As the summer of 1986 approached, the editors at
DC Comics were preparing for the biggest creative shake-up in the history of the company.
The year-long Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series had ended several months before, and
now the time had come for the universe-changing implications of that series to reach the pages
of DC’s monthly titles. Of those implications, arguably the most significant were the ones
pertaining to the company’s standard bearer, Superman, whose character history and present day
status quo were about to undergo a total reboot. But before that reboot began, there
was time to grant the Man of Steel something that few monthly comic
book superheroes ever got: an ending. It was the end of an era at DC for more than
just the stars of the comics. Legendary editor Julius Schwartz, who had worked at DC for over
forty years, led the transition from the Golden Age to the Silver Age, conceived the Justice
League of America, oversaw the revamp of the Batman comics in the 1960s, and been the editor
of the Superman titles for the last fifteen years, was retiring. The final adventure of the
pre-Crisis Superman would play out in two parts, Superman number four-twenty-three, and
Action Comics number five-eighty-three, the last two Superman comics Julie
Schwartz would edit before his retirement. Schwartz’s idea was simple: these were not
actually going to be the last Superman comics ever published, but what if they were? What if
this really was the final adventure of Superman? What should that story be? What should be the
fates of not only Superman himself, but Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Lana Lang, and others
in the Man of Steel’s supporting cast? What about Superman’s most memorable antagonists? What should
become of Lex Luthor, or Brainiac, or Bizarro? To tell this story, Schwartz envisioned
the ultimate Superman creative team: the art would be provided by penciller
Curt Swan, one of the greatest artists in the history of DC Comics and the most celebrated
and influential artist to ever work on Superman; with inks by George Perez, who had just
penciled Crisis on Infinite Earths, and finished a definitive run on
New Teen Titans the year before, and Kurt Schaffenberger, who had been a penciller
and inker at DC for decades, helping to define the looks of Lois Lane, Superboy, and Captain
Marvel — known today as Shazam — among others. To write this Superman story to end all Superman
stories, Julius Schwartz could think of no one better than the man who had written the
first Superman story: co-creator of Superman, Jerry Siegel. Schwartz offered the job to
Siegel at the 1985 San Diego Comic Con, and Siegel enthusiastically accepted.
Unfortunately, legal issues prevented Siegel from actually writing the story, and Schwartz was
left scrambling to find a suitable replacement. Who could possibly pinch-hit for the co-creator
of Superman to write the last Superman story? After learning that Jerry Siegel wouldn’t be
available to write the story, Julius Schwartz was having breakfast with another writer. He explained
about the problem he was having in finding someone to write his final issues of Superman and Action
comics, and after Schwartz had told his story, his breakfast companion stood up and said, “If you let
anybody but me write that story, I'll kill you.” That writer was Alan Moore. And fortunately
for us, and Julie Schwartz, he got the job. A writer for DC since 1983, Moore was in
the middle of a critically acclaimed run on Swamp Thing, and was also at work writing
the medium redefining maxi-series Watchmen, the first issue of which would be published
the same month as Julius Schwartz final issues of Superman and Action Comics. Plus, the
previous year, for Superman Annual number eleven, Moore and his Watchmen collaborator Dave
Gibbons had produced “For the Man Who Has Everything,” one of the most critically acclaimed
Superman stories of that or any other decade. So yeah, as far as replacements for Jerry Siegel
go, you can’t do much better than Alan Moore. The story Moore wrote is titled
“Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” and it begins, in Superman
number four-twenty-three, like this: “This is an imaginary story (which may never
happen, but then again may) about a perfect man who came from the sky and did only good. It tells
of his twilight, when the great battles were over and the great miracles long since performed;
of how his enemies conspired against him and of that final war in the snowblind wastes beneath
the Northern Lights; of the two women he loved and of the choice he made between them; and how
finally all the things he had were taken from him save one. It ends with a wink. It begins in a
quiet midwestern town, one summer afternoon in the quiet midwestern future. Away in the big city,
people still sometimes glance up hopefully from the sidewalks, glimpsing a distant speck in the
sky . . . but no: it’s only a bird, only a plane. Superman died ten years ago. This is an
imaginary story . . . Aren’t they all?” Though originally conceived as the last
