Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? is a bonafide funnybook classic, with Alan Moore then in possession of merely a two-foot long beard and sense of entitlement at the beginning of his career in the US, doing the first of many stories that de-construct popular superhero tropes. The story was to set the stage for a Superman reboot. Moore pulled no punches in the story, which closed out the character's Silver Age continuity by having him come up across most of his major supervillains to that point, with Braniac going further than ever before and actually straight-up murdering the likes of Jimmy Olsen and Lana Lang. It got pretty dark. None more dark, though, is how the story ends. Having killed Mxyzptlk, the reality-warping villain behind the whole thing, Superman realises he has violated his one sacrosanct rule...and then goes into the room of his Fortress Of Solitude that holds Golden Kryptonite, which kills him in an instant. Or does it...?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
