What's The Best Death of Superman? Comics Vs. Movie Adaptations

(By Ben Wan)

We've seen Doomsday kill Superman...but which version is the best? Released on the eight year anniversary of Man of Steel, we sit down to compare the original 1992 story of the Death of Superman with its adaptations- Superman: Doomsday (2007), Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and The Death of Superman (2018)- and determine what has the best Doomsday origin and best Superman death? We'll continue next week on "What's the best Return of Superman?," comparing Superman: Doomsday to Reign of the Supermen (2019) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)!

CHAPTERS 0:04 Matt Herring GoFund Me Bumper Please donate what you can to our friend and fan of the podcast Matt Herring, who is battling Stage 4 colon cancer. Click here for Matt Herring's GoFundMe 1:45 “Superman's Funeral" with Andrew as Mr. Mxyzptlk, Zachary Jackson Brown as Lobo, and Ben as Metallo 6:39 Episode Introduction- What's the Best Death of Superman? 9:19 Why DC Decided to Kill Superman The quote from Mike Carlin comes from the introduction to Roger Stern’s novelization The Death and Life of Superman What better way to show people that they had not only been taking an American symbol of greatness for granted, but taking a viable, worthy, role model out of circulation through their indifference?! At the time of the episode, we didn’t know who specifically pitched the idea of killing Superman as a joke, but we would later find out that Jerry Ordway was the one who proposed that they kill Superman, according to this documentary.

15:16 The Novelizations and the BBC Radio Adaptation As mentioned in the episode, the BBC radio adaptation of The Death and Return of Superman - Superman: Doomsday and Beyond starring Stuart Milligan (The President in Wonder Woman 1984) as Superman and the Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator, William Hootkins (Lieutenant Eckhardt in Batman 1989) as Lex Luthor/Lex Luthor II, and Garrick Hagon (Harold of “For God’s sake, Harold, can we PLEASE get a taxi?” in Batman 1989) as Jonathan Kent- can actually be experienced through YouTube here:

20:13 The Adaptations- Superman: Doomsday (2007), Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) & Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), The Death of Superman (2018) & Reign of the Supermen (2019) The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen are from the DC Animated Movie Universe continuity. We covered the first two Justice League films in this continuity on our Patreon: Justice League: War Justice League: Throne of Atlantis 29:51 What's The Most Tragic Set Up of Lois And Clark's Romance Before Clark Dies? 33:38 Doomsday's Origin In the Comics As cited in the show, the actual coverage of Doomsday’s origin is NOT in the original arc that killed Superman, but is actually in the comic storyline Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey. 45:30 The Biggest Thing to Remember Is... This sketch "Dr. Fate and The Spectre Make Cheese Sandwiches” has Ben as Dr. Fate and Andrew as The Spectre, Boston Brand, “Tommy” the cashier, and the Indeed Wizard. This is from the Patreon episode that covered the Secrets of STAR Labs. 50:44 Doomsday's Other Origins in Adaptations We covered the tidbit that the original Doomsday destroyed Krypton’s moon, Wegthor, in the Snyderverse continuity here:

55:20 What's The Best Doomsday Origin? 58:34 Break: No More Whoppers Promo and BarkBox Promo This is a promo for another podcast in the Greenlit Podcast Network, No More Whoppers, which you can find here. Check out our link for Barkbox here. 59:33 The Original Comic Book Fight 1:06:54 The Other Versions of Superman and Doomsday's Fatal Fight Superman impaling himself further on Doomsday’s bone is a reference to Excalibur (1981), which we covered more extensively in our Patreon episode here: 1:12:54 What's The Best Death of Superman? 1:16:07 Superman's Best Last Words? 1:19:22 Closing: Fan Comments and Social Media Promotion As teased in this episode, we did a deeper dive into this storyline and Doomsday himself in our Patreon episode:

We covered The Death of Superman this week. Now go into the DEEPER dive with everything we left OUT of the episode: how Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel himself killed Superman at one point, whose idea it was to kill Superman in the writers’ room, where the character name Doomsday came from, and discussions of Doomsday in the DCAU, Smallville, and Krypton, where the character’s been portrayed by other actors in the fandom, from those who played Spawn to...Foggy Nelson?? Check out the episode and join our $5 tier here. THANKS TO OUR GUEST: ZacharyJacksonBrownArt (who also did the thumbnail) IG: @zacharyjacksonbrownart https://www.zacharyjacksonbrownart.com/ Please record us a “bumper” saying “You’re listening to Superhero Stuff You Should Know” and send it over to superhousepodcast@gmail.com Also to any animators- we’d love to see our sketches animated. Please include #SuperheroStuffYouShould Know IN the video Become a part of the Shasta Army on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/m/superherostuffpod SuperHouse on iTunes: https://apple.co/3ctz4lN Please leave us a review in iTunes! SuperHouse on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2yq3Kpo INSTAGRAM: @superherostuffpod TWITTER: Twitter.com/SuperhousePod FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/SuperHousePod Please join our Facebook group where you can interact with us and other fans! YOUTUBE: YouTube.com/c/SuperHousePodcast Please email us at: SuperHousePodcast@gmail.com ANDREW’S CHANNEL/WEBSITE: IG: ThunderWolfDrew Twitter: ThunderWolfDrew YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/thunderwolflives Website: www.thunderwolflives.com/ BEN'S CHANNEL/WEBSITE: IG: BenWanWriter My Cat’s IG: AlfiePennyworthCat Earl E. Bird- upcoming children’s comic: http://earl-e-bird.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6nG7A354pour2CUw0co3Ug Website: http://www.benwanwriter.com SUPERHOUSE MERCH: http://superhousepod.redbubble.com/ Teepublic Threadless

JUNE 18, 2021