The Death and Life of Superman
By Roger Stern
 
First UK edition, first impression: Bantam Press, 1993.
 
Original black cloth, lettering to spine in gilt; dust jacket. Inscribed by Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, to the half-title: "The infant from the planet Krypton who, on earth grew up to become the man of steel! 11-20-94". Signed by Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill and Jack Larson to the front endpaper, and by the author to the title page.
 
Very good. Some toning to edges with a touch of pushing to spine ends and very minor knocks to corners. Nice and fresh internally and free from writing, aside from the inscriptions noted above.
 
Near fine dust jacket. A tiny nick close to the top of the upper hinge with a small associated crease beside it, and some lifting to the surface laminate at the foot of the lower hinge.
 
Superman was killed by Doomsday in Superman #75, published on 18 November 1992. Retailers ordered five million copies in advance, more than six million were sold, and the death was reported by Newsweek, People and the Washington Post, reaching the front page of Newsday. Stern's novel, published the following year, retells the storyline that ran across the Superman titles from December 1992 to October 1993.
 
Siegel created Superman with Joe Shuster in Cleveland while both were still in their teens. The character first appeared in Action Comics #1, cover-dated June 1938; the pair had sold the rights outright for $130 in March of that year. The litigation and hardship that followed occupied much of Siegel's working life, and it was not until 1975, when he made his circumstances public on the eve of the first Superman feature film, that Warner Bros. settled a lifetime stipend upon him. He was elected to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and to the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame the following year. The present inscription, in which he sets down his creation's origin in his own hand, is dated 20 November 1994. Siegel died of a heart attack on 28 January 1996.
 
The three further signatories carried the character into live action. Kirk Alyn (1910–1999) and Noel Neill (1920–2016) were the first actors to play Superman and Lois Lane on screen, in the Columbia serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950); Neill returned to the part in Adventures of Superman from 1953 to 1958, and the two appeared together once more as Lois Lane's parents in Superman (1978). Jack Larson (1928–2015) played Jimmy Olsen throughout the run of Adventures of Superman, from 1952 to 1958.