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Lois Lane plots revenge in DC's Tales From The Dark Multiverse: The Death of Superman
Following Scott Snyder, Kyle Higgins, and Javier Fernandez's reimagined Batman: Knightfall, and again filtered through the distorted lens of the Dark Multiverse, DC Comics now revisits the iconic storyline of The Death of Superman — and SYFY WIRE has an expanded preview of the intense one-shot arriving Oct. 30, just in time to enhance your Halloween.
Written by Jeff Loveness (Rick & Morty, Judas, Groot), with art via Brad Walker (Detective Comics, Aquaman), and colors by John Kalisz, Tales from the Dark Multiverse: The Death of Superman #1 is a 48-page prestige-format release that imagines a grief-stricken Lois Lane emerging as a wrathful avenger named the Eradicator.
The alt-universe storyline exists in a shattered world much like our own, but where Lane, twisted by unrelenting rage and grief, becomes the Eradicator to take revenge on those superheroes who let Superman die, and the cruel, corrupt world he could never possibly defeat. Now, armed with the infinite power of a demi-god, she's going to finish the battle by any means necessary...and the Reign of the Supermen will be over long before it begins.
DC's original The Death of Superman crossover remains the highest-selling comic book event of all time when it was unleashed on the public in 1992-1993, eventually selling more than six million copies of the pivotal issue Superman #75 where the Last Son of Krypton perishes at the hands of Doomsday.
For Loveness, it all started with his love of Lois Lane and his occasional annoyance at how she usually gets used as collateral damage in "Dark" Superman stories.
"She always dies tragically or gets murdered, spurning Superman to becoming a tyrant or murderer or go through some sort of angst," he tells SYFY WIRE. "It can be effective, of course, but sometimes I feel it's overused and relegates Lois to a trauma prop, when she's so much more.
"So, the basic story hook came with, "Well... instead of killing Lois and making Superman go crazy, how about you kill Superman and make Lois go crazy," he adds. "Have we seen that before? To my knowledge, we have not, and that deeply excited me. Lois is actually the most idealistic character in the Superman mythos. She 'named' Superman. She branded him. He was just a guy from a farm who could catch planes, but she knew what he could mean to the world. She IS the idea."
"She gains the powers of the Eradicator — and has a chance to actually change the world," Loveness notes. "Clark's way was beautiful, but it didn't work. Clark was kind, perhaps too kind. Naive. Lois isn't. She has her eyes open. She's going to actually change the world. In ways Clark was too afraid to."
Walker's poignant and sometimes frightening art comes at the book with a strong love of the original story, the era of Superman, the era of comics, and the specific time period.
"I was in high school when it came out, and this was when I started reading Superman," Walker tells SYFY WIRE. "So, I tasked myself to try and make it read as if this was the natural progression of the original storyline. It can be viewed as a very dark, morose take, but I wanted to present it in a way that felt just as epic, heartfelt, and bombastic as the work all those great creators did in the original storyline. Jeff gave lots of room for big, powerful visuals, and it was a nice feeling, to tap into the energy of some comics that were such a big deal for me, in my early days of comics discovery."
Now all hail the Reign of Lane in our 5-page preview of DC's Tales from the Dark Multiverse: The Death of Superman, with a compelling main cover by Lee Weeks (Batman), then tell us if you prefer this dark-tinted version of the timeless tale.
