From the Back Issue Boxes: Superman: The Man of Steel #18

“The Beginning of Doomsday”

December of 1992 saw Youngblood 1 & 2 being sold for $5 from American Comics andEntertainment (remember their ads that usually took up two pages in a standardish?).  X-Men rebooted under the pencils of current DC OverlordJim Lee.  And Todd McFarlane waswell into Spawn after leavingMarvel and Spiderman at the altar. 

Every comic book or event was marked with a trading card set(even Ghostrider had sets, one with glow in the dark chase cards—gofigure!).  And DC utilized adiamond countdown on the front of each book to make continuity as confusing asAlgebra II.

In the real world, William Jefferson Clinton was electedpresident, Hurricane Andrew blew the South, and Charles and Diana split.  No wonder why I read so many comics andignored the news.

DC began a plot to kill their flagship character,Superman.  The Kryptonian villainDoomsday marched through the DC Universe starting with a cameo in Superman,Man of Steel #17.  Issue 18 marked the first full appearance.

Superman: Man of Steel#18 starts with Doomsday wreaking havoc and crushing small woodlandcreatures.  At this point thevillain has just broken out of his prison and appears in bindings that make himlook like a steampunk surgeon.

Issue 18 focused on a young boy named Keith wanting to getSuperman’s attention, so Kal-El would save the boy’s missing mother from somemonsters in the sewers.  Thosemonsters are the Underworlders who want to steal Metropolis’ electricity.  Superman dispatches the bad guys withease while Doomsday’s wrath increases.

Fuck you, angry birds.

The book is standard fare in the way comic books go, yet thewhole story arc marks the zenith of the comic book, action figure, and tradingcard bubble of the 90s.  This wasthe time that spawned gatefold, prismatic, die-cut, and holographic alternativecovers.  With the surplus ofoverpriced, poor quality comics, the appreciation for the medium bottomed out,and so did the collect-ibility of comics.

Superman 75 was theconclusion to the story arc and period of comic book dominance.  From that ish we get the iconic imageof Lois Lane holding a broken and battered Superman.  How poignant and truly heartbreaking.

What I find interesting about the story arc was the decisionto coincide the number of panels with the chapter of the story.  Here are the books in the “Death ofSuperman” storyline and the breakdown of panels:

Book	Issue	Chapter	Panels per page
Superman: Man of Steel	18	1	About 5
Superman	74	2	About 5
Adventures of Superman	497	3	4
Action Comics	684	4	3
Superman: Man of Steel	19	5	2
Superman	75	6	1

“World Without A Superman” and “The Return of Superman”storylines were meandering and ponderous.   (Remember Superman Blue/Superman Red?)  One highlight from the series came fromLois speaking with a grieving Martha Kent.  Martha could share her sorrow with no one else, for shenever wanted to betray her son’s secret life.  Again, that was a phenomenal touch to an otherwise terriblestory arc.

Nevertheless, Superman: Man of Steel #18 was the story that had Superman and comic booksthe talk of the nightly national news. Maybe it was metafiction (the book reflecting the realworld) because Doomsday signaled both the end of The Man of Steel and the comicbook bubble of the 90s.

The run, naturally, hasbeen collected in a trade paperback. Nevertheless, there’s something nostalgic and wonderful about owning theseries of actual comic books, including the black, poly-bagged #75 with all thegoodies intact inside. 

Although Superman: Man of Steel #18 isn’t Golden Age, vintage, or comics-codebreaking, it does hearken back to a most recent time when comic books wereculturally more important than they are now. 

Having a copy of this book is the equivalent of having apiece of the Berlin Wall.

Superman: Man of Steel#18

DC Comics

$1.25 (2012 price $3-$6)

Release Date: December 1992

Story: Louise Simonson

Penciller: Jon Bogdanove

Inker: Dennis Janke

Letterer: Bill Oakley

Colorist: Glenn Whitmore