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Topic: Superman’s 75th Anniversary. (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Bob Simko
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:07am | IP Logged | 1  

Exactly. Sad, coming from the NYT.
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:10am | IP Logged | 2  

The "Death of Superman" story is #10 on the list of 25 Best Superman Stories.

Yes, should have been higher up.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:15am | IP Logged | 3  

The "Death of Superman" story is #10 on the list of 25 Best Superman Stories.

++

Yes, should have been higher up.

••

It should not have been on a list of "stories" at all. It was not a story. It was a coldly calculated stunt, designed to appeal primarily to the speculators, and responsible for actually driving away many long time readers.

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Stéphane Garrelie
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 4  

Number two on the list, just behind Siegel and Shuster, and fairly so in my opinion. 

(since the link was posted on page 1 i don't repost it of course.)

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Tom French
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:36am | IP Logged | 5  

It should not have been on a list of "stories" at all. It was not a story. It was a coldly calculated stunt, designed to appeal primarily to the speculators, and responsible for actually driving away many long time readers.

************

I was one of those driven away. Honestly, I thought the whole thing was so clumsy and heavy-handed.  Doomsday?  Really?  Killed by mutual punch?  Really?  

Awful, awful   
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:40am | IP Logged | 6  

i'm not fond of the whole "death of superman" storyline. no disrespect to dan jurgens and the other creators is meant at all, but i thought the story--as told through several successive issues of all three superman titles-- was: doomsday crashlands in some nowhere place, smashes up stuff, superman flies in, punch-brawl-punch, oh no! innocent bystander in danger! superman saves innocent bystander, doomsday jumps to next nowhere place, rinse lather repeat all the way to metropolis (with a brief and painfully ineffective intervention by the justice league).

and the final couple of stories are robbed of dramatic tension, because superman and doomsday don't look like they are on their last legs. check those pages-- superman does not look like a guy who's about to die but is giving it his all. he's got some cuts and a pretty good stab wound on the side but hell, he's barely winded to judge by how he's holding up.

then blammo, they swap sunday punches and they're both dead. for awhile.

it WAS a stunt, and a very effective one, but let's not call it one of superman's greatest stories. it really wasn't great or much of a story.

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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:41am | IP Logged | 7  

 Andrew Bitner wrote:
...newsarama has an interesting bit today (check out #2 on the list)...


Grant Morrison gets mentioned, but not Mort Weisinger? I think Mort has had more real, lasting impact on Superman than Grant Morrison.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:43am | IP Logged | 8  

Long time Superman fans I talked to at the time complained that they walked into their local shops to pick up what was, for them, the newest issue, only to find that the "retailers" had taken the books out of the distributors bundles and slapped 20, 30, 40 dollar price tags on them. (And I know this to be true because I actually saw it happen!) Meanwhile, uninformed civilians were streaming into the shops to snap up multiple copies at these inflated prices, imagining some day that they could retire or send their kids thru college with the money that made from this scam.

This "Death of Superman" is "important" all right -- important in just how much it contributed to the destruction of the comicbook industry.

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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:51am | IP Logged | 9  

 John Byrne wrote:
...And I know this to be true because I actually saw it happen!...


All too true. The "event" happened before I opened my own shop, but I worked for another shop in my city during that time. Yet another shop in town had marked the book up twice its cover price the very week the comic came out.

I mentioned this to my then-boss, who shaked his head in seeming disapproval. A week later HE was pricing the comic at $15 a pop! He also had somehow produced a couple of long comic boxes both filled with the one issue. This, supposedly after we had "sold out," I was told.

I was witness to a number of unsavory practice when working for that shop that made me determined that I would NOT do things the same way. No matter how HOT a comic book will be -- "Death of Captain America," "Death of Spider-Man," "Death of Damien Wayne" Death, death, death... UGH!!! -- I will not try to gouge my customers on comics by selling at an inflated price the comics I purchased directly from the distributor to be sold at retail price.
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 8:55am | IP Logged | 10  

JB - 

what I meant was the original (Siegel and Swan) "Death of Superman" story is #10 on the list.

Realized after I left my computer that I might not have been clear.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 9:05am | IP Logged | 11  

So glad to see SOMEBODY celebrating Superman's 75th. DC doesn't
look like there gonna. Besides, the guy currently in the books isn't
Superman.
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 19 April 2013 at 9:25am | IP Logged | 12  

good point, matt. the guys who kept "big blue" afloat through the lean years are forgotten. i am glad JB got the second spot on the list, though. to me, MOS remains the definitive way to reboot a character.
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