WI: DC doesn't bring back Superman

What if the Death of Superman had actually stuck? What impact might there have been on the comic book industry if Superman's death had been permanent (or at least he stays dead for as long as Jason Todd did)?
 

Nietzsche

Banned
What if the Death of Superman had actually stuck? What impact might there have been on the comic book industry if Superman's death had been permanent (or at least he stays dead for as long as Jason Todd did)?

...

What? It's Superman. It'd be like killing the Joker. You've shot yourself in the foot in regards to story telling ability.
 
If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong), I believe that, unlike many other high-profile superhero deaths, Superman's was never intended to be permanent.
 
Wouldn't work; he was killed with the express intent of bringing him back. The whole point of it was to delay his and Lois' wedding so it would happen in the comics at the same time as it did on Lois and Clark.
 
I've heard the death was intended to be temporary too. He was only dead for two months, wasn't he? The intention was to boost sales and to introduce new characters Superboy, Steel, and Cyborg Superman.
If he was the only person to die and come back, I would have been OK with it, because maybe Superman can heal after dying, but sadly it opened up the floodgates for it happening all the time.

This information about dying to delay the wedding is new to me. I thought he was married shortly before he died.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
I've heard that too. He was only dead for two months, wasn't he? The intention was to boost sales and to introduce new characters Superboy, Steel, and Cyborg Superman.
If he was the only person to die and come back, I would have been OK with it, because maybe Superman can heal after dying, but sadly it opened up the floodgates for it happening all the time.
Myth. Comic book characters have been dying and coming back from it since forever. Namely because, well, there's always more you can do with them.

The only genuine aversion to that, atleast until recently, was Barry Allen.
 
This information about dying to delay the wedding is new to me. I thought he was married shortly before he died.
Engaged. It's why they did it.

The only genuine aversion to that, atleast until recently, was Barry Allen.
Traditionally, the Five Who Will Never Be Revived, due to the importance of their deaths, are Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd, and Barry Allen.

You'll notice that three of them have been revived, though.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Traditionally, the Five Who Will Never Be Revived, due to the importance of their deaths, are Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd, and Barry Allen.

You'll notice that three of them have been revived, though.
Psh, I have two examples even better.

Thomas & Martha Wayne and Abin-Sur.

Flashpoint doesn't count. Even if the Batman bit of it is one of the greatest things fucking ever.
 
Psh, I have two examples even better.

Thomas & Martha Wayne and Abin-Sur.

Flashpoint doesn't count. Even if the Batman bit of it is one of the greatest things fucking ever.

You know the fact that his parent are never the one that get ressurected probably what piss Batman so much:p
 
Superman's death and resurrection did two things. One, it lead to loss of faith in DC from the fanbase, who felt betrayed, and I believe lead to sales dying down after the resurrection (contributing as well to the near death of the industry). Two, it started a trend of no one ever staying dead, and a trend of big names getting killed off and just resurrected later. I see someone saying it was happening before, but I do not remember that at all. If it ever did happen, it had to have been something like a one issue thing which was resolved before the issue ended and wasn't advertised as anything. And if the person means those issues where the cover lured you in with something like "Gee Whiz, they lynched Batman!" and either that didn't really happen either because it was a faked death or was shrunk by a shrink ray and no one could find them or because the comic mislead you with that, it doesn't count.

I hate the comic book death trend, because they don't stop doing it, and every time they do it, they advertise it as this huge event, and then just bring them back. And so death has no weight and no meaning in comic books anymore.
One of the recent things I thought happened that they should have just let happen was the death of Batman. I liked that Dick Grayson became the new batman, and that he had his own new Robin. And Bruce Wayne's story arc ended like it should have; he was a fucked up human being, in an unending war, who was going to be destroyed by the life he had chosen. And he was. And what this new thing allowed to happen was new canon, and new mythology. I'm tired of walking the same ground forever and ever and rebooting and walking the same ground again. Superman with Clark Kent and Batman with Bruce Wayne will live forever in the mythology of culture, regardless of if they die in the comic books, just as Hercules and all continue to live in the cultural mythos. So letting them finally die after decades and decades, that was fine. And they can always return in books set in variant DC universes like they have now where there's the main DC universe and then the All Star one. But no, Bruce Wayne had to come back.
 
