Superman is iconic and after eighty-five years, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on
the planet who doesn't at least have a vague idea of what the man of steel is all about.
Hey you fancy people, welcome to That Sci-Fi Show, I'm Jay, and today's video is a request
from friend, fan of the show, discord legend and all around fancy person: Rachel Dallas
Pillow Fort Worth.
Seen here being a cat.
A+ for both name and costume.
Rachel bought The Death of Superman, the graphic novel, as a christmas gift for her comic book
loving father (Hi Dad!) and I helped in a minor way by sending her a crash course in the life
and times of the man of steel.
So, let's put that research to good use.
We're going to discuss the origin of Superman, his evolution over the years, the death of
the big blue boyscout and next time we'll discuss the symbolism and philosophy behind
the character.
Spoiler alert, he's Jesus.
So we're going to jump right in but first, real quick, I want to thank the sponsor of today's
show TeeBlox.
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The year was 1938 and National Publications was downright desperate for features to publish
in it's new anthology series called Action Comics.
Two high school friends from Cleveland had also become pretty desperate.
They'd been pitching their idea for a comic strip called "Superman" to different publications
and everyone of them had turn it down.
Back in 1933, writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster had published a short story called
The Reign of the Superman.
Side note, the dash in the title was only there because the name was printed across
two pages.
The name was spelled Superman (as one word).
So now, when that one guy who always says "well actually" tries to tell you it was
originally spelled with a dash, you can put him in his place.
Anyway, the story was published in January of 1933 in the 3rd issue of the duo's own
fan magazine called Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization.
The titular character was a telepathic villain who had more of Lex Luthor about him than
of Superman.
And so they reworked this story into a comic strip about a hero that could leap one eighth
of a mile, out run a speeding train and lift heavy stuff.
And that brings us full circle back to 1938 when an editor who had passed on the comic,
recommended it to National Publications.
This required the duo to cut and paste their comic strip into a thirteen page comic book
story.
It became the lead feature in Action Comics #1, changing both the comic industry and the
world forever.
Superman went on to sell millions of books every month and every publisher began scrambling
to put out their own superhero stories.
Siegel and Shuster, two teens trying to escape depression era poverty by breaking into the
comics industry, were now famous creators but they'd also developed resentment toward
the company that bought the rights to Superman from them for only $130.
Now to be fair, this comes to an estimated $2,257 when adjusted for inflation according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it's CPI Inflation Calculator.
However, two grand is still a far cry from the millions that National Publications was
bringing in off the success of Superman.
In 1947, they sued National over the rights to Superman… and they lost.
The company responded by firing the duo and removing their "created by" credit.
Decades later in 1975, the pending release of Superman: The Movie starring Christopher
Reeve stirred up a controversy over the duo's treatment and in response they were given
a lifetime stipend, medical benefits and a credit going forward.
During the golden age of comics, Superman battled it out with gangsters and criminals,
unlike the supervillains and alien forces that would come in later years.
For much of this era, creators Siegel and Shuster were still on staff at National Publications
- which was already known as DC Comics as early as 1940.
However, other artists and writers were becoming increasingly involved in telling stories about
the man of steel.
In 1954, the Comics Code Authority was established to protect children from the evils of comic
books.
Superman changed with the times and within a couple of years, the Silver age of comics
was underway.
Comic book storylines became silly and campy and while the Golden Age had its fair share
of campy goodness, the Silver Age was different in that silly was all you got.
Superman's increase in powers and abilities had been going on throughout the golden age
but accelerated during this time.
At times, Superman's had telekinesis, telepathy, hypnotism and super ventriloquism.
Side note, the start and end date of most of these eras are debatable as these types
of changes happen gradually.
How many ages there are, what they're called and when they begin or end; it's always
been a debate.
One school of thought places the end of the Silver Age as happening around 1985 when the
DC Universe rebooted with a story arc called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
However, this school of thought leaves out the Bronze age entirely, which is often said
to have started in 1970, when Jack Kirby left Marvel to work for DC.
Likewise, the Modern Age is often said to have begun around 1986, a year after Crisis
and the same year DC Comics released Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, both
written by comic legend Alan Moore.
For our purposes, we're skipping ahead to 1992 with Superman Vol 2 #75 - The Death of
Superman.
By this time the newly rebooted versions of Clark Kent and Lois Lane had been dating and
the two love birds were engaged in Superman #50 in 1992.
The team that had been writing the story arc had planned a huge wedding and wanted the
couple to tie the knot around issue #75.
