2 Funeral for a Friend and the Reign of the Supermen

The following funeral featured many of Superman's fellow heroes and friends, including most of the Justice League of America, and a mausoleum was built in Metropolis in honor of the Man of Steel. Furthermore, stories after the funeral often dealt with the emotions felt by the general public as well as specific characters entwined within Superman's world, including Lois Lane, Clark Kent's parents, and even a number of supervillainsFictional supervillains are the foils to comic-book superheroes and other fictional heroes. The typical supervillain is an evil genius. They are villains, but with extraordinary power or ability which makes them viable antagonists for the most gifted hero.

In the following storyline, "Reign of the Supermen," four new heroes emerged in Superman's place:

• John Henry Irons, an ironworker who wears a suit of armour and wields a hammer as The Man of SteelSteel is a name used by several fictional characters owned and published by DC Comics in their universe. There have been four characters, all superheroes, to use the name. Steel I (Henry "Hank" Heywood), better known as Commander Steel, is a Golden Age su.
• The CyborgDC Comics has published two characters who have used the name "Cyborg. Vic Stone Victor "Vic" Stone is the most well-known Cyborg, having appeared on the animated Superfriends and Teen Titans. Vic Stone was severely injured in an alien attack, and receive, scientifically proven to be Superman, but actually bent on destroying Earth in Superman's name.
• SuperboySuperboy is a fictional character published by DC Comics which was originally intended to be Superman as a boy and was essentially treated as a junior version of Superman. To that end, Superboy wore the Superman costume and his alter ego Clark Kent wore g, a reckless teenage clone (he claims) of Superman.
• The visored Last Son of KryptonIn the DC Comics universe, the Eradicator is a 200,000 year old artifact and weapon. It first appeared in Action Comics Annual #2 ( 1989). In the distant past, a dying alien race created a number of devices to preserve their culture, and sent them into sp, an energy-powered alien who dealt with criminals lethally.

3 The Man of Steel's re-birth

The Last Son of Krypton stole Superman's body and put it in a regeneration matrix in the Fortress of Solitude, drawing on his recovering energies to power himself, as bright light blinded him. It is revealed that the Last Son is the Eradicator (an ancient Kryptonian weapon), and the Cyborg is the deranged consciousness of Hank Henshaw, which used Superman's birthing matrix to create a physical duplicate of his body.

The regeneration matrix broke open, and the original Superman emerged, greatly depowered, but alive. Meanwhile, the Cyborg helped Mongul destroy Coast City, believing he killed the Last Son in the explosion, and captured Superboy. Superboy escaped and got the Man of Steel to help him fight the Cyborg. The original Superman returned to Metropolis, convinced them that he was indeed Superman, and joined them to fight the Cyborg.

The Last Son/Eradicator joined the fight after recovering in the Fortress, and blocked the Cyborg from dousing Superman with lethal KryptoniteKryptonite is a fictional element from the Superman comic book series. Before Crisis on Infinite Earths Before the Superman mythos was redefined by writer John Byrne, the pre-Crisis DC Universe was home to a variety of elements called Kryptonite. Kryptoni gas. The gas interacted with the Eradicator as it passed through and into Superman, returning his powers rather than killing him. Superman then destroyed the Cyborg. Meanwhile, Green Lantern fought Mongul, shattering the Man of Steel's hammer across his face.

4 Audience/Media Response

The Death and Life of Superman storyline brought in millions of readers to DC Comics, despite the entirety of the story being intertwined through numerous different comic series, including Action ComicsAction Comics is the comic book series that introduced the world to Superman, the first major superhero character as is popularly defined. Teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster launched their creation with Action Comics #1 in June of 1938. The character, Superman, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Adventures of Superman, among others. The cover of Superman #75 (shown above) became a famous image: Superman's tattered cape wrapped around a pole, marking a makeshift grave.

Because of Superman's place as an American icon, his death became a multimedia event, covered by newspapers and televised reports. Certain prints of Superman #75 contained a black armband with the familiar "S" symbol adorning it. Many comics fans publicly wore the armband immediately following Superman's death, including, perhaps most famously, Jay LenoJames Douglas Muir Leno (born April 28, 1950 in New Rochelle, New York) is an American comedian best known as the host of the popular NBC television program The Tonight Show''. He grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and received his Bachelor's degree in Sp.

Some critics praised DC for boldly doing the unthinkable and innovatively drawing in more readers. However, many others were highly critical, citing the entire idea as a publicity stunt, with DC knowing full well that they would not eliminate their most popular character.

Roger Stern adapted the storyline into a novel, also entitled The Death and Life of Superman, in the summer of 1993.

Several attempts were made at making a movie version of The Death and Life of... storyline as Superman Reborn (aka Superman Lives). At one point, Tim Burton was slated as director and Nicolas Cage set to portray Superman. But with skyrocketing projected budgets, increased delays, and Christopher Reeve's tragic accident which paralyzed him for the remainder of his life, the film project was eventually abandoned.

Superman Death of Superman, The

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