Why James Gunn's DCU Needs to Avoid Superman's Most Iconic Comic for Its Own Good

Why James Gunn's DCU Needs to Avoid Superman's Most Iconic Comic for Its Own Good By  Derek Faraci Published Feb 28, 2026, 7:30 PM EST Derek is the Training Lead for ScreenRant. Before his current position, he spent 20 years working in games, TV, and film while also writing for several entertainment sites. Derek is also the co-host of three pop culture podcasts: Across the Omniverse, The Bad Batch, and Watch Men. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Add Us On Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

As James Gunn and company prepare to film Man of Tomorrow this summer, the co-head of DC Studios is almost assuredly already thinking about Superman's next big screen adventure and the future of the DC Universe. There are a number of iconic stories about the first superhero to ever grace the pages of a comic for Gunn to choose from.

But what has become the most iconic story in Superman's long history is the very one Gunn would be wise to avoid at all costs. While the tale made headlines when it was first published and continues to inform Superman's adventures to this day, it also stands out as an adventure that takes the Last Son of Krypton a step too far.

To keep the Man of Steel flying, James Gunn must never adapt The Death of Superman.

The Death Of Superman Is A Great Story For A Comic, Not A Movie

The Death of Superman is a milestone story in the comics. DC took time to build up to the moment, hinting at Doomsday in Superman: Man of Steel #17 before revealing the monster in the next issue. From there, the story unfolded across the four Superman titles and an issue of Justice League before Superman fell in Superman #75. But the story was really just beginning.

Following "Doomsday" came "Funeral for a Friend," taking four months and 11 issues across multiple titles to show how Superman's death affected his loved ones, his fellow heroes, and the world. Birthed from that story was "Reign of the Supermen!," which saw four contenders for the title in another four-month story, this one happening across 16 issues.

All of this took almost a year of time in the comics. It was long enough that more than a few readers honestly wondered if DC had indeed decided to kill off Superman forever. Of course, they didn't, and never planned to, but they did craft a story that reminded the real world why Superman matters.

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But an important piece of The Death and Return of Superman was the monthly releases and allowing the story to focus on characters other than Superman. The books had the space to let the story breathe, adding to the power of it. A movie, even two movies, can never capture that feeling. More to it, audiences won't for a moment believe that Superman will stay dead. That trick hasn't worked since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Adapting The Death of Superman for the new DCU would never be able to match the power of the original story, and attempting to do so would be a fool's errand. And, more than that, since the story was originally told from December 1992 and lasted until October 1993, it's been done to death.

The Death Of Superman Has Been Overdone

Since The Death and Return of Superman was told in the comics, the story has been adapted no less than six times, including two novelizations and a video game. And that isn't counting the attempted adaptations that never happened, like Superman Lives. In essence, the story has been adapted roughly once every five years since it came out.

At a certain point, The Death of Superman became the character's defining story, despite it primarily being about other characters. The reason is easy enough to understand: it's an exciting story with a built-in tragedy that, if done right, will make audiences cry. Blockbuster filmmakers dream of having movies that hit audiences as hard as the end of Avengers: Endgame.

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But the trick with Endgame was that there isn't a comic to turn to and say "this is how Tony Stark will come back." It isn't that Iron Man never died in the comics, but he didn't die in the stories Endgame was adapting. It also helped that the death of Iron Man came after a decade of movies that fleshed out a universe.

And those are the two main reasons why every adaptation of The Death of Superman have failed to really make a mark, especially when it came to Zack Snyder's version. No one believed Superman was going to stay dead after just two movies in a new connected universe, and the attempts to act like the Man of Steel wouldn't return were all met with eye rolls.

But the most important thing is that The Death of Superman itself isn't a story that captures what makes people love Superman.

The Death Of Superman Isn't A Good Superman Story

The Death of Superman is a classic and important story in the nearly 100-year history of the character, but it is a story that exists mainly to remind people that they love Superman, not why they love Superman. That's why it became a media event with lines around the block to get a copy because of all that came before it.

What people love about Superman isn't the idea that he died saving Metropolis. It's that he lives while saving the world. At the heart of it all, Superman is a never-ending story about how one person can make a difference, and that standing up for what you believe in still matters. Or, to steal a line from Hamilton, "Dying is easy. Living is harder."

When the focus of Superman's story is on his death, it pulls away from his life. The very thing that makes The Death of Superman such a monumental tale is that it could only have been told over 50 years after the character first appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1. The icon needed to be built before his passing could be mourned.

Those previous tales, and the tales that followed The Death and Return of Superman, are what make Superman important. And those are the tales James Gunn should tell. Forget dying. Let Superman live.

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