senpai?
I was in 3rd or 4th grade and it was a gigantic deal. Our teacher talked to us about how we felt about it. The "cool kids" and jocks who never gave a shit about comics bought the issue and were buzzing about it. I personally bought, and still have, several copies, buying into the hype thinking it was gonna be this landmark thing that would be worth money some day.
Not directly to your point re: the death itself, but following the death arc, funeral for a friend, and reign, every single week, was one of the greatest comic experiences. Every week a new chapter in this saga, with new revelations etc. Just peak comics.
This was before comics had the reputation of endlessly resurrecting dead characters (barring a few exceptions) and DC in particular had recent examples of killing off major characters and replacing them with successors. Most people legitimately thought this was going to stick, and that one of the four "Supermen" was going to be the permanent replacement going forward. It was a let-down when Clark was revealed to not only still be alive but never truly dead at all.
while dying and coming back has always been a comic staple, there was still an expectation that plotline deaths would stick around for a while
villains who died and came back were usually handwaved away as clones, robots, or just outright faking their death
the highest profile death and resurrection was phoenix, for whom its understandable because she is named after a literal bird of rebirth
supergirl and bary alllen were killed off in crisis on infinite earths and they stayed dead for real world decades, DC bent over backwards to create not-supergirls because they didnt want to deal with undoing deaths
but after superman died and came back, that cemented comic deaths as temporary occurrences even to lay people
Comic book characters have come back more time than the entirety of Dragon Ball combined.
the trend, and general awareness of that trend, is newer than most people think
the death of superman is what made it mainstream, but as mentioned a lot of characters were successfully killed off and replaced with their legacy for long periods of time before the death of superman opened the flood gates
I thought he might stay dead, but a local store had a poster with those four "Supermen" asking "Which, if any, are the real Superman?" I figured it was none of them just from the wording and was right.
It's pretty neat that Steel managed to stick around though. You'd think he'd just be a flash in the pan.
At the time I remember people suggesting Steel was the reincarnation of the Earth-One Superman—the one erased by Crisis. Apparently some readers thought he acted like that version of Superman, despite being fully human.
It was covered by the New York Times bad nightly news broadcasts. It’s one of the highest selling comics of all time. It was maybe the biggest thing that ever happened in the industry.
And before any homosexual says it, bringing him back to life was not a bad thing and anyone who thinks American comics need to be treated like manga is moronic.
>It was maybe the biggest thing that ever happened in the industry.
And also one of the worst because of how much DC and Marvel fricked themselves over trying to recapture both speculator investment and shock value.
>And before any homosexual says it, bringing him back to life was not a bad thing and anyone who thinks American comics need to be treated like manga is moronic.
This shit basically opened Pandora's box for comic book writers writing cheap deaths for heroes only to come back like a year later
It would have been better for the medium if DC stuck to their guns
Love supes but there’s vids up on YouTube of people in comic shops at the time saying they do not give a frick and that it’s time to move on to more “edgier” characters like punisher
My Superman obsession started when I was 3 years old…I was five during the Death of Superman and I was more concerned about that than I was about my parents divorcing. I wanted the Eradicator to be the real Superman because I thought his costume was cool but also really liked Superboy
>if my house ever catches fire the first thing I’m grabbing is my Superman sketch Dan Jurgens did for me at a con, and if time I’ll come back for the wife and kids
The general public thought it meant they weren't publishing Superman comics anymore. Probably ended up being a major factor in accelerating the crash because those most-casual-of-readers stopped paying any attention to comics afterward.
The die hard comic readers knew he was coming back, but still viewed it as "a big deal".
Eithercas a publicity stunt or something they could make money on.
Only casuals fell for his death. More savy readers knew he wasn’t going to stay dead because of the upcoming Lois & Clark tv show.
It was a huge deal. there was a death of superman video game and there was trading cards of the new supermen in my cereal. only tards thought superman was dead for good and not coming back
There was a war going on in neighboring Bosnia and it still made the news over here
One of the most popular comics in my country turned into an ultra-edgefest because the author felt like he needed to kill the comic after tDoS came out. It went on for 7 years and was so unpopular the approval poll for the story arc was so negative it broke the website. I actually think it was the best era of the comic.
Name?
The people in comics, knew that he was coming back.
The people outside of comics, didn't.
I wish I could find this one comic from the early 90s that pointed this out, it summed it up pretty well
This question has been asked a lot and answered pretty thoroughly: it was bigger than it was supposed to be since it was shocking to many casuals and non-readers, while the more savvy knew they would never make it permanent. It's huge success marks a period of different writers chasing after it's golden goose.
Let me ask you guys something different: what if they kept Clark Kent dead? Like, all the way up until, say, New 52, did they keep him dead and never even teased bringing him back? How much would that change things for comics?
It was pretty wild how people in the real world took it seriously. People wore black armbands with the Superman logo and comic shops held mock funerals. My cousin waited in line and bought two copies of the polybag comic. I think little kids also really took it to heart because they didn't understand the difference between reality and fiction.
It was a big deal, but the Death part of the story wasn’t good. The Reign and Return had some good stuff—like the introduction of Steel and the new clone Superboy—but the actual Death was just a big fight scene and a bland one at that.
On the plus side, it made DC a lot of money and got them attention. I was already a Superman fan but this event got me to seriously start buying the comics. Later on I found out about Superman comics I liked much better so in a way I do owe some of that to this storyline.
With a stopwatch
le gasp!
It's easy to forget this, and I suspect that most of Cinemaphile isn't old enough to remember it in the first place, but before Superman "died" and came back, death was actually seen as a big deal in comics. When any non-villain died they usually stayed dead. Jean Grey was the biggest exception to this, but that's exactly what she was: The exception. After Superman came back suddenly the concept of "death" in comics became MEANINGLESS.
>death was actually seen as a big deal in comics.
No it wasn't. See Harlan Ellison above. It only seems like a big deal compared to now when editorial is hilariously incompetent.
I'll add, in case it wasn't clear enough, that OF COURSE there were other exceptions. But MOST non-villains (whether heroes or their allies or just random people) who died in comics before the 90s usually stayed dead.
After the early 90s EVERYONE came back. Even minor characters.
>but before Superman "died" and came back, death was actually seen as a big deal in comics.
He "died" a bunch of times before. Only difference was a black polybag and a $1 increase in price. Also death was a joke by the time Clark got his ass beat. Supergirl was dead as shit until some shape-shifting freak took her identity and started getting pipe from Lex 2.
I'm honestly surprised Barry Allen stayed dead as long as he did.
Bro I'm surprised the og Starman hasn't died at least once. They go through a dozen Earth GLs in the span of a decade and that old b***h gets to show up every other event to talk about how old and gross he is.
Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" was a megaton revolution in comics. So was "Watchmen". "Death of Superman" was a sales gimmick and everybody who collected comics and was over the age of ten knew it. It sold well because speculators bought up a bunch of copies hoping it would be the next hot collectible.