Yeah, I know, another thing that isn't a "timeline" as such, although it will involve time travel of sorts, back to the wild and woolly days of 1992, when dinosaurs walked the Earth.  I hadn't read the Superman comics much for years when this story was announced, but I decided to follow it for fun.  I knew they weren't going to really kill him off, but I was interested to see what they would do.  I started offf with....

 

Superman: The Man of Steel #18 (December 1992): "Doomsday! Part One"

Written by Louise Simonson, with art by Jon Bogdnaove and Dennis Janke.

 

This story has two threads interspersed with one another:

  1. Lois and Superman get caught up fighting a race of sewer people who want to take over Metropolis. Supes handles them fairly easily - this is just another day at the office for him.
  2. Doomsday punches his way out of a box, them establishes his bad-arsehood by crushing a birdie, then disrupting traffic and smashing a truck. The story ends with Oberon overhearing a police report about it, and deciding that this is a job for the Justice League! I'm sur ethey'll be able to handle it no problem!

 

An interesting slow build. If I hadn't of known that this was going to be the critter that was going to "kill" Superman, I wouldn't of suspected it from this. I sometimes think that they do themselves a disservice by hyping these stories the way they do. Think of how much more of a mind-blower it would of been if the "death of Superman" had been a surprise.

 

I wasn't overwhelmed by the art on this - it's not bad, just not very good, either.  I tell you, I liked liked Doomsday's initial "containment suit" look better than his later Cranky Grandpa Zombie on Terrigen-Enhanced Steroids look.

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  • Bogdanove never seemed like a terribly good fit for Superman. His art style takes some getting used to, but it does give the Man of Steel book a unique flavor compared to the other titles that ran concurrently.

    I read this storyline via the TPB's issued the year after the original run. Reading it in that form, it seemed to me they brought Superman back too soon.

  • I have them as individual issues. Looking at them that way, the pile seems relatively small.

  • Although Steel and Superboy would receive their own titles, I would have liked to have seen all four of the pseudo-Supermen continue a bit longer before bringing back the original. I felt the same way a few years later when the four monthly Super titles featured versions of the character from four different time periods i.e. Man of Steel featured a "Golden Age" Superman, Adventures had a "Silver Age" version etc. Seems to me they missed an opportunity by returning to the status quo too quickly.

  • It might have been interesitng if they had picked one of the four and set him up as Superman's "successor" for awhile, at least making a pretense of it, before inevitably bringing back Kal-El.

  • Did you ever read the “Death of Superman” prose novel by Roger Stern? I chose it as a free selection back then when I was a member of the SFBC. It’s still sitting on a shelf but I’ve never read it. I skimmed it enough to see it followed the comic book plotline fairly closely, though. I always wondered what the “casual fan” (who picked up just Superman #75) thought of it, with superheroes such as Booster Gold and Bloodwynde and all that other comic book baggage.

    Regarding Bogdanove, I really liked his style when he first started (like when he was on Power Pack), but the longer he stayed the looser his style became. It finally reached the point I had a hard time even looking at it.

  • I do have a copy of that book. I read it when I bought, and I don't know that I've looked at it since. I should dig it out and look at it.  From what I recall of it, I can't imagine a non-fanboy getting much out of it.

  • Since I was not buying comics when the Death of Superman arc was published, my first exposure (not counting fan discussions) was the prose novel (I later bought the trade collection). I remember it being well written. Not sure if it would have been easy going for a non-comics reader.


    The Baron said:

    I do have a copy of that book. I read it when I bought, and I don't know that I've looked at it since. I should dig it out and look at it.  From what I recall of it, I can't imagine a non-fanboy getting much out of it.

  • I found it interesting that all the heroes showed up for Superman's funeral yet not for the actual battle! I mean where were Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal), the Flash, Captain Marvel, Doctor Fate and anyone else who could have helped?



  • Philip Portelli said:

    I found it interesting that all the heroes showed up for Superman's funeral yet not for the actual battle! I mean where were Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal), the Flash, Captain Marvel, Doctor Fate and anyone else who could have helped?

     

    They were all off on a mission in space.

  • I have the Death of Superman prose novel too, although I also haven't looked at it since I read it. I thought it worked, streamlining all those comics into a single narrative. (Likewise Greg Rucka's prose version of the Batman story "No Man's Land".)

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