A Closer Look at The Death of Superman Part 1

Imagine if you will, that you are a 10 year old boy with a love of super heroes. For your entire life you've believed that Superman is the greatest super hero ever created and that he'll be around forever. Now, what would go through your 10 year old brain when you heard that DC Comics was going to kill off Superman?

I was mad. Hahaha yeah. I remember being mad about it. I had no concept of issue sales or marketing techniques, all I had was my love of a character. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why DC would want to kill off someone as beloved and well known as Superman. I mean, he's probably the most iconic super hero of all time. Everyone knows who Superman is, so why would the powers that be want him dead?

Those feelings didn't stick around too long, because pretty shortly after this I started to ask myself better questions. Specifically, HOW would they kill off a character with the amount of power that Superman has?

That's what I'm going to talk about today. 25 years ago I had no answers to that question, and now I have PLENTY. THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN was my, along with thousands of others, first look at how Superman could be stopped. I had yet to read THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, with it's awesome fight between Batman and Superman, and so I had no idea just what was possible.

The writers of THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern) chose the same route my 10 year old self would have thought was the ONLY for Superman to die. To go down fighting a being of equal brute force.

What I didn't know how to do back then, was build up a character that readers would believe was capable of not only fighting against Superman, but actually hurting him. Until this story, I had never seen Superman bleed, and couldn't fathom Superman being beaten in a fight.

Then came Doomsday. Introduced in the pages of Superman The Man of Steel #18 with a warning. The first panels of the issue are of a gloved fist striking against solid steel wall. With each blow, the glove tears away revealing a hand with spikes of bone protruding from the knuckles. The words of warning telling us that "unrelentingly, unstoppably, and unbelievably... Doomsday is coming." And finally, as the fist breaks through the steel wall, we're told that "Doomsday is here!"

Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Superman is busy stopping monsters (created by the Cadmus Project, a secret government funded research facility located just outside of Metropolis that will add more to the story later. Cadmus is really into cloning wink, wink, hint, hint) from invading the city from the sewers. It's a nice, short little adventure to keep Superman from responding to what is happening a few states away.

What is happening is that Doomsday is running wild! We see him (still under a hood, with one arm tied behind his back) wreaking absolute havoc around the countryside. After killing a few animals and laughing about it, Doomsday finds a populated highway and comes face to face with a tractor trailer truck. The truck is moving to fast to swerve out of the way, but it doesn't matter anyway. Doomsday lands one punch and the truck erupts in flames! Who will stop this monster? Well, the trucks dispatcher decides it's time to contact THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA!

During this time, the JLA didn't have the major players that most of us are familiar with. Example, there was no Wonder Woman, Batman, Shazam, Green Lantern, Cyborg, or Aquaman. Instead it was Blue Beetle (aka, Ted Kord, who was more of a scientist than a super hero), Fire (a Human Torch like character that used green fire instead of traditional fire colors, and also a lady), Ice (had freezing powers much like Iceman, but not encased in ice), former Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Guy is a cool character that was kicked out of the GL Corps. At this point he wore a power ring that was just like the GL ring, except it was powered by "gold energy" which would later be revealed to be a yellow power ring), Bloodwynd (awful name, mysterious and boring character. It was later revealed that he was actually The Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz, but that isn't relevant to this story. Bloodwynd, aside from having a name that sounds like a really painful fart, would "call upon the spirits of the dead" to strengthen him. That strength was comparable to Superman), Booster Gold (a time traveling goofball, which a power suit capable of powerful energy blasts and generating force fields), and Maxima (an alien from the planet Almerac. She has limited telepathic/telekinetic powers, can fly, and is nearly as strong as and as invulnerable as Superman). These characters, while not the classic JLA, still were tough enough to handle most threats to the USA.

How do you prove how strong and dangerous Doomsday to your readers? Well taking out the Justice League all at the same time will do the trick quite nicely!