The idea that the death and resurrection of Superman "opened the floodgates" to the idea that death in superhero comics wasn't permanent is ridiculous. It had long been established by that point, and DC was merely riding the wave. Within DC, the entire Justice Society had been killed and subsequently resurrected by that point, as had a good chunk of the Legion of Super-Heroes, several members of the Teen Titans, the entire Doom Patrol, and a handful of others. Marvel had already pulled that stunt with Jean Grey of the X-Men, as well as a cloned Gwen Stacy appearing back in the 1970s, and others I'm less familiar with simply because I'm more of a DC fanboy. The reaction of fans in the early 1990s was pretty much identical to the reaction you'd see from fans of a killed-off character in 2012: the question wasn't "would DC keep him dead," but "when will they bring him back." The press coverage might have fallen for the gimmick, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with superhero comics at the time knew what to expect.

If DC had decided to keep their most recognizable character dead (which would have required ASB intervention, frankly), not much would have changed. You would still have had the collapse of the industry, sales-wise, by the end of the decade, as a logical extension of the earlier boom that had little to do with actual content and everything to do with collector speculation. Following that you would still have the resultant influx of creators who sought to rekindle the Silver Age of their memories, which would have logically led to a rash of deaths and resurrections.

But, again, I can't think of a scenario in which DC doesn't plan to bring back Superman. Maybe one where they drag it out longer, something like the two-year long "death" of Batman story arc recently (where the story was constructed so that the audience knows he's not dead, even if the characters don't), but Superman is just too important to their business to write him out permanently. If though his comics are seldom at the top of the charts, the merchandising alone is enough. Especially in the early 1990s, when Warner Bros. is working on a film reboot (which took over a decade to materialize, admittedly), and has a TV series in the pipeline.
 
Seancdaug, that sounds like it's probably true, but I was under the impression the silver age Doom Patrol members came back more recently.

I suppose if an ASB kills Superman and keeps him dead, Superboy would quickly age to the same age as Superman and take over Clark's life. Lois would know he's not the same guy, but soon Lois and Superboy will fall in love and get married. It would be terrible.
 
Emperor, I wholeheartedly agree with you on Bruce.

He saved the universe, and gave his life to stop Darkseid. Not only that, but he violated a cardinal rule (no guns) to do it. His death was more meaningful and powerful than those of Superman and Flash, etc., because of his mortality and his commitment to his ways of crime fighting.

Cripes, I had enough tears in my eyes to soak the final crisis novel in Barnes and Noble.

But yes, I don't see Superman staying dead more than a year, same with Captain America (although his death was a hell of a lot like Wayne's)

And I did like that Dick took over the mantle. And the "New 52" gives me a migraine just thinking of it.


P.S. I like Kathy Kane/ Batwoman
 
I hate the comic book death trend, because they don't stop doing it, and every time they do it, they advertise it as this huge event, and then just bring them back. And so death has no weight and no meaning in comic books anymore.
One of the recent things I thought happened that they should have just let happen was the death of Batman.

They did kill Batman and he is still dead. Bruce Wayne of Earth-2 died in 1979 (Adventure Comics #462), a few months before Jean Grey died. She has come and gone a couple of times and he is still dead.

Torqumada
 
They did kill Batman and he is still dead. Bruce Wayne of Earth-2 died in 1979 (Adventure Comics #462), a few months before Jean Grey died. She has come and gone a couple of times and he is still dead.

Torqumada

Earth-2 Batman died again in Earth 2 #1.
 
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What? It's Superman. It'd be like killing the Joker. You've shot yourself in the foot in regards to story telling ability.

Yeah, I don't see this happening. Killing off one of your biggest characters for good would be stupid. The question wasn't if he would come back but how and when.
 
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