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Let’s back back to this little series, shall we? As you–all three of you–may recall, I started this series off with Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen, and Jason Todd. I also went through the disclaimer of how I actually like these characters (to an extent) and this isn’t just me bitching about how I hate character X and think they’re some kind of [generic insult involving "fag", "gay", "butt", "sodomy", and "pineapple"].

In keeping with DC Comics, I’m going to go after one more person.

Who is this person?

The Man of Tomorrow. The Man of Steel. Joseph Stalin. Clark Kent. Kal-El.

Superman

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What?! Are you MAD?!” Or “Yeah, I think so, too.” One of the two. Okay, so I don’t know. Let’s not go there.

Superman, as you all may remember, went through the very amazing death during his big 1990s arc The Death of Superman wherein Doomsday, who was created solely for this arc¹ goes on a rampage and beats the ever-loving shit out of everyone from Blue Beetle to Guy Gardner to finally our friend Kal-El. The battle itself spans every large pages and ends up destroying a good portion of Metropolis in the process until finally the two of them died as a result of the battle and everyone mourned like Jesus himself was fighting Doomsday and was killed in the process.

But why have him stay dead? Superman is an icon, THE icon of DC comics. One of the first, in publishing, to actually exist, Superman helped define the modern superhero as much as anyone else, and deserves respect for that. However, the character also died a VERY noble death during the Death of Superman arc. And, as you may have noticed, I have this thing about making sure people who die noble deaths stay dead lest it all be cheapened.

World Without a Superman, the follow-up arc to Death of Superman showed the impact that Superman held over everyone. Even Batman, who was always strained with Clark, paid his respects and paid them genuinely during the funeral for Superman. It was a very beautiful story arc, showing Jon and Martha Kent mourning for their lost son, Lois mourning her love, the people of Metropolis mourning their lost hero, and superheroes around the world mourning for their lost friend and companion.

But there were good things that came from Superman’s “death”. One of which was the incorporation of several characters into the modern continuity: Steel II, Superboy (Conner), Hank Henshaw, and Eradicator. These characters, apparently, developed as a result of people wanting various reshaping of Superman–Eradicator taking the name “The Last Son of Krypton” and being the “Lethal Superman”, Henshaw being the “Cyborg” Superman, Superboy being Superboy, and Steel II being…well, Steel. Characters who, without Superman dying, would not have really had a chance to come into continuity.

Superman, being who he is, had to come back, though. After all, he’s Superman.

With Superman’s return, all of the mourning, all of the comics bought to commemorate him, became meaningless. Just like with Jason Todd, Oliver Queen, Hal Jordan, and all the others I’m sure to list at any point later on. He never even really died! They took a wonderfully emotional collection of comics and ruined them.

Superman, while dead, could serve as a great inspiration to all heroes. He moves into near Sainthood among metahumans and superheroes. He was the pinnacle of heroics, the greatest that there was and maybe the greatest there ever would be. I mean, what better way for a superhero to go than to die protecting his/her city? It was the ideal death of any hero and fitting (though not the best) for someone like Superman. They even built a monument to him in Metropolis to commemorate his death.

What of all of that wasted emotion on a man who never really left? In the end, it was like nothing had even happened. They mentioned his “death” here and there: Kevin Smith’s stint on the Green Arrow series, and Identity Crisis, but there wasn’t much else to it. He had “died”, and now he was back. Just a cheap stunt that, at the time, could have been so much more.

1. Though, originally, I didn’t like this idea. A character who was, essentially, one dimensional and existed only to bring about the effects of this arc and essentially died at the close–though variations of him existed afterward. However, after discussions with people who have more knowledge in this area than I do, I decided to change my views. The main idea behind it all being that if someone like Lex Luthor had the ability to kill Superman, he would have done so already. [↩]