The (First) Death of Superman!

28 Comments

1. I remember reading this as a kid!

2. I always loved DC's Silver Age "Imaginary" stories, and THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN was (and remains) my very favorite of the stories I read as a kid. And it still brings a tear to my eye.

   Thanks for bringing back my childhood, Steve!

   ❤❤❤❤

3. ❤️ This is one of the first Superman stories I've ever read, and it was in a 90's/early 00's italian Superman anthology my mom bought me in some family trip. Lucky for me I'm native in spanish and galician, and from there italian is easy
   Still there in my library as the stuff that got me into the character

4. Sheesh talk about playing the long game.

5. It's such a Lex thing to cure cancer just to kill Superman. The ultimate good motivated by the pettiest evil, showing just what Lex could put his mind to if not for his ego or pension for vengeance.

6. wasn't there several "Death of Superman" stories? I seem to recall it was redone several times over the years of the Silver Age.

7. Seems they forgot Kal-els lookalike cousins Don-el and Van zhee who could have scared the hair back on Luthor appearing as 2 Supermen.

8. I used to have these comics. But they were lost due to circumstances.

9. I remember reading this back in the early70s; it was the grimmest "modern" comic I had seen by that point. Marvel and even some DC had had some near it, but those were Marvel and were Batman and Black Hawks. And never the hero himself. So it caught me off guard. Especially because I was still mostly looking at the pictures and reading only the key scenes and just skimming the rest. So it being imaginary slipped by me. I was expecting it to a trick, or Brainiac 5 in disguise (again?) or that Luthor would admit Superman was just unconscious and that Luthor didn't want to let on that he couldn't kill him. So when it just ended with him dead, even though it let us know it was imaginary, I was sorta shaken. It left me for a while not sure if comics I was reading would actually have the hero loos, if they were imaginary or if worse if all they would be killed off and not be imaginary. It gave things elevated stakes but also gave me a slight distrust of the comic companies. All these years later it still holds up well. And it was a treat as a teen to see it reimagined (though not as well) by the Super Friends cartoon. Well made comic, very well made video.

10. "XXX-Ray" fml

11. I read that story in an 80 page giant reprint as I hadn't yet become a comic book reader until comics were being sold for twelve cents. It was a blunt no nonsense tale which wasn't connected with any transition or anniversary.

12. I always feel bad for Krypto. He was always portrayed as such a faithful dog any story wher he is sad makes me feel bad.

13. The ultimate heel/face/heel turn.

14. The first comic book my dad ever bought me was an 80 page giant Superman that features this story. I have it framed in on my bedroom wall.

15. Thank you for these, Steve.

16. Grreat presentation! Thank you!

17. Why is Luthor such a dick?

18. Luther is a next level petty hater rivaled maybe only by Eobard Thawne lol

19. Please do more like these. For X-Men as well.

20. What happened to the the Superman robots? Did they self destruct or shut off? They are mad to match superman so they could just have easily take up his mantle.

21. Damn, that story was dark.

22. So if Lex was super tiny when he got put in the Phantom Zone, does that mean Zod and everyone else in there are enormous to him?

23. It would've been interesting to see a Supergirl series set in this imaginary "World Without a Superman."

24. Man, Lex Luthor is Trump without the hair, so…. Trump. Lex Luthor is Trump.

    Well, ok, Lex has brains, so the similarity ends right there 😉

25. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Lex though by sitting in his cell “Where is it most cold?”

    “Ah! In spaaaaaace.” He chuckled to himself.

26. I kinda like to think he did actually reform but then went insane after Superman basically left him alone in space for assumedly months. Then just started obsessing over Superman again and forgetting why he went straight

27. I love what an unapologetic dick Luthor is.

28. There’s a bit of interesting symbolism in this story if you take into account real world events in 1961. The trial of Luthor by the people of Kandor resembles the trial of Adolf Eichmann being held in Jerusalem that year. Luthor is shown standing in a glass booth. I wonder if that was a detail Jerry Siegel put in the script.

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