story to feature the Earth-One Superman, Moore’s script included certain details
that contradicted the established continuity of Earth-One, so it announces itself
instead as “an imaginary story.” But, I think those beautiful opening lines I just
read to you transcend any pedantic fussiness over continuity or which specific version
of the DC Universe the story takes place in, and establish this story as being not only
outside of continuity, but outside of time, a story that is not about any one variant
of Superman, but which is, at its heart, about all versions of Superman, about the
soul and essence of the character itself. As that opening caption explains, it is ten years
since the death of Superman. A reporter for the Daily Planet pays a visit to Lois Lane, now Lois
Elliot, married and the mother of a young son. The reporter has come to interview Lois for a feature
in an upcoming memorial edition of the Planet, to ask her about the last days of Superman. Lois sets the scene. The time leading up
to Superman’s death was relatively quiet. Lex Luthor hadn’t been heard from for a while,
Brainiac had been destroyed — all but his head, that is, which hadn’t been recovered — most of
Superman’s other major adversaries were gone, some of whom having killed
each other. As a result, Superman was spending a lot of time
in space doing scientific research. Superman returns from one of his space missions to
find carnage in the streets of Metropolis — fires, smashed cars, toppled buildings. The
cause of this destruction: Bizarro, who just showed up out of nowhere and
started wrecking everything in sight, laughing as he did it. Superman enters the
department store where Bizarro retreated to confront him, and learns that Bizarro’s
rampage began long before he reached Metropolis, and has been far more catastrophic than
Superman could have possibly imagined. Bizarro explains how, following
his warped backwards logic, he realized that if he wanted to
truly be the opposite of Superman, he needed to take some extreme measures.
So, because Superman had come to Earth as a baby after his home planet of Krypton had
been accidentally destroyed, Bizarro has now come to Earth as an adult after destroying
his home planet of Bizarro World on purpose. Superman is horrified, but blowing up
his home planet — along with everyone on it — was just the start of Bizarro’s
campaign. Because Superman never kills, Bizarro has been doing the opposite — he
cheerfully informs Superman that he’s been killing lots of people since he got to Earth.
But, in order to truly be Superman’s opposite, there’s one more thing he needs to do: because
Superman is alive, Bizarro must be dead. So, he pulls out a chunk of blue kryptonite — the kind
that is fatal to Bizarro — and commits suicide. Now, if you’ve never read this story before you
might be thinking, “Jeez, this seems kinda dark for a last Superman story.” Let me assure you
— you have no idea! We’re just getting started. The next thing that happens is that Clark Kent
receives a package at work containing a half dozen or so Superman action figures, which come
to life and blast Clark with their heat vision, burning off his suit and revealing his
secret identity to all of his co-workers. These murderous Megos were sent by the Toyman and
the Prankster — but how did the Toyman and the Prankster know about Superman’s secret identity?
Why, they got Superman’s childhood best friend Pete Ross to tell them before they tortured him
to death and sent his corpse over in a crate! I told you. Superman apprehends the Toyman and the
Prankster, neither of whom seem able to explain what motivated them to commit such
a brutal crime all of a sudden. Meanwhile, after a long search, Lex Luthor discovers the
head of Brainiac buried in the arctic snow. Lex is hoping to use Brainiac’s technology
to his own advantage, but Brainiac — who is still alive — has other ideas. He takes over
Lex’s body and declares that, with Lex’s help, he is going to rebuild his destroyed spaceship
and use it to take his revenge against Superman. After more supervillains — a gang of
Metallos this time — attack the Daily Planet, Superman gathers up his closest friends and
takes them to the Fortress of Solitude for their protection. That night, he receives
a visit from the Legion of Superheroes, who have with them a younger version of Supergirl
who happened to be visiting them in the 30th century. This is especially painful for Superman,
since in his present era, Supergirl is dead. Legion member Brainiac 5 presents Superman
with a gift, a small golden statue of himself, explaining cryptically that they wanted to
give this to Superman now because 30th century history records this as a very important time in
Superman’s life. The Legion and Supergirl depart for the future, and part one of the story
ends with a deeply shaken Superman sitting in the trophy room of the fortress, with
only his dog Krypto for company, weeping. As part two begins in Action
Comics five-eighty-three, Lois is continuing her conversation with
the reporter when her husband, burly, mustachioed workin’ man Jordan Elliot, comes home.
