Distinguished Critique: Superman: The Return of Superman Review
Superman's "resurrection" feels underwhelming and erratic given the scope presented in this crossover's concluding arc
—by Nathan on October 27, 2026—
Imagine this:
You're a Metropolitan. Every day, you look up and see the same red-and-blue blur streak across the sky, faster than a bullet train. Maybe the red-and-blue blur has even saved your life once or twice.
But then the red-and-blue blur is extinguished, killed by this gray, hulking mass. You mourn the blur, the city buries the blur.
Then four other blurs show up–one made of steel, a second of circuits, a third brutal, a fourth childish–with two claiming the name and title of the original. Who knows what to believe. The President of the United States officially recognizes the circuit blur as the original, while a card-carrying member of the Justice League endorses the brutal blur. But something still seems…off. None of these guys feels like the original. Something is missing from each of them–the heart, the humanity, the half of a face.
But what are we gonna do? The OG blur is gone. Superman no longer streaks across the skies, and regardless of what the others claim, you just can't shake the discomfort.
Metropolis, and the world, are in need of a miracle.
Or at least some pretty convenient plot developments.
Superman: The Return of Superman
Writers: Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Karl Kesel, Dan Jurgens, Gerard Jones, and Jeph Loeb
Pencilers: Jackson Guice, Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Dan Jurgens, M.D. Bright, Ed Hannigan, and Lee Moder
Inkers: Terry Beatty, Brett Breeding, Doug Hazelwood, Dennis Janke, Jose Marzan Jr., Andrew Pepoy, Josef Rubinstein, Denis Rodier, and Romea Tanghal
Colorists: Anthony Tollin, Glenn Whitmore, Tom Ziuko
Letterers: Bill Oakley, Albert DeGuzman, John Costanza
Issues: Action Comics #689-692, Action Comics Annual #5, Adventures of Superman #503-505, Adventures of Superman Annual #5, Green Lantern #46, Superman #80-83, Superman: The Man of Steel #24-26
Publication Dates: July 1993-November 1993
Picking up directly after the events of the previous volume, this collection continues the "Reign of the Supermen" arc; I assume this volume is titled as it is and contains the issues it does because, shortly into the first issue featured, we're treated to a sequence where a man in a black suit wakes up from an energy matrix after a long "sleep."
The real Superman has returned.
I knew coming into this volume that good 'ol Kal-El wasn't actually dead, that his seemingly fatal fight with Doomsday put him into a death-like coma rather than pitching him across this mortal coil. My interest, therefore, was seeing how DC wrapped up this narrative, successfully bringing back the true Man of Steel and having him reclaim his title from the pretenders inhabiting his throne.
The result is meant to be celebratory; it is, ultimately, a bit of a letdown.
Thirty-plus years have passed since this arc was originally published; there is no longer any subterfuge preventing you from reading this knowing full well that Kal-El's superpowered self was always meant to return. As I highlighted in the "Funeral for a Friend" arc, the whole point of the narrative was to show the DC Comics universe, and the reading world at large, the vacuum left over from Superman's "death" and how only the one, true Superman could step into the gap and refill that void once more.
Maybe I'm too sentimental–scratch that, I'm more rational than emotional–so maybe I'm just too critical, but I expected some more bombast than what we receive here. I wanted more catharsis, more drama, more emotion wrung from the stakes. Yes, I've lambasted narratives which forsake storytelling for cheap theatrics and surprise, but for all this build-up just to reveal Kal-El's status among the living in a few panels where he breaks free from a metal cocoon…I felt a little let down. A full-page closing panel where he appears before several allies, draped in his black-colored livery, provides a greater jolt of emotion, an enraged Superman determined to save his city from the machinations of the arc's true villains. I wanted this from the start.
We're given some strange hints from the moment Superman is "reborn" to the moment he arrives on the scene as he takes an armored suit he last used to fight Lobo on a cross-country trek to his beloved city. There's a dash of subterfuge, mainly to cause momentary confusion for other characters, before Clark reveals his reborn self. But why save the surprise for only the characters? Maybe some underhanded trickery was seen as cheap and obvious–who else, other than Clark, would be "reborn" from the cocoon, pilot the metal suit to Metropolis? Still, some hinting would have nicely made the ultimate moment of Superman's return, revealing the black suit, more of an emotional reaction to his "resurrection."
