Last month, I revisited “The Death of Superman” for the first time in quite some time. I can honestly say that I haven’t read its follow up, “Funeral for a Friend,” since it was originally published, when I was ten years old. I was interested in seeing just how the fallout was handled, and how it connected to its very famous predecessor and, to a certain degree, to its almost as famous follower. The story is 24 years old, but in case you’ve been waiting to read this, I’ll throw a spoiler-warning out front.
Written by Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Karl Kesel, William Messner-LoebsCover by Dan Jurgens
Penciled by Dan Jurgens, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Jon Bogdanove, June Brigman, Walt Simonson, Denis Rodier, Dennis Janke, Curt Swan, Trevor Scott
Inked by Rick Burchett, Doug Hazelwood, Denis Rodier, Dennis Janke, Brett Breeding, Jackson Guice, Walt Simonson, Andre Parks, Mike Machlan, Trevor Scott
Colored by Gene D’Angelo, Glen Whitmore
Lettered by Albert DeGuzman, John Workman, John Costanza, Bill Oakley, Willie SchubertAfter Superman sacrificed his life to stop Doomsday, the world and those who loved him must learn how to continue on without the Man of Steel. Heroes like Supergirl, the Guardian and Gangbuster rise to the challenge—but can they fill the void left by Superman’s death? This new title collects ACTION COMICS #685-686, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #498-500, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #70, LEGACY OF SUPERMAN #1, SUPERGIRL AND TEAM LUTHOR SPECIAL #1, SUPERMAN #76-77 and SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL #20-21!
The whole ‘death and return of Superman’ saga is quite interesting to me for a number of reasons, but mostly because of its status as the first event of its kind. Sure, this is after “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and “Secret Wars,” but those were universe-spanning events that had very specific purposes. This was a mega-event contained within a line, and hyped to high heavens beforehand. This is the peak of the speculation market, and every comic shop worth its salt had copious copies of each new weekly installment, along with some polybagged “Superman #75” behind the counter for $100 bucks or so.
And yet, the pacing of this event is amazingly weird, no matter how you shake it. “Superman” #75, which ended the “Death of Superman” arc, ends with Superman dying. “Adventures of Superman” #498 immediately begins by questioning that event. Sure, the people in Superman’s life are going to want to believe he’s not dead, but the entirety of that issue is spent by various people trying to use defibrillator paddles on Superman, to absurdist lengths. Everyone gets in on the act – Guardian, Emil Hamilton, fucking Bibbo – and they all conclude, along with a few telepaths who scanned for brain waves, that Superman is dead.
The arc really focuses around four tent poles, which the story bounces to and from multiple times per issue: the Kents, Lois Lane, Team Luthor, and Cadmus. Sure, folks like Gangbuster and Jimmy Olsen get their moments, too, but for the most part, the story is contained to the question: “What do we do now that Superman is dead?”
The obvious answer for Lois and the Kents is to grieve, and these are the parts that both pack the most punch and have aged the best. Lois is trying to maintain a double life – still the ace reporter, but also the incredibly mournful fiance. At this point in Superman mythology, only Lois, Lana, the Kents, and maybe Batman know that Clark was Superman. Since much of Metropolis is demolished in the Doomsday attack, having Clark among the missing/dead is a logical lie for everyone to tell, but it also means that those that love Clark and know he’s Superman have to put forward a false sense of hope, which is shown, rightly, as being exhausting.
For Lex Luthor, there is a dull ache in the knowledge that he didn’t kill Superman, and is frustrated at the impotence he feels, now that his rival is gone. This is that weird time where Lex Luthor is considered dead, but his “illegitimate, Australian son” Lex Luthor II is now running LexCorp. Of course, this is a clone with Lex’s brain in it, but no one knows that. So, Lex, too, has to put one face to the public, yet feeling a much more intense emotion inside.
Continued belowWith Luthor throughout this is Supergirl, who is also at a weird place in continuity. She’s the Matrix Supergirl, a shape-shifting alien in love with Lex, but who also doesn’t know his secret. There’s a truly terrifying moment where she morphs into various people to try to comfort Lex, including his “mother,” and it has Oedipus written all over it. Luthor is using Supergirl and “Team Luthor,” his new paramilitary group, to try to fill the void Superman left.
Which leaves Cadmus, the shadowy science organization never far from Super-stories. We see the warring factions inside of Cadmus, one led by Guardian, which wants to honor Superman’s life, and then the faction led by the director, who wants to study Superman’s body in hopes of cloning him. The Cadmus stuff can get a little silly, with lots of pseduo-science butting up against shit like the Newsboy Legion (a series of clones for Golden Age newsboys) and the Underworld (a weird world of monsters that live under Metropolis), but overall, all four corners of the story present interesting scenarios.
There’s a lot of quality artwork here that I fear younger readers may dismiss for looking a bit dated. While I understand that certain styles can take some adjusting to, the work here by Jackson “Butch” Guice, Dan Jurgens, and Tom Grummett all really plays. Because so many of the principles are engaged in lying to everyone they encounter, there is a ton of anguish in the faces of the characters. Each page is coursing with emotion and grief, and Metropolis really seems like a city in mourning.
Wrangling the sheer number of creators involved (look at those credits) is impressive, and to have anything feeling cohesive is a minor miracle. Jurgens’s work is the most obsessed with muscles and big hair, cementing his legacy as one of the defining artists of the 90’s, but aside from a few panels here and there, this avoids many of the “90’s comics” cliches. Part of that, no doubt, is due to the fact that DC was the slowest of the major comics companies to adopt certain principles like that. At the time, that was seen as a detriment to their (lack of) hipness, but now it is a plus.
The tail end of the arc deals with Pa Kent’s heart attack and journey to the afterlife, where he encounters Clark and helps him return to the land of the living. This stuff is almost a 50/50 corny cheeseball to moving ratio, with Pa reliving his Korean War times, his dead brother, and a series of demons posing as Kryptonians to help Clark ‘come home.’ There’s some interesting metanarrative here about Clark only having this experience due to the (implied) Christian upbringing that Martha and Jonathan gave him, and while that opens up a huge can of worms, it is handled well.
Because these books were coming out weekly, by Spring of ’93, the seeds for superman’s return were clearly in place. Pa had his vision, reports start coming in of Superman sightings, and we’re on our way to “Reign of the Supermen.” I’ll be back in May to discuss the final part of this year-long Super-event. Until then…
Random Observations: (with apologies to the AV Club’s “Stray Thoughts”)
– I forgot how much time is spent with Superman’s corpse. We’re talking 2-3 issues worth of his dead body being on panel, and while he’s all healed up, it still is creepy as shit.
– The Newsboy Legion is a fun wiki-wormhole to fall down, if you want to remember one of the weirder aspects of the Super-line.
– Metropolis had an interesting set of secondary heroes at this point, and we get to spend a good amount of time with Guardian and Gangbuster, and just a hint at the Thorn or “Rose and Thorn” fame. I think that Guardian, in particular, would be a great hero to bring back to DC, and I could see Rose and Thorn making a comeback, too. Gangbuster is another story, but you could do a lot of creative stuff with that character.
– Why is Darkseid marching in the cover funeral procession?
– The Justice League interactions in their tie-in issue are so terse and weird – a far cry from how I remember the Justice League books of this time. Is this just how Jurgens wrote them?
– The coloring in this whole event, by Gene D’Angelo and Glen Whitmore, is excellent across the board. Coloring in the 90’s, in many ways, was far more out front, and was used to diversify tone and change perspective far more than it is today. Lots of monochrome panels and splashes of heavy dark. I wish that would come back.