He shakes hands with the reporter — does he mind Lois talking about her ex-boyfriend Superman?
Heck, no! “Superman was nothin’ special! Workin’ slobs like me are the real heroes!” Jordy says
before excusing himself to check on the baby. With the ball and chain outta the
room, Lois continues her story: With his friends relatively safe behind the
walls of the Fortress of Solitude, Superman destroys the giant golden key that unlocks
the entrance to the fortress. Not long after, Brainiac arrives in his reconstructed ship,
along with his new ally Kryptonite Man. They are soon joined by more visitors from the
30th century, the Legion of Super-Villains, who explain that history records that today
Superman met his greatest foe in battle and was seen no more. With victory guaranteed,
the evil Legion has come to join in the fun. Brainiac is reluctant at first to accept
their help, but when he realizes that other superheroes will probably show up eventually
to fight alongside Superman, he welcomes the Legion of Super-Villains, and erects a powerful
force field around the fortress for good measure. A siege commences. Superman is able to destroy
most of Brainiac’s weapons from long range using his heat vision, but can’t get close because
of the presence of Kryptonite Man. Meanwhile, several of Superman’s friends have arrived
on the scene and are trying to punch their way through the force field. I love the
adorable detail of Batman and Robin standing there wailing away at the force field with
sticks. It’s the thought that counts, guys. That night inside the fortress, as the
barrage subsides for the time being, Superman has a heart-to-heart with Perry
White where he confesses that he loves both Lana Lang and Lois Lane, but that Lois is who
he would want to spend his life with. Only he hasn’t told that to Lois, because he doesn’t
want to hurt Lana. He calls himself a coward, and feels guilty that both Lana and Lois have,
as he puts it, “wasted their love” on him. Elsewhere in the fortress, Lana
and Jimmy Olsen find samples of power-granting substances in Superman’s
trophy room and transform themselves into superheroes so they can help fight off
Brainiac. After she gains super-hearing, Lana overhears Superman telling Perry about his
love for Lana, and his greater love for Lois, and flies outside determined to prove that, as she
says to Jimmy, “Nobody loved him better than us!” The two of them do pretty good at first. Jimmy,
who has gained elastic powers, works on shutting down the force field generator, while Lana,
with her super strength and ability to fly, knocks out Kryptonite Man and confronts
Brainiac. Lex Luthor is able to overcome Brainiac’s control and will his own
personality to the front just long enough to beg Lana to kill him — which she
does, snapping his neck with a single blow. Lana’s success is short-lived, however — Cosmic
King of the Legion of Super-Villains uses his abilities to rob Lana of her superpowers,
and Lightning Lord fatally electrocutes her. Enraged by Lana’s death, Jimmy abandons his
efforts at the force field generator and attacks, but he is killed by Brainiac, who has
reanimated the corpse of Lex Luthor and now announces his intention
to nuke the Fortress of Solitude. But while this is happening, the Legion of
Super-Villains notice something strange — well, something strange besides the broken-necked
carcass of Lex Luthor shambling around like a zombie wearing a Brainiac helmet — before he
died, Jimmy Olsen succeeded in disabling the force field generator. But the force
field is still up. Brainiac is like, “Nevermind! We have to nuke the site from
the ground, it’s the only way to be sure!” The nuke doesn’t destroy the fortress,
but it does blow a big hole in the wall, allowing Kryptonite Man to rush inside.
He cries out for Superman, but instead he gets Krypto the Super Dog, who viciously attacks
and kills him. Sadly, Krypto defeats Kryptonite Man at the cost of his own life, as moments
later he succumbs to kryptonite poisoning. Are we having fun yet?