At one point, Doomsday hits Booster Gold so hard that he's sent flying miles into the air where's he's caught by Superman.

Awesome way to introduce Superman to the situation. Booster warns Superman about how deadly Doomsday is, but Superman is confident that he can handle it, especially with the combined might of Superman and the JLA. Superman confronts Doomsday with a determined confidence, which could also be taken as cockiness. The first little reveal of a Superman weakness.

Superman takes a full punch to the gut from Doomsday and just stands there. Impressive, yes, but totally naïve.

A split second later, Superman is caught off guard by a side kick from Doomsday that sends him hurtling through a tree and a house with a Mom and her baby inside. The gas line gets knocked loose and a fire breaks out, trapping the Mother and her baby. A side story going along at the same time tells us that this is the mother of a teenager as well, who doesn't like Superman and thinks he's just a goodie two shoes boy scout.

The Justice League regroup and try to use their energy powers to destroy Doomsday. Fire, Ice, Bloodwynd, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and Superman all blast the monster with everything they've got engulfing Doomsday in flames. Once they're spent, they stop to see if they're successful, but the result is exactly the opposite of what they wanted. Not only is Doomsday still alive, he is completely free of his bonds and tramples over the League as if they were nothing!

Doomsday then leaps into the air like the Hulk, and Superman quickly follows after him. But just as he's about to catch up to Doomsday, he hears the teenager yelling for help about his Mom and baby sister. Instead of immediately rushing off to save the lady and her baby, Superman says a silent apology, deciding that stopping Doomsday is more important. And so he engages with Doomsday, in a short scuffle, that sees Superman burying Doomsday at the bottom of a lake. Superman decides that's good enough for now and flies back to rescue the lady and baby just in the nick of time! This shows us another weakness of Superman. His inability to be in two places at the same time, and his insistence that every life is special. Doomsday existence puts EVERYONE'S life in danger, and so Superman must fight harder than ever before at the same time as keeping as many people from harm as possible. His plate is fully loaded.

So Doomsday escapes from his murky prison, and bursts out of the water to find a military helicopter targeting him. He leaps through the chopper, destroying it, and causes the missiles it's carrying to misfire. Superman, however, returns just in time to rescue both pilots and destroy each missile before they can cause any collateral damage. BUT, because of his rescue efforts, Superman has allowed Doomsday to escape again! This time, the monster lands outside the doors of the Kirby County Police Department. Just before Doomsday can take his wrath out on the Police Chief and his deputy, Superman arrives to take the fight to Doomsday. The battle causes a butt load of property damage. Buildings are knocked down, the street is torn up, and then another military helicopter arrives to "help" Superman. The helicopter only serves to annoy Doomsday, who grabs a street light and impales the helicopter causing it to crash.

Then Maxima returns from getting Blue Beetle medical attention earlier. This could be the real help Superman needs! The fight is ferocious, but in the confusion of everything Maxima goes to use a streetlight as weapon just as Superman realizes they've just taken gas fumes from a nearby gas station are leaking. The broken streetlight creates enough sparks to ignite the gas fumes and all 3 combatants are caught in the explosion!

When the smoke clears, only Superman and Maxima are there. Doomsday, once again, has escaped.

So far we see Superman has his hands full. Not only with Doomsday and the death and devastation he's causing, but also with the distraction of other heroes or military personnel trying to assist him.

Superman is very smart, and almost always aware of his surroundings, especially when civilians are involved. So his strategy quickly becomes, "let's get this monster the hell away from here!" But before he can do that, he finds Doomsday tearing up a Lexmart (a Lex Luthor owned supermarket). And in the cheesiest moment of the story, Doomsday sees a commercial for a Pro Wrestling event in Metropolis. Doomsday seems to take the commercial as a challenge, and growls out the word "Mrrr-trrr-pplsss". Then Superman arrives and punches him out of town.

Check out Part 2 for the FINAL SHOWDOWN!!!!