Thirty years ago, one of the most monumental events in comic books took place with the release of DC Comics’ Superman #75. As comic book fans know, the issue was the finale to the epic “Death of Superman” crossover storyline that ran across several other Superman titles, Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, and Superman: The Man of Steel. Superman met his physical match with the alien monstrosity called Doomsday that escaped from an unknown prison and rampaged across the countryside.

During the rampage, Superman and his allies desperately fought the hulking, grey behemoth, but were unable to stop Doomsday as he finally made his way to Superman’s home, the city of Metropolis. It was in that fictional city that Superman made his last stand against the creature and ultimately killed him, but not before Doomsday killed him, as well.

It was one of the finest Superman stories ever told, it was a true epic full of action and heart. It demonstrated why Superman was one of the greatest superheroes ever conceived, as he used all his strength and drive to stop Doomsday before making his greatest sacrifice.

Before the storyline came out in 1992, the creative team behind the Superman titles, which included Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern, Jerry Ordway, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice and Jon Bogdanove, were following in the wake of John Byrne’s run with the character in Superman, Action Comics and The Adventures of Superman. Byrne radically revamped and modernized Superman in the 1980s, which raised the superhero’s profile to an extent. But when Byrne left the titles it was up to this small army of writers and artists to continue creating quality storylines. The creative team at that time often would get together in a so-called “Superman Summit” to map out and brainstorm ideas for Superman.

Marriage & Death

During this period, they were developing the concept of Superman/Clark Kent marrying Lois Lane. But they came upon a huge stumbling block in that the same story was being used by the TV show Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. This postponed plans to marry off the two lovers in the comic books because the TV producers wanted to be the first ones to play with the marriage concept and have the comic books coincide with the TV event. This frustrated the creative teams because this decision by the higher ups disrupted their carefully planned stories for the year.

It was back to the drawing board as the creative team held another meeting to conceive an alternative plot for Superman. Despite their efforts, they could not come up with a story that was as good as marrying off Superman. On a frustrated whim, it was suggested by Ordway to kill off Superman. At first, the idea was dismissed because he often would bring this idea up as a joke in previous summits. But this time, the joke began to germinate as the creators wondered what if Superman was killed, and their brainstorming led to the crossover event.

Pending Doomsday

The “Death of Superman” garnered so much media attention because many who did not follow or understand comics actually wondered if this event was a publicity stunt to generate sales or if DC actually intended to kill off its flagship superhero.

When the storyline first debuted in Superman: The Man of Steel #18 (where all readers saw were fists thumping through reinforced walls at the end of the issue), interest in Superman was already percolating as fans latched onto the storyline and wondered themselves how it would play out. After all, for the first time one of the most prominent comic book icons was going to be killed off. Sure there were big deaths in comic books before such as Supergirl and the Flash in the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series and lesser known heroes like Invisible Kid and Ferro Lad, both from the Legion of Superheroes died, as well. But this time it was different. This was Superman we were talking about. By the time Superman #75 came out the storyline morphed from a media event to a pop culture event.

At this time, the story played out weekly as each title advanced the plot. It was a slow burn as each tightly coordinated issue advanced the plot, which enticed readers to come back to the stores the following week to find out what happened next. This generated a lot of interest not just with readers, but with trade magazines like Wizard. By the time the story culminated in Superman #75, the confrontation between Superman and Doomsday took up entire splash pages and concluded with a multiple page spread featuring Lois crying over Superman’s lifeless corpse.

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