Superman’s dog is dead! We good? The Legion of Super-Villains enter the fortress
and cut off Superman as he’s attempting to move Lois to safety. The villains let it slip that
they killed Lana, and Superman flies into a rage so scary that the villains immediately
give up and return to the 30th century. The only threat left, so it seems,
is Brainiac. But, as it happens, that one takes care of itself. As Superman and
Lois watch in horror and confusion, Lex’s body finally gives out and collapses. Brainiac
detaches himself and crawls toward Superman, still issuing threats, but within another few
seconds, his circuits fail and he dies as well. And yet, the force field
still surrounds the Fortress. Superman ponders that mystery while Lois
examines the gold statue given to him by the Legion of Superheroes. Then, Superman has an
epiphany — he realizes that there is only one of his adversaries who could possibly be responsible
for the chaos and carnage of the last few days. Superman calls this enemy out, and
the enemy appears: Mr. Mxyzptlk. Mxy admits that yes, he has been the mastermind
behind everything — Bizarro, Toyman and Prankster, the Metallos, Brainiac and Lex, all of it.
Why? Because he was bored. He’s an immortal being — he’s been passing the time being
mischievous for the last two thousand years, and it’s gotten old. So, he’s making a
change. For the next two thousand years, he’s going to be evil, and he’s
going to start by killing Superman. Mxy mutates into a larger and more frightening
form than anything we’ve seen before and chases Superman and Lois back inside the fortress.
As Superman prepares to wage a hopeless battle against Mxy, Lois finally realizes why the Legion
of Superheroes gave this gold statue to Superman: the statue is holding a phantom zone projector.
Superman rushes to the phantom zone chamber, grabs the projector, and aims it at Mxyzptlk.
Realizing what’s about to happen, Mxy recites his own name backwards in order to transport
himself back to the fifth dimension — but he does so at the same moment the projector
sends him to the phantom zone. The result: Mxyzptlk is killed, ripped in
half between the two dimensions. There is victory, but no triumph. Superman
is despondent — he has intentionally killed someone. Lois tells him he had no
choice, that he’s done nothing wrong, but Superman disagrees. “I broke
my oath,” he says. “Nobody has the right to kill. Not Mxyzptlk, not you, not
Superman . . . especially not Superman.” With that, Superman turns from Lois, steps through
the door of a room labeled as the Gold Kryptonite Storage Chamber, gives Lois a final smile over
his shoulder, and disappears inside. “I never saw Superman again,” Lois tells the reporter.
When the other superheroes entered the fortress, Superwoman and Captain Marvel forced open the door
to the gold kryptonite chamber, but it was empty. Gold kryptonite robs Superman of his
superpowers. Everyone assumed that he left the Fortress of Solitude through a hidden
passageway they discovered in the chamber, and walked outside, where he froze to death,
lost forever to the endless arctic snow. The reporter’s like, “Well, thanks!” and packs
up to go. Jordan appears with baby Jonathan, and together they bid farewell to the reporter.
Once he’s gone, Lois turns to Jordan like, “You were a little hard on Superman earlier, saying he
was overrated and all.” But Jordan says, “He was overrated. So wrapped up in himself, thinking
the world couldn’t get along without him.” While they’ve been talking, baby Jonathan has
been sitting on the floor playing with a lump of coal he took out of a fancy brass bucket
near the fireplace. As Lois and Jordan walk out of the room, we see that Jonathan has
compressed the lump of coal into a diamond. Huh. I guess all babies can do that. I never knew. They talk about dinner. Lois suggests pizza,
followed by a bottle of wine. And then, she says, “I figure we just live happily ever after.
