Recently I found a torrent of the entire Death and Return of Superman saga and downloaded it. I've been reading it over the last week or so.
(Note for the morality police - I own most of the individual issues as well as the Death and Return Omnibus)
Everything about this story is dated. It is so 90s that many people would find it unreadable. I, however, love it.
The whole death thing happened just after I started getting into comics and I remember my dad taking me to the comic store so I could get the last black bagged Superman #75 they had, which I paid $10 (!) for at the time. Seeing as how the issue was getting pretty major coverage on the evening news, I was pretty happy I was able to get it.
The issues leading up to the Death of Superman were pretty bad, and I didn't care for Funeral for a Friend, but Reign of the Superman was fantastic. The characters were great, and even though I didn't really know anything about Superman at the time I really liked how the four Supermen represented 4 different sides of Superman, and how they all had taglines/nicknames previously used by Superman that corresponded to their character.
My favorite was The Last Son of Krypton/Erradicator. I really wanted him to be the "real" Superman, even though I was pretty sure it was The Man of Tomorrow/Cyborg/Hank Henshaw. I was naive about comics and didn't think they would bring back the original Superman unchanged, and I was extremely disappointed when they did.
But that disappointment was pretty much the only disappointment I had with it. It was historic, groundbreaking, and even though it was a publicity stunt and might even have directly and heavily contributed to the 90s comic industry meltdown, it was very well done and seemed organized - much more so than the Clone Saga mess or Knightfall (which I couldn't even finish because I had no idea how to follow it or what was going on).
And the events in the story are still being felt today - the destruction of Coast City is a recurring theme in Green Lantern as is Cyborg Superman. And I thought The Metropolis Kid/Superboy was still being used for a while but all the Superboy stuff is too confusing so I don't know for sure.
Did anyone else follow this as it was happening, or read it after the fact and enjoyed it? The torrents should be easy to find if you can't afford the Death & Return Omnibus, but I'd definitely recommend the latter if you can get it.
(Note for the morality police - I own most of the individual issues as well as the Death and Return Omnibus)
Everything about this story is dated. It is so 90s that many people would find it unreadable. I, however, love it.
The whole death thing happened just after I started getting into comics and I remember my dad taking me to the comic store so I could get the last black bagged Superman #75 they had, which I paid $10 (!) for at the time. Seeing as how the issue was getting pretty major coverage on the evening news, I was pretty happy I was able to get it.
The issues leading up to the Death of Superman were pretty bad, and I didn't care for Funeral for a Friend, but Reign of the Superman was fantastic. The characters were great, and even though I didn't really know anything about Superman at the time I really liked how the four Supermen represented 4 different sides of Superman, and how they all had taglines/nicknames previously used by Superman that corresponded to their character.
My favorite was The Last Son of Krypton/Erradicator. I really wanted him to be the "real" Superman, even though I was pretty sure it was The Man of Tomorrow/Cyborg/Hank Henshaw. I was naive about comics and didn't think they would bring back the original Superman unchanged, and I was extremely disappointed when they did.
But that disappointment was pretty much the only disappointment I had with it. It was historic, groundbreaking, and even though it was a publicity stunt and might even have directly and heavily contributed to the 90s comic industry meltdown, it was very well done and seemed organized - much more so than the Clone Saga mess or Knightfall (which I couldn't even finish because I had no idea how to follow it or what was going on).
And the events in the story are still being felt today - the destruction of Coast City is a recurring theme in Green Lantern as is Cyborg Superman. And I thought The Metropolis Kid/Superboy was still being used for a while but all the Superboy stuff is too confusing so I don't know for sure.
Did anyone else follow this as it was happening, or read it after the fact and enjoyed it? The torrents should be easy to find if you can't afford the Death & Return Omnibus, but I'd definitely recommend the latter if you can get it.