Death Of Superman 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Release: Dec 06, 2022

Creators

Writer	Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson
Cover Artist	Willie Schubert, Doug Hazlewood
Penciller	Jackson ‘Butch’ Guice, Dan Jurgens
Inker	Tom Grummett, Rick Burchett, Jon Bogdanove, Doug Hazlewood
Colorist	Brett Breeding, Denis Rodier
Letterer	Glenn Whitmore, Bill Oakley, Gene D’Angelo, John Costanza
Editor	Ruben Diaz, Jennifer Frank
Editor in Chief	Mike Carlin

Despite some of the obvious parallels, I’m generally not fond of the whole Superman-as-Jesus thing, but given that today is Easter, I thought I might as well do this Short Box post about a powerful man who came to Earth from the heavens, performed miracles, suffered for our sins, died, and rose again.

Mostly because I felt like I should write something, and I didn’t feel like writing about anything that was thematically appropriate for weed or Hitler’s birthday.

My particular edition of this collection that contains the original Death of Superman story – though not the story of his return to life – as well as the follow-up Day of Doom mini-series from 2003, was a free gift for being a subscriber to the Ultra version of the DC Universe Infinite service, which is a service that I really should make more use of than I do.

I don’t know that my edition differs in any way from any other, though I have a difficult time thinking of it as a “Deluxe Edition” given that it’s a paperback.

The main story, of course, is the battle between Superman and Doomsday that left a trail of destruction across half the country and ended in the death of both.

The mini-series included is something of a retrospective looking back on that battle and its aftermath as a reporter for The Daily Planet who is no fan of the Man of Steel is tasked with writing the paper’s annual feature to coincide with the anniversary of that fateful day.

It retells the events but also tells some of the stories that went untold, focusing less on the lives that Superman saved by laying down his own and more on the lives that were lost as the result of that battle.

The collection is rounded out by a reprint of a special edition of Newstime printed just after Superman’s death.

This was DC’s first foray into a parody newsmagazine like those put out by its Marvelous competitor.

DC’s version has the advantage of being an existing and often-mentioned in-universe magazine, one that for a time employed Clark Kent.

As with Marvel’s parody magazines, it features articles, interviews – with real quotes from real people – and fake ads.

One of my favorite bits was a review of an in-universe superhero movie that is a thinly veiled critique of Batman Returns that talks about how the animated TV series based on the same character is in many ways vastly superior to any live-action adaptation.

It’s a nice little collection overall, though one that’s largely unnecessary for me, as I have the original issues of the Death storyline and of Newstime and I’m not really that much of a fan of the Day of Doom mini-series. I mean, it’s fine, and does raise some interesting points, but it’s just not that essential as far as I’m concerned.

I’m actually planning to put my copy up for sale at some point, so keep an eye out for that.

Which reminds me – I’ve got a few comics from my collection up for sale at the main site, if you’d care to take a look. More, of course, will become available as I get around to adding them.