Sound good to you?” And Jordan turns to close the bedroom door, gives us a familiar wink, and
says, “Lois, my love . . . what do you think?” So. There’s a lot about this story to
admire. The first thing that jumps out, and hopefully this comes across in the images I’ve
shared here as I’ve been going through my summary, is how gorgeous the artwork is. Curt Swan
has very few equals when it comes to drawing superhero comics, particularly Superman,
and he was rarely any better than he is here. The Superman of “Whatever Happened
to the Man of Tomorrow” is the clean, classic, iconic figure we’re familiar with
from the simpler days of the Silver Age, but with the emotional range and depth necessary
to tell this story. And, Swan is just as good when rendering the more macabre details, such as
Brainiac controlling the corpse of Lex Luthor, his head lolling lifelessly to the side, eyes rolled
back, mouth hung open. It’s kind of upsetting. Speaking of those darker elements, yeah, this
story gets pretty bleak. Beloved characters die, in really vicious, really sad ways. Superman
kills the bad guy. But, unlike creators of other superhero stories who are obsessed with
making them as gritty and grimdark as possible, Alan Moore has a point to make through all
of this brutality. Yes, some of the character deaths serve a plot function — killing Lana
is a pretty simple way to resolve Superman’s conflict in having to choose between her and
Lois, for example — but it goes beyond that. This is the Silver Age Superman — in spirit,
if not literally the same character — imaginary story and all of that. And, he’s drawn by
Curt Swan, the artist who defined his look and his style during that era. He’s the Superman
most of the people who read this story when it was published in 1986 grew up with. And — in
this story, and in reality, where the defining tone of the superhero genre was shifting toward
something a lot less cheerful and carefree — he finds himself facing a world he struggles to
understand, a world where he no longer fits. The whimsy of the Silver Age is being confronted
by the grimmer, more cynical, less hopeful reality of the modern age. That, ultimately, is what
this story is about. That’s what makes Superman’s struggle so compelling, and what makes the
resolution to that struggle so brilliant. Superman’s greatest adversary in this story turns
out to be Mr. Mxyzptlk, surely the strangest and silliest of all the members of his rogues
gallery — except not this time. This time, Mxy no longer the trouble-making pest of the
Golden and Silver Ages — he’s a menacing, murdering threat to the lives of everyone on
the planet, just the sort of villain that would become all too common in the pages of Superman
comics throughout the rest of the 1980s and into the ‘90s. In order to defeat him, Superman has to
kill him. But through the act of killing Mxyzptlk, Superman proves himself unworthy of his powers. You may disagree. You may think the killing
of Mxyzptlk is completely justified and that Superman has nothing to feel bad about — that’s
certainly how Lois feels. But, it doesn’t matter if you agree that Superman killing Mxy makes
him unworthy of being Superman. What matters is, what that decision tells us about the
character of Superman. He believes that no one, most especially someone with his power, should
have the right to decide for themselves to take the life of another person, and when he is
placed in a situation where he has to take the life of one person to save countless
others, he does it — but then immediately renders himself powerless, because in his mind
he has disqualified himself from being Superman. But best, and most beautifully of all: it’s that
moment of personal failure, that breaking of his oath, that opens the door to the happy ending he
truly deserves. He takes away his superpowers with gold kryptonite — I’ve always found that to be
a poetic touch, as basically Superman uses an artifact of the Silver Age to craft his exit from
the modern age — and then, he changes his name, adopts a new secret identity, and settles
down to marry and raise kids with Lois Lane. He gets to live happily ever after, and he gets
there in a way that doesn’t feel arbitrary, or make him seem selfish or like a quitter. He
experiences almost unimaginable losses — the deaths of friends, the exposure of his double
identity as Clark Kent — as the opening narration of Superman four-twenty-three tells
us, almost everything he loves is taken from him. But, he endures, he saves the world one last time,
he stays true to himself, and for that and for all the immeasurable good he has done in his career,
he is rewarded with love, family, and peace. Superman, as a regular Joe named Jordan Elliot,
will live on, but the never-ending battle is over. This wasn’t the final Superman story, of course.
The Superman monthly and Action Comics took a three month hiatus, and when they returned the
title of Superman was changed to The Adventures of Superman, and both books now starred the new
post-Crisis Superman, who went on to become the Superman most people watching this video grew up
with — those of you who read the comics, anyway. That’s just the nature of a medium like comic
books, and a character like Superman. On those pages, inside those panels, new
adventures are always on the horizon, change is inevitable yet somehow never permanent,
and the only real endings are the imaginary ones. And as far as endings go, the one we get in
“Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” is about as good as it gets — the best ending
possible, for the best Superman ever.
