In 1992 DC Comics decided to do something bold and shake up the comic book world in a big way. One of their favorite and flagship characters decided to change course. They decided to kill the Iron Man. Superman.
Over the course of seven comic book issues and five separate titles, Superman (with the help of the Justice League of America) will battle against an inexplicable force of evil, which would soon be called Doomsday. This storyline made all kinds of headlines and all kinds of sales records and graphic novel The Death of Superman reprinted it all in one volume for fans of the iconic character. The graphic novel would become one of the biggest selling graphic novels of all time with over 14 reprints currently in release.
It took me nearly twenty years before I bother to tell the story, however famous it may be. I’m not a big fan of Superman and I was actually happy when DC announced that they were going to kill him off (but I always knew he was short lived). There was never a character that appealed to me like Batman or Green Arrow or the Green Lantern Corps (a far superior group to the abysmal Justice League). The only reason I picked up the new graphics now is because I was finally curious what the fuss was about).
Despite being written and directed by a multitude of artists, the story reads well enough as a coherent story. Although the creature known as Doomsday is a formidable foe, the scene also lacks the purpose to make Superman truly villainous in the way that Batman is the Joker. The creature is a force of pure evil, evil and destruction that works through the seven issues of the story as it is revealed. the story slowly progresses in pieces (it begins completely in the clothing in the first two questions of the story). If the story had been fully revealed in the first issue, it would not have had the impact.
The worst aspect of the story is that the entire story spans seven issues of one of the longest fights in comic history, which in my opinion feels like an extended story. just so they could make more money by selling more issues. I believe the story could have had more if the entire story had been limited to maybe four issues in the same comic title (although I’m very unaware that “crossover” sales between some titles at the same time is common.
Since we all know that Superman is not already dead, the events depicted in this story did not have such a deep affection for the title in the long run (although its events made many subsequent changes over all the Superman titles of the time). The story aspires to be as deep as Batman Year One or A Death in the Family or even The Long Halloween but it only works on that. I have nothing to do with this story. It’s simply a bare-bones, fist-pumping, seven-issue series that’s highly marketable.
