When this came out, there was a sign on our local comics shop stating “The death of Superman printed a zillion copies, it will never be worth anything to a collector.”
I had a boss back in like 2011ish who said he brother bought like 5ish copies of the Death of Superman and gave him one. His brother told him to put it in a safe deposit box because it would be worth money one day, I’m pretty sure my boss knew it wouldn’t.
Still got the full run of Death & Return of Superman somewhere in my collection. That was the storyline that got me into collecting comics
I have a bone to pick with DC. The lead up to this scene is dead simple. It’s narratively trivial. Doomsday arrives. Doomsday spends some time in nature. Doomsday kicks the ass of everyone that tries to stop it. Doomsday enters Metropolis.
It’s deceptively simple, and yet stunning.
Why, oh why, can’t they get it right for one movie?
Because different things work in different mediums. What works well in a comic doesn’t automatically work well in a movie. I mean, DC somehow still manages to fuck up every single movie while Marvel managed to make some decent to good ones, so there’s more to it than just that.
What works well in a comic doesn’t automatically work well in a movie.
Absolutely.
But Doomsday’s first appearance is already a perfect movie storyboard.
The creative team knew they were introducing Superman’s greatest foe, and they knew it was going to become a movie, someday.
That scene would work in a movie. It begs to be done larger than life on a huge screen.
DC needs to learn to trust their source material.
I had the softcover full story of this, which is an excellent way to get it. An absolute classic and great read with some stellar artwork. It was such a huge ordeal when it came out, my mom even got me the individual issues as they released. For some reason there was a lot of uproar over it, though I didn’t pay attention to Nerd News back then; I think it was more over how he came back than his death. In any case, it’s a must-read.
