The Death and Return of Superman by Max Landis
By Fantasgasmic 11 Comments
Some NSFW language in the video.
As a child of the 80s/90s, The Death of Superman (along with Bane breaking Batman, and X-Men #1) was one of my first real comic book memories. At the time I loved it. I owned the entire arc of weekly books (but sold all of them except Superman #75, non-bagged regular version and Adventures of Superman #500 in both the regular and variant covers). I also own all 3 trade paperbacks spanning the story arc from the arrival of Doomsday through the defeat of Hank Henshaw, and Superman/Doomsday Hunter/Prey where Doomsday's backstory was first given. So trust me when I say this comes from a place of love.
Max Landis was right. This story arc is pretty much responsible for the crap we have to put up with as comics fans. Every time a creator kills of a character in an epic display of self sacrifice. Every time a beloved character comes back from such a heroic sacrifice. Every stupid "game changing event" after which "nothing will be the same." Every time Sara writes an article that ends with (paraphrasing) "but it's comics so we all know that this death won't stick."
I dunno if it's awesome or funny or sad that aside from ONE factual error (Booster Gold didn't get punched into space, just punched past the horizon, but still in the atmosphere) and a couple bits of hyperbole (e.g. Superman threw Doomsday in a lake with the hope it would slow him down, so he could go help the Justice League, and the civilians whose homes got destroyed by the fight) everything in the video is accurate. Superman's death was a lamer cop out than (let's say) Nightcrawler's because they were setting up his return IMMEDIATELY. It's the same reason I hated the "death" of Batman, there wasn't really any suspense. Granted there were a few issues there where you thought Eradicator or Hank Henshaw could've been Superman, but that became pretty obvious pretty early on.
Oh, plus this video also shows how LAME the current New52 Action Comics superman costume (shirt, jeans cape) looks.
11 Comments