Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinAlone, unmourned, and unloved since 1969

Huh, wonder why DC skipped the 30th anniversary of Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn?

§ August 1st, 2022 § Filed under death of superman, variant covers § 11 Comments

[NOTE: I’ll get back to Multiverse Talk shortly, but I wanted to address this topic before the news got too old!]

Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in! Yes, it’s time for your regular Death of Superman post, here on your official home of Death of Superman Talk, Progressive Ruin dot edu backslash deedeedeedeathofsupes. And yes, it’ll be a little bit of a Variant Cover-Age post, so I’ll finally be returning to that subject as well.

So, what’s this all about, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith from Anytown, USA? It’s about this long the new Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special that DC will be releasing this coming November, featuring the original creative teams doing a number of stories for this 80-page giant.

And will there be variant covers? Well, of course there will be variant covers. Most importantly, there will be a new black-bagged edition, just like the original back in ye olden tymes, complete with armband:

Which brings us to a more earthly concern: cost. DC seems to have been occasionally testing the waters with a $10.99 price point over the last year or two on their squarebound 80-page giant things. Mostly they stick with $9.99, but once in a while a $10.99 one would slip out there.

These Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Specials will run $10.99 a pop. Which may get quite expensive for some folks as some of the variants they’ve shown us so far look pretty neat and I’m sure even at that price point I’ll be selling multiple copies. In fact, I guarantee I’ll be selling multiple copies because I’ve already been getting preorders.

However, the black-bagged edition…hoo boy. Those are…going to cost you a little more. My planned price for these is $15, but based on the wholesale cost, I wouldn’t blame stores for going for $20 or so. And I’m wondering if there will be some measure of scarcity on these, either via retailer reluctance to put so much money into this event, or just straight up production issues leading to allocations. I mean, I don’t expect the latter, but in case I’m wrong about the first part and retailers do go all in on this comic, production could be overwhelmed. I mean, I don’t know, we’ll see I suppose.

Anyway, my guess is that the black-bagged version will be underordered, hit with huge demand outstripping retailer anticipation, and suddenly we’ll be seeing them for sale online at $50 or more.

I also feel like right now is probably not the time to be putting out an $11 comic, but hey, we’ll see if anyone still has money this fall.

But back to the comic itself…when I first heard about the bagged edition, my first thought was that, in a few years, I’ll have people coming into the shop to sell their copies of this anniversary issue, thinking it’s the original, and wondering why I won’t pay Big Money for it. (Not that the original generally trends to be that much, but I go into that here.) The new version does have that anniversary logo on the bottom of the front cover, so that might help a little, maybe.

What I’m most interested in is the continuity nonsense around the Death of Superman event itself as presented in this new comic. After some minor references here in there to the event having happened in Superman’s past in the post-New 52 universe (weird to think that a Superman that supposed had only been around five years was dead a good chunk of that time), it’s nice to have a straight-up, absolute, post-Rebirth, post-whatever the last thing was, confirmation that Superman kicked the bucket in DC’s cobbled-together current continuity. (Oh, and I forgot Death of Superman: The Wake, a digital-first comic which also addressed this storyline…have it, haven’t had a chance to read it so I don’t know what it adds. Will report back.)

One point I’m surprised has actually been addressed by Chief Superman-Deather Dan Jurgens is Australian Luthor, who was the extant version of ol’ Lexie when this story originally went down. (I kinda explain Australian Luthor in this list of Luthors from, egads, 2005). Anyway, Jurgens’ response? Not in the new stories, no space to explain what was up with that “new” Luthor. Also not included: Matrix Supergirl.

Speaking of continuity, I’m going to need to spend some time comparing the original Funeral for a Friend poster to this new rendition Ivan Reis and Danny Miki for a variant cover:

At first glance, the new variant does appear to include many elements of the very snapshot-of-DC-in-the-1990s-ishness original, which is appreciated. I mean, Legion ’92-3 is in there! Agent Liberty! Hawkman in his red outfit! Still can’t find Bloodwynd, though…gotta be in there somewhere.

Another neat variant coming is this Francesco Mattina Doomsday cover, which apparently is die-cut:

and that looks pretty neat.

There’s also going to be a reprint of the original Death of Superman comic, Superman #75, which will include new interviews with the creative team. I haven’t found a cover image for that yet.

Like I noted above, I’m already getting orders placed for these books. My personal guess for the 30th anniversary edition is that the vast majority of requests will be for the black-bagged version, even if some of the other covers (not all of which are readily out there yet) are pretty nice. I personally might want that Funeral cover and the bagged edition. Hey, I’m the guy doing the orders at my shop, so why not. Regardless, I hope this turns out to be more an original Superman #75 sales situation, and not an Adventures of Superman #500 one.

Also, have I mentioned it’s weird that I’m selling the 30th anniversary edition of something that I sold originally? Because it’s definitely an eye-opener.