THE DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN OMNIBUS

Art by Dan Jurgens

Last month, G. Kendall over at Not Blog X, one one my favorite daily reads, began to review the "Death of Superman" storyline from the early nineties. I have to admit that I've never read "Death of Superman", as I was an avowed Marvel Zombie when it originally came out. But I like several of the creators involved in the event and I've heard that, in general, the crossover was better conceived and executed than certain other nineties events from DC -- so early last year, when DC published THE DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN OMNIBUS, I picked it up.

I still haven't read the thing, but it's been on my radar for some time. However, the new posts over at Not Blog X have inspired me to at least pull the Omnibus from my shelf and give the actual physical package a once-over for my own blog. Now remember, I don't know what issues should be in here, so I can't really speak to anything that might have been omitted, as DC is wont to do. But I can certainly talk about the reproduction and quality of the volume.

So let's start at the beginning: I love this cover. It's a brand new illustration by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway, two of the original "Death of Superman" architects. The illustration wraps around the book from front cover to back, popping with attention-grabbing color. Best of all, when you slip the dustjacket off of the volume, the complete image is presented without any text or trade dress on the book's actual cover. And the cover itself is a nice sturdy, slick stock. From the outside, this is one heck of a gorgeous book.

My only criticism of the exterior presentation is that the iconic Superman logo (not the "S" emblem, which is quite prevalent, but the actual curved word "Superman") is nowhere to be seen. That pseudo 3-D "Superman" has existed for decades now, and is indelibly linked with the character; so much so that when DC revamped everything and assigned a plethora of new and uninspired cover logos to the various titles in their "New 52" relaunch a few years ago, they kept that classic "Superman" for the Man of Steel. I have no idea why it's been excluded from this book's trade dress, but it's an unfortunate choice.

But obviously there's a lot more to THE DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN than its outside appearance. This book is thick and quite hefty, weighing in at over a thousand pages and more than six pounds of truth, justice, and the American way. The issues inside look great; colors are bright and vibrant and, as always with an Omnibus or any oversize hardcover, full bleed artwork is breathtaking at this page size. Especially impressive is SUPERMAN #75, the issue composed entirely of splash panels depicting Superman's final battle with Doomsday.

There are a handful of extras in the book, too. The introduction from a past collection by editor Mike Carlin is a welcome inclusion, and promotional material, advertisements and pin-ups are located in the back of the book. I'm sure DC hyped this event with many more ads than are presented here, but in all honesty, the inclusion of any sort of promotional extras in a DC collected edition is cause for praise. It would be nice to see DC become as anal as Marvel, gathering every single scrap of artwork and other items to use for extras, but I just don't see that happening.

Unfortunately, there is a negative to be found here. There's always one, right? But in the case of THE DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN, it's a big one: glued binding. This tome is massive, but it won't lay open flat, meaning there's a great deal of gutter loss; especially in that all-splash panel issue noted above. Try looking at a two page spread where you lose about two inches in the middle of the image unless you're willing to potentially ruin your book by prying it open. It's a frustrating experience, and a huge, high-end book like this should not suffer from such a problem.

That said, this is otherwise a great-looking, seemingly comprehensive volume which I'm happy to own. I look forward to actually reading it someday!

Available now from Amazon.com.