Bottom line: Superman's return doesn't seem significant enough. For a guy whose death was supposed to make the entire world weep and wish for his calming, assured, dynamic presence, his actual reappearance seems done too casually.
Properly provided are the stakes. Superman returns to face a threat from the stars, the humbled Mongul seeking vengeance after a self-exiled Kal-El flattened him and his Warworld. Paired with the Cyborg Superman, Mongul intends to transform Earth into Warworld 2.0, beginning his scheme upon the ashes of a ruined Coast City, an important plot point which will become more significant in a slightly distant narrative than it feels here. Superman, teamed with allies and working with only a fraction of his former strength, is vulnerable, still healing, in need of friends, his wits, and, apparently, guns? Yeah, guns. The Big Blue Scout, whose death epitomized the encroaching darkness of the 90s, whose replacements embodied the decade's penchant for grimness, comes back, and the first thing he does is strap on bandoliers and dual-wield guns.
Man, this is a weird comic.
You feel there's a sense of hurry with this arc, that we've gone on long enough without a Superman and, now, we need to bring him back and keep events moving along. So we have Clark emerge from a rebirthing matrix without any pomp. Our writers have Cyborg Superman obliterate the aforementioned Coast City during a fight with the Last Son of Krypton, displaying the city's sudden destruction in a double-page spread that fails to encapsulate the sheer chaos, death, and devastation that's just happened. Writer Gerard Jones, in an included Green Lantern issue, has Hal Jordan react fairly appropriately, but such an important incident feels absorbed and accepted too quickly. Even a few dramatic reveals surrounding Cyborg Superman's identity as Hank Henshaw and the Last Son's identity as the Eradicator feel haphazardly utilized, plunked into pages without offering the necessary gravitas.
Along with the hurry comes this irritating sensation of stupidity found in several of our characters. Folks react poorly to certain events: the Justice League trusts Cyborg Superman as he sends them on a mission to space, and other people completely trust his assessment of Coast City after he causes the devastating incident. Lois allows herself temporary companionship with an old flame, and though this could create interesting tension, it's instead played up as awkward, our writers not fully committing to the conflict and keeping Lois in a waffling state for far too long. People behave irrationally and erratically for the sake of the plot, skirting around logic to offer our writers some additional convenience.
Reading this review, you may think I hate this comic. I don't. I'm just fairly uninterested in it. I actually appreciated the preceding arcs, "Funeral" and "Reign." They feel like they encompass the entire saga's thesis statement: the world is worse off without Superman and nobody can even come close to replacing him. Because the loss is so heavy, and because the alternatives are so lacking, you expect the "real steel deal," as one cover calls the returned Man of Tomorrow, to emerge more triumphantly. Yet here, we have a Superman who doesn't feel the same celebrated hero as he's supposed to be. Could be that was part of the point, to ease Kal-El back into reality, let his powers build back up, give him some obstacles to overcome as he reclaims his title as the genuine article. A real hero needs challenges, right? It's understandable, but it lacks the celebratory punch Supes' return deserves.
Thirty-plus years later, this is a difficult story to head into obliviously. The cover spells it out for you: Superman is comin' back. But the excitement, fun, and joy you'd anticipate from such a return is bizarrely lacking. The stakes exist, Mogul and the Cyborg good choices for the arc's central antagonists for Superman and his allies to overcome. The struggle is decent. But you never get that singular, breathtaking image of awe as the Man of Steel pulls himself from the jaws of death. There's no singular "Spider-Man digs himself out of the ground" or "Bane snaps Batman over his knee" moment to make you pause. Events happen, but they feel rushed. We gotta bring back Superman, we gotta destroy Coast City, we gotta reveal who the Cyborg Superman is. You can tell thought was put into planning this final installment of the ongoing epic, but much like its titular hero's subtitular reappearance, this volume's all-important ending sleepily wakes itself up from a long nap, having lost much of its original strength.