10 things you might not know about the Death of Superman
Last night, I sat down to watch the new Superman/Doomsday animated movie (thanks, Warner Bro’s, for the review copy) and was actually even more sucked in by the bonus documentary about the death of Supes in the funny books. I doubt that anything said by Mike Carlin, Jerry Ordway and the like was especially revelatory, but there were a few things that I’d never heard before. Here are the 10 most pertinent:
Dan Jurgens has perfectly parted hair
Both in the archive footage and now, Jurgens just has this impeccable part to his hair. I wonder if he spends hours on it every morning or if it’s so well trained he just wakes up and it pops into place.
It was all Teri Hatcher’s fault
Well, her and Dean Cain. Apparently the Superman comic editorial folks had completely planned out a year’s worth of stories leading up to the Clark and Lois wedding. Except Lois and Clark was on TV at the time and they were planning a wedding. In a move of corporate brilliance, the comic book folks were told they couldn’t have a wedding until the TV one had happened. Back to the drawing board…
“Let’s just kill ’em”
There was a running gag in Superman editorial that whenever they were hard up for ideas, they just said, “Let’s just kill ’em.” Since they were really desperate, they decided to go for it.
Doomsday was originally called “Bone Face McGrew”
Not really. Just making sure you’re paying attention.
Panels per page planning
In a preposterously alliterative move, the editors came up with a really cool idea that I didn’t remember at all. In the four official Doomsday battle issues, the writers and artists used a set number of panels per page. They started at four, then three, then two, then the last issue was 22 pages of full-page splash panels. I was surprised I didn’t notice that, but then again, I was a kid when the issues came out and haven’t read them in more than a decade.
It was less secret than Cap’s death
Hard to believe, but Superman’s death was everywhere before the issues came out, and by a long time too. I remember reading about it in Time or Newsweek months before the actual event. The documentary does a good job of showing the media frenzy, and makes me think maybe I was a bit harsh on the leak of Cap’s demise.
They didn’t have resurrection plans
I always wondered how well mapped out the Death/Return thing was. The editors and writers admit in the movie that they really had no idea, and they didn’t even talk about bringing Superman back until well after he’d been dead.
Editorial dorks
Honestly, the doc is worth it alone just to gape at the incredible nerdery of the editors, writers and artists of the Superman books. Holy cow. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say it looks like a D&D convention circa 1987.
The highlight? An outfit consisting of a bright yellow long-sleeve T shirt, short jean shorts, a fanny-pack, oversized glasses and a pony tail… on a man.
Paul Levitz wears a “Daily Planet” tie
Just thought you should know.
Resurrected mullet
This wasn’t in the documentary, but the animated film is somewhat marred by the fact that when Superman returns, he has that same terrible mullet from the return in comic books. I just couldn’t stop laughing at the screen.
Other than that, a surprisingly good flick and substantially better than that Ultimate Avengers crap.
That movie sucked. Doomsday is cool, but all that shit is over in thirty minutes. There is no funeral for a friend. Luthor is incredibly shiny, topless, and gay. The whole return of..is also retarded. The fact that Luthor has time to clone an army of supermen in 17 days is just fucking stupid. Some good action early on, but then its bad. Ultimate Avengers is much better than this below average adaptation. 6/10
Cool. I think I might rent the flick this weekend.
By the way, how’d you score a review copy?
-M
My pals at DC talked to their pals at WB.