I came across this video and thought it was great! You may haev already seen it, but in case you haven't yet... do it now! Be aware, its about 15 minutes long and has the F-word in it... (A Lot) but, otherwise: Enjoy! [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PlwDbSYicM[/yt] Keep your eyes open for some funny and surprising cameos.
Crap like that is why I've got no interest in getting into superhero comics; they're just too damn convoluted and/or (usually "and") stupid. I wish they'd be more like the movies they inspire: do series of connected stories, and, when the load of continuity/melodrama threatens to become too heavy, end it, and start with a new take on the character(s). Not saying you must fully reboot to an origin story every time, but don't get too bogged down in the past, either (or fail to honor it by giving everyone selective amnesia to suit the story at hand). Example: I'd happily read an X-Men series in which Jean Grey dies and becomes the Pheonix. But an open-ended run in which she keeps appearing, dying, appearing, dying? No, thanks. Even the greatest of characters lose a certain spark if you follow them for the too long, as they either mature enough to become boring, fail to mature to such a degree that they become stupid (and thus annoying), or are subjected to so much drama that they lose any credibility as coherent characters, or some combination thereof.
Max Landis is hilarious! That was good. And this is why I still love them! All the history to draw on if the writers choose to makes it a satisfying experience for those that have been there for the long haul. But it really depends on the writer. It seems these days a new creative team to a long running title means a fairly fresh start where they use the history they want to and just don't mention what they want to leave behind.
Obviously Superman wasn't ever going to stay dead. Anyone who thought that then was a complete and utter moron. It would be DC throwing money into the trash to permanently erase that character. It's also one of the biggest reasons why I'm never able to be interested in open-ended comics for any long periods of time. Eventually I feel more and more how irrelevant the experience is because nothing substantial is ever going to occur that can't be retconned (and usually is). Comics are basically soap operas for boys (apologies to female readers, but for 99% of American comics you're not a target demo). Soap operas kills major characters and then find ways to rewrite their deaths and bring them back again because the shows have no end-game. They just exist for as long as the network allows them to exist. It's why the comics I prefer are usually the shorter series non-mainstream comics or Japanese and Korean. Comics with an actual ending to them. Even when you get a great writer on an American comic having an awesome run you know eventually they're going to leave and the next guy who comes in can pretty much cancel out everything that great writer did.
Comicbook readers weren't surprised. It was the ORDINARY people. 10 years after the fact, this fricking tourist walks into the shop I was working in like a bigshot and asks me how much I'd give him for his premium foil, still sealed bagged copy of the Death of Superman? "You haven't read it" I ask? "This was an an investment, I paid 70 dollars for it... How much is it worth now?" He says. I think about the universe and reply "40 cents." The fucker just walked away from our conversation like I was the asshole.
And Spock. And Tasha Yar. And... oh, wait, previous posts say only comics and soap operas do this. I take this back.
^ It's one thing to occasionally bring a dead character back; it's quite another for any one character to die and return so many times that fans crack jokes about their current status, and how long it'll last.
Would you say that Jean Grey is back from the dead because of that time travelling child running around with her face, or is Marvel just delaying the inevitable climax with a quick tug and tickle?
I WAS surprised by how quickly he returned though. Each of the Supermen had one issue before he returned sitting in his black suit in his fortress of solitude. It would have been nice if DC had carried out the storyline for a year or so before Superman returned. And Superman wasn't just in a coma that he would have snapped out of eventually. Didn't the Eradicator play a role in that?
There was a tomb. The Eradicator borrowed in underneath and took the body. Wikipedia says Kal came back in the 4th books of the Reign of Supermen. 3 months used to be a long time, but they say the complete event was from October 92 to October 93. 4 months to kill superman. 4 months with the bugger dead. and... 4 months saving the world from Hensaw and Mongul.
Wikipedia is wrong there. He "officially" returns a few months later, but in the second month of the Reign, he is there watching his monitors. The front of the book read something like "who watches the Supermen?"