10 Most Devastating Comic Book Endings
8. For The Man Who Has Everything
In Alan Moore's lauded For the Man Who Has Everything story, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Robin travel to the Fortress of Solitude for Superman's birthday only to find him enslaved by the Black Mercy, an alien plant that treats its victims to illusions of their greatest dreams and then feeds on their comatose body.
As the heroes try to fight off the alien warlord Mongul and pry the Black Mercy off of Superman, Kal-El dreams of a world where Krypton was never destroyed and he got to live out a simple but happy life as an average, unremarkable citizen.
Whenever the heroes in the real world start to free him from his fantasy, the world of Kal-El's dreams gets continuously worse until he is able to break free in a devastating scene where he struggles to explain to his imaginary son that the boy isn't real.
When Superman is released, he fights Mongul across the fortress until Robin is able to trap the warmonger with the Black Mercy. The heroes begin cleaning up from the battle and Superman receives his gifts: a model of the city of Kandor and a new strain of rose named after his home planet that was destroyed in the fight. Superman decides this is probably for the best as the flower would have only reminded him of the carefree life he could have had. Ouch.