Was the Death of Superman a big deal?

[trappedslider]

While your Wikipedia links are interesting, they're also entirely irrelevant to the question I was asking. I don't care about what the artists or suits thought or meant. I'm asking about what the audience and general public felt, then and now.

So, what do *you* actually think?

That's why they weren't aimed at you As for what do I think,yes it was a big deal at the time because death in comics hadn't became the joke it is now and up until the reboot of DC, it had lasting effects that touched every major comic line. Heck it still has affects even in the New 52 as inspiration for 2014's Doomed story line.

 

[delericho]

But this was before Marvel made Iron Man big (I'd never heard of him before that).

Pretty much the only comic I read regularly was the old Marvel Transformers one. In the first year or so I bought it, the secondary story was about a character called Machine Man who at one point was pulled into the future, where he encountered "The Iron Man of 2020". So my introduction to Iron Man was actually as a villain.

Back then, 2020 seemed impossibly far in the future.

 

[Jhaelen]

When Superman died in the 90s, it was big news.

Considering I had never about that, it cannot have been that big news. Perhaps it was only news-worthy in the US?

 

[Morrus]

Considering I had never about that, it cannot have been that big news. Perhaps it was only news-worthy in the US?

I'm not in the U.S. I remember it in all the newspapers.

 

[MechaPilot]

So my question is: Do you think the Death of Superman story was historically significant? How much of my memory is accurate and how much is tint from rose colored glasses? Have there been any other franchise character deaths (not necessarily comic/super heroes) before or since that have had the same impact?

I don't know about historically significant, but it was culturally significant. When Superman died, I wasn't even reading comics at the time (though I had always enjoyed superheroes in other media) but it was a shock even to those who didn't read comics.

The death of Robin was the same thing, although most people who weren't actively reading comics at the time thought it was Dick Grayson who had died. I watched a History Channel special about the cultural impact of comic books (Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked), and one of the Batman editors relates a tale of going into a bar wearing his batman pin, and one of the patrons (after finding out he was working on the comic at the time) said "this is the guy that killed Robin."

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[Bullgrit]

I'll repost the question:

Was Superman's death the first time a superhero's death was announced well in advance of the issue where it happened?

Bullgrit

 

[trappedslider]

Not exactly,back in the late 80s DC was doing Batman: A Death in the Family and had a phone in vote regarding the life or death of Jason Todd then Robin.