Graphic Novel Review: THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN

In 1992 DC comics decided to do a bold thing and shake up the comic book world in a big way. They decided to alter the course of one of their most beloved and flagship characters. They decided to kill the Man of Steel. Superman.

Over the course of seven comic book issues and five separate titles Superman (with the help of the Justice League of America) would do battle against an unstoppable force of evil which would soon be called Doomsday. This storyline made all types of headlines and broke all kinds of sales records and the graphic novel The Death of Superman reprinted it all in one volume for fans of the iconic character. The graphic novel would become one of the biggest selling graphic novels of all-time with over 14 reprints currently in release.

It took me almost twenty years before I bothered to pick up the story despite how famous the story is. I’m not a big fan of Superman and, in fact, I was actually glad when DC announced they were going to kill him off (but I always knew it would be short lived). He was never a character that interested me like Batman or Green Arrow or the Green Lantern Corps (a far superior group to the abysmal Justice League). The only reason I picked up the graphic novel now is because I was finally curious about what the fuss was about).

Although written and drawn by a multitude of artists, the storyline does read fairly well as one cohesive story. Although the creature known as Doomsday is a formidable foe, he lacks background and purpose that would truly make him a Superman villain in the way that The Joker is to Batman. The creature is a force of pure unstoppable evil and destruction which works throughout the seven issues of the story because he is revealed slowly in pieces as the story progresses (he starts out completely covered in costume in the first two issues of the story). If he had been fully revealed in the first issue the story wouldn’t have had the impact that it did,

The story’s worst aspect is that the whole story is seven issues of one of the longest fights in comic book history which in my opinion makes it feel as though they stretched out the story only so they could make more money by selling more issues. I believe the story could have been stronger if the entire story could have been limited to maybe four issues within the same comic title (although I am very aware that the “crossover” is used to boost sales among several titles at the same time).

Since we all know that Superman is no longer dead, the events depicted in this story didn’t have as profound affect on the title in the long run (although its events did make for many subsequent changes over all the Superman titles of the time). The story strived to be as profound as Batman’s Year One or A Death In The Family or even The Long Halloween but it suffers from the simple fact that there is no subtext to this story. It is simply a bare-bones, knock-down fist fight that goes on for seven issues that was marketed extremely well.