The Death & Rebirth Of Superman From The Creator’s Perspective

I’m not missing two articles this week.

The “Death & Return Of Superman” storyline was a major one for DC Comics in the 1990s. While this could be blamed for the revolving door of death we get now, or even Eventitis, the story itself is quite solid, exploring what Superman means to Metropolis and the greater DC Universe, and giving us +3 heroes upon Clark’s resurrection. Judged on its own, it’s actually a great Superman story arc.

And it shouldn’t exist.

I’ve told this story before, but in need of a filler for tonight we’re getting the entire storyline from the creator’s perspective. In the following video from Warner Brothers, released to promote the animated two-part adaptation of the storyline (which I have yet to see), we see how the media pecking order forced them to drop the storyline they intended, pick up a running gag as an actual story, created the character Doomsday, and changed the face of DC Comics and the DC Universe for better or for worse.

I’m not going to be as nice as Mike Carlin here because Warner Brothers isn’t MY boss in any incarnation. The Lois & Clark producers insisting THEY had to have the wedding first (probably because they’re the “superior” media to those comics that just happen to be the source material and the reason they have a TV show in the first place) was a jerk move. They aren’t the most important format to the history of Superman, and having to push the wedding plans they had into the Superman Wedding Album at what feels like the last minute when the show was good and ready feels like a mistake. To the general public, and I believe this to be the goal, it feels like the idea was the show’s idea rather than the comics, who were planning this before the show even aired. It just irks me.

There shouldn’t be a pecking order, as I did a whole series on, “The Art Of Storytelling” and in describing the “Funeral For A Friend” portion of the story you can see that comics can evoke emotions and have powerful storytelling. More scenes like this should be discussed to promote the strength of comics, but it doesn’t. It’s no wonder comics look so down on themselves when the big two are now owned by Warner Brothers and Disney, both of whom treat comics as nothing more than IP engines…and they don’t properly follow the IP because their directors, producers, and showrunners have “better” ideas.

I feel there’s a misconception, and it saddens me to see even the writers bought into it, when it comes to the villains. Outside of the Phantom Zone villains, which had been written out of continuity so that only Superman survived, or Bizarro, which I don’t even know if he existed in this more serious period, there aren’t a lot of villains who can match Superman physically. Darkseid and Mongul are the only other ones that come to mind. However, what makes Superman’s villains interesting is that Superman’s power isn’t enough. They can’t challenge Superman’s power so they challenge his mind. Some people also like to point out the challenge to Superman’s ethics and I see their point. However, Superman can’t just punch Lex Luthor, Toyman, or even the Prankster because he’s kill them. Spider-Man had trouble and he’s stronger than both those characters. In their first crossover, Superman had to stop his punch at the last minute because he realized his anger was getting the better of him.

By not being a physical challenge Lex comes up with plans to beat Superman because whether he’s the original mad scientist or the current evil businessman incarnations he underestimates Superman mentally because he’s so strong. He can’t believe someone with muscles also has his mental muscles at the level of such a genius. And yet, Superman is clever enough to foil Lex’s plans, and it takes more than his powers to do so. The same goes for the Toyman and his various toys pulling crimes below Superman’s notice, or the Prankster’s mean-spirited but well-planned practical “jokes” that he uses to cause mischief because it amuses him. That’s what makes these villains interesting to me. They don’t challenge Superman’s powers but can create things that do and cause Superman to outthink his enemies rather than simply outpower them.

That being said, Doomsday is a great way to challenge Superman physically. He pushed Superman past his limits, and that was cool. This also should have been the last of him. While Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey was an interesting exploration of Doomsday’s origins, and I’m not against it, any appearance after that is a mistake, including that “virus” I’ve heard about. It feels wrong at concept. One Doomsday story was enough, but I’ll accept the origin story so it feels less like he only existed to kill Superman without any actual reason for his existence. I can nitpick the origin itself, but being the creation of a Kryptonian scientist who basically tortured it to create the ultimate warrior gives him a reason to hate Superman that much. Not that “genetically engineered killing machine” isn’t enough of a reason.

I’m not surprised to see newspapers discussing Superman’s death like it was inevitable (one of them they showed even made it sound like a good thing), given that today it seems like everything Superman stands for has been corrupted and ridiculed. Having the four “Supermen” exploring the various aspects of Superman and showing what makes Clark Kent the real Superman was a benefit of this story, and we got three more heroes out of it: Steel, the Connor Kent Superboy, and a redemption for the Eradicator, the only one of the three who kind of vanished with the 1990s. That’s fitting since he was very much rooted in that time period while Steel and Superboy evolved with the times.

Not everything that came out of this was good, of course. It maintained the pecking order and helped lead to comics still acting like they’re less important than Hollywood rather than promote what makes comics great (not greatER) versus what other media can do. This event also pushed DC to make the Batman writers do something similar, which led to Knightfall, but it started the infection known as Eventitis. It may be the starting point for shock deaths and (if the character is popular enough) the revolving door of the afterlife. However, that’s the fault of the people in charge not realizing why these plans worked and just wanting to make money or their reputations on the backs of others’ creations. On its own, the Death & Return Of Superman event is a solid examination of Superman as a character and a symbol of the DC universe. If you have to be forced into something, at least try to do something good with it, and this story, for whatever faults and fallout there were, did just that.