As some of you faithful readers may be aware, I love comic books! I love ‘em to death. I’m not afraid to admit it. Yes, it may be nerdy, but isn’t that kind of what I am?
I‘ve always maintained that the X-Men books are my favorite comics, but lately that train of thought has kind of been in decline. There are still some storylines that I love, like Phoenix Endsong and The Onslaught Saga, but with too many characters, and storylines that are too convoluted, I’m just kind of getting tired of it. Also Marvel Comics all together is just starting to piss me off. So I’m looking in other directions. The new Green Lantern is good, and I picked up Batman: Year One, which I think is great. However, the one storyline that I’ve always held as being my favorite is, The Death and Return of Superman.
A lot of people, myself included, have a strong dislike towards the fact that Superman is too perfect. Look at other superheroes and you’ll see that most have only one or two or maybe even three powers. Superman has the most of anyone. Lets run down the list: flight, super-strength, super-speed, heat vision, super-hearing, x-ray vision, and ice-cold breath. That’s just a little too much. On top of all these powers he can only be hurt by kryptonite.
There’s a few reasons why I liked this storyline so much:
1)It put Superman in his place. When he came back he knew that something could actually hurt him rather than a piece of green rock, and it made him not think he was a super as he once thought he was. Everyone has to be knocked off of their pedestal every once in a while.
2)Superman’s death and eventual resurrection are like a metaphor, that if you get knocked down you have to pick yourself back up and keep going. Everyone gets knocked down but you have to get back up and learn from what happened.
3)I think my favorite thing about the storyline is the way it depicted the heroes of the DC Universe. It shows that there are human beings under those tights that they wear. They have all come together to remember a man whom they all admire and respect. It takes the “super” out of these super beings, and replaces it with “human”. It made the reader more aware of what the characters were like under the tights. For example: While all of the Heroes are gathered talking about Superman, Robin thinks to himself “I liked him too, but I’m afraid that if say anything in front of these guys I’ll sound like an idiot!” It is a reasonable thing for Robin to be have this fear, considering he is only about 16 years old and he’s standing around with all these people who have years on him. It’s possible for any 16 year old to have that fear.
4)It was all perfectly executed. At the end of Funeral for a Friend #8 it seemed as if it was over, or could have been over. All the loose ends were tied up, and at the end instead of telling the reader what to expect in the next few issues, all it said was “We have no information on this issue at this time”. Doing this created an even greater mystery as to what was about to happen next. That way, when all the new heroes showed up, claiming to be the real Superman, it left the reader wondering which one was, in fact, the real one.
So, these are the reasons I love The Death and Return of Superman. I encourage anyone who’s interested in checking out what it’s all about, do a google search on it or check out some of the paperbacks that have the whole story in it (don’t try and find all the issues, I wish I would have just bought the paperbacks…would have saved me time and money, and I still don’t even have it all). The paperbacks are call The Death of Superman, A world Without Superman, and The Return of Superman. Happy reading!
Youngblood