Unfortunately for our mild mannered reporter, Warner Bros (which owned DC Comics by his
time) had plans of their own.
They wanted to do a new TV series based on these two love birds and they worried that
having them already married in the comics would kill the "will they, won't they" vibe
in the show.
So what was the writer's room to do?
They needed a big event they could pull off in issue #75 to replace the wedding.
Now, I'm not sure how they came up with the idea to kill off Superman as a replacement
for his marriage but I like to imagine they were engaged in a game of @#$%, Marry, Kill
when one of them suddenly jumped up and yelled "I've got it"!
So now that we're all caught up to 1992's The Death of Superman, I'd like to tell
you guys the story.
Now, I'm no Benny and I don't intend to do this often… but I'll try to do the
material justice.
The story begins with Doomsday, a monster bound in green leather with bone protrusions
all over his body.
He punches through the wall of the prison he's contained in and jumps to freedom.
Travelling through the forest, knocking down the trees, he eventually finds civilization
and proceeds to wreck a bridge filled with cars.
Booster Gold and Maxima are the first responders from the Justice League and along with Guy
Gardner and Tora, they get to work saving civilians and putting out fires.
Bloodwing gathers a group into Blue Beetle's flying beetle and they head out looking for
whoever... or whatever caused all this devastation.
However the group gets too close too fast and Doomsday sees them first.
He throws a tree at the flying beetle and its destruction sends everyone flying.
By the time everyone is safe on the ground, Doomsday is long gone.
Our heroes give chase and they find Doomsday on a street destroying every car in his path.
Gardner jumps in but Doomsday catches him by the head and puts him down.
He never had a chance.
Fire uses the full force of her abilities on Doomsday but it doesn't even phase him.
Doomsday grabs Blue Beetle by throat and starts ramming his head into anything and everything
as Beetle begs someone to help him.
Booster Gold angrily storms into the fight but Doomsday punches him so hard it sends
him flying through the sky, where he's caught by Superman.
The Man of Steel has arrived.
Superman lands with Booster Gold just as Doomsday throws Torra through a house.
The man of steel steps up to Doomsday and takes the full power of his punch and doesn't
flinch but Doomsday kicks him and Superman goes flying through the house and into a tree.
As the Justice League regroups the remaining heroes attack with all their might at the
same time but it's no good.
This entire time, Doomsday has had a hand literally tied behind back from back at the
prison.
All they've done is free it for him.
Doomsday laughs.
He throws Superman and grabs Booster Gold by the throat.
As Doomsday throws Booster, Superman and Bloodwing attack from two fronts but it's no good.
Doomsday punches them both at once and jumps to freedom.
Superman won't give up though, he gives chase and flying at top speed he catches up to Doomsday
and they begin to battle it out.
The battle rages on and on and eventually the two end up making their way back to Metropolis.
Superman tries to fly Doomsday into space and away from the city but Doomsday knocks
the breath out of the man of steel and they land in the middle of a construction site.
Superman realizes this could be it and gives Lois Lane what could be their final kiss.
He tells her that he loves her and flies into battle to put Doomsday down for good.
Doomsday's bone protrusions are so sharp they cut the man of steel and he starts to bleed.
While the two continue to battle it out, Superman starts to break off the bones sticking out
of Doomsday's body.
After a long, hard fought battle, Superman lays on the ground bleeding.
In his last dying breath he whispers to Lois, "Doomsday, is he...".
"You stopped him" she replies "You saved us all".
Sadly, this was the time Superman didn't make back.
Superman has had many changes and revamps over the years.
Two poor teenagers in the depression era went looking for the American dream and in finding
it, they captured the imagination of fans, writers, artists and society as a whole.
The public has maintained that interest and enthusiasm for nearly nine decades.
From the golden age strong man, to the silly silver age hero and into the modern mainstream,
Superman really is an icon.
It's an idea that will outlast us all.
Thank you fancy nerds so much for watching, I know this was a long video and it breaks
a lot of new ground for this channel, but I really hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, please give this video a like and share it to Facebook and Twitter, it helps
the channel so much.
The names on screen are the channel's lovely patrons from Patreon who make my fancy pants
editing software possible.
Thank you, guys.
I'll see most of you in the patreon google hangout this weekend.
I'd also like to thank TeeBlox for sponsoring such a small channel.
Again the code is FANCYTEETHTBX and the website is teeblox.com.
Turn on notifications if you want to be notified when the next video comes out, in it we'll
be discussing the symbolism and philosophy of Superman.
Most importantly, thank every single one of you for watching.
I've been Jay Parks.
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