10 Worst Fakeout Endings In Comics
1. The Death Of Superman
In terms of comic book fake-outs, they don't get more grandiose than the purported demise of the Man of Steel.
When people deride comics for how death is rarely ever a permanent arrangement - in turn removing so much of the emotional attachment and impact that should come with death - you can head back to 1993 and place the blame for plenty of this at the door of The Death of Superman.
Upon a first read, this Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding tale was a brutal, shocking one that saw the Last Son of Krypton bested in ways never before seen. Across this whole seven-issue initial arc, the Big Blue Boy Scout found himself battered and beaten from panel to panel by the genetically-engineered Kryptonian beast known as Doomsday.
From page to page and issue to issue, it seemed that there was no way Kal-El could topple this behemoth. And, in a shock twist, he didn't!
Nope, Superman found himself only able to stop Doomsday by battling so hard that both he and his foe died. With that, we were greeted with the iconic image of Lois Lane weeping over her fallen beau, and DC Comics then spent nearly a year mourning the loss of its poster boy.
In Supes' absence, there was even four other 'Supermen' to step forward to try and take his place... all for it to eventually be revealed that Superman wasn't actually dead, and he'd just been in a deep Kryptonian sleep. And with that, death in comics became merely a lazy plot point.