Death becomes him.
Talk about soaring to new heights - Superman is flying higher than ever these days. Comic-book stores report that Superman sales have shot right up since DC Comics announced that the Man of Steel will die in issue No. 75.The bad news came out Sept. 4. Four days later, Pee-Wee Comics in Canoga Park had taken 250 orders for the issue of Nov. 18 - Superman's date with death. 1,000,000 Comix in Tarzana had more than 1,000 copies reserved, and Continental Comics in Northridge had about 200 requests. Some fans go way back to the first issue, in June 1938.
"He's been everybody's hero forever," said Angelo Galardi, 25, part-owner of 1,000,000 Comix. "People don't want to see their biggest hero be killed."
Superman won't cheat death, either; he doesn't cheat. But no one's saying he's dead AND gone. Rumor is, aficionados say, that the Man of Steel will come back, faster than a speeding bullet.
Sue us if you want to, but we don't see how Superman's comeback could be construed as a national security issue or anything, so we'll go ahead and spread the unsubstantiated rumor about his return: Remember that little skin sample a doctor took from Superman awhile ago? Well, think clone. Think clone with a memory loss.
Rumormongering, you huff? We say history on our side, besides the urge that makes us so willing to reveal comic-book trade secrets. We don't see why it has to be Superman, anyway. Why not dust off, say, the Energizer Bunny? And, if it has to be Superman, why does he have to die in a fight on his own turf in Metropolis? (A little accident with an unexplained meteor of kryptonite would be more humane.) What next: Kill Smokey the Bear in a forest fire?
Maybe we're in denial, but we're not ready to throw in the cape yet. We take comfort in other famous loosely nailed coffins:
- TV's Bobby Ewing: He was supposed to be dead on "Dallas," remember? Then, he came back - rather laughably - in his wife's shower. Turns out his wife had dreamed his demise and the whole season, too. Remarkable, we thought, for the REM possibilities alone.
- Old Coke vs. New Coke: New Coke fizzled, and Old Coke sparkled anew as Classic Coke, and Coke officials hung their heads and swore the whole thing wasn't a marketing ploy. "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart," they said.
- Spock: He died in "Star Trek II" and came back in "Star Trek III," but everyone knows that Vulcans don't die, so the whole thing was a farce from start to finish.
- Elvis.
- Colored wax wrapped with a bit of paper and tapered at the point: The romantics call them crayons, and when Crayola retired eight tried-and-true traditional colors, fans saw red. After the brouhaha, Crayola maker Binney & Smith bought back the colors for a special collector's edition that includes 72 crayons in a tin. We salute: blue-gray, green blue, lemon yellow, maize, orange red, orange yellow, raw umber and violet blue. They live, and the world is a brighter place.
- "Hello, Dolly" revivals: That cast will never say good-bye.
- Life magazine: From one glossy, inconveniently sized picture publication to another glossy, slightly less-inconveniently sized picture publication.
- Hamlet's father: He came back as a ghost, and then look what happened.
- Symbolic death revivals: Timex watches. Richard Nixon. Elizabeth Taylor. Pee-wee Herman.
Some Superman fans say death isn't such a bad thing. It's how he goes, they insist, in a rather clinical sense.
"It think it'd be interesting to see it happen," said Superman fan David Rios, 22, who works at Heroes & Legends comic book store in Agoura. "To see what it would take to actually kill him."
Gustav Baron, owner of Fantasy Castle in Tarzana, called Superman "the American ideal human."
"It's like Mr. All American," said Baron, 26, who grew up reading Superman comics. "I think it'd be a crime to kill him."
We're not reserving court space yet.
Superman, we'll wait for the fat lady.
- HOW TO KILL SOMEONE WHO'S FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET
We hope it's not revisionism.
Anything but that. DC Comics just can't backpedal and decide that Superman is faster than a speeding bullet - but not a slow-lane bullet - and then kill him off with nothing more than a pedestrian .38-caliber revolver.
There are those who say it's a crime for DC Comics to kill off Superman at all, as the comic book publisher says it will in a November issue. Some say it's a marketing ploy, and Superman will die only to come back to life in a few months.
Meanwhile, Superman fans are thinking of ways for the Man of Steel to meet his maker.
In an interview with Newsday, a New York newspaper, a DC Comics editor said Superman will die in a fight with a new villain who escaped from a cosmic insane asylum.
Joel Ruidera, 17, just hopes it's a good fight.
"A real terrible fight," said Ruidera, a junior at Glendale High School. "All carnage and destruction."
Superman doesn't even have to win the fight.
"After he fights, right, he eats the guy, but he loses so much power, he drains so much energy, that he couldn't stand up or live anymore, so he dies right after he destroys the guy."
David Brady, 24, sees something more interesting than a fight.
"Getting hit by a meteor or thrown into the sun or something?"
Then, Superman could be brought back to life in a way that's consistent with his past history of getting powers from the Earth's sun, which is a different sun than the one in his native Krypton.
"Like Frankenstein, they jump start him with some kind of solar power," suggested Brady, a senior at California State University, Northridge.
Superman would die in his own unique way, said Rob Gustaveson, owner of The Comic Book Store in North Hollywood.
"He'd die in a different way than a human being," Gustaveson said. "He might just let go of some outer shell. I'd have him explore the realm of death for Kryptonites."
He could come back in his own way, too - frozen first in the Fortress of Solitude, an Arctic wasteland.
"Through science, he would be brought back to life," Gustaveson said.