10 Comic Books That Made A HUGE Impact In The Real World
4. The Death Of Superman - Various Titles
"The Death of Superman” was a crossover event which ran through the Superman-related comic titles from December 1992 through October 1993. The death of the Man of STeel had country-wide news coverage, and issues of the actual death, Superman #75, sold over six million copies.
Every year, the editor and creative teams of the Superman family of titles got together and planned out their story arcs. The plan in 1991 was for Clark Kent to finally reveal his secret to Lois Lane and for the pair to get married. However, the series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman had a plan to do a similar storyline, and DC President Jeanette Kahn and Editor Mike Carlin asked the writers to put their plans on hold. A bit disgruntled, Jerry Ordway said what was said at every summit: “Let’s just kill him.”
But this time, no one was laughing. And with the blessing of surviving creator Jerry Seigel, they did it.
As DC did not reveal that Supes would be returning, the public assumed that the beloved pop culture icon was dead for good. Even though the sales didn’t reflect it, one would think that everyone in the world was a Superman fan by the media coverage. Newsweek, People, the Washington Post, and NPR among others all ran stories on the death.