
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 20, 1993                   TAG: 9308200063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! SUPERMAN RETURNS FROM DEAD

Meet the new Superman - just don't be surprised if he's faster than that same speeding bullet or leaping the same tall buildings in the same single bound. The new Superman, it turns out, is the old Superman. Back from the dead.

The once-in-two-lifetimes comeback of the slain superhero hits the stands Wednesday. Don't expect a repeat of this story line; even Superman, the comic's writers agree, can pull this back-from-the-dead stunt only once.

"This is a one-time only thing," said writer Roger Stern. "He will not be able to die and come back again."

Unless sales slide a bit. The death of Superman in November's issue No. 75 was the second-best-selling comic of all time, with more than 3 million copies printed. An X-Men special from 1991 was No. 1.

Hopes are high for the Superman resurrection issue. An ad-free collectors' edition will sell for $3.50, while the standard edition will go for $2.50.

As to those four Supermen who showed up once the original Man of Steel was killed? All red, blue and yellow herrings. The original Superman was brought back to life by the Eradicator.

The Eradicator was one of the pseudo-Supes: the cold-blooded superbeing with his own strict code. In Superman No. 82, Superman hears how he was saved by the healing baths of the matrix chamber - a device like the capsule his father, Jor-El, used to send his infant son to Earth from the doomed planet Krypton.

A super-recap: Metropolis' main man went to the great beyond after saving the city from intergalactic bad guy Doomsday, who also died in the epic struggle.

With Superman dead, four imitations appeared. One was the Eradicator; another was an evil cyborg with a history of battling Superman; next was steelworker John Henry Iron, who was buried alive in the Doomsday brawl; plus a high-spirited teen Superman.

The resolution: the old Superman, revived by the Eradicator, comes back to destroy the cyborg. John Henry and the Super-youth survive and get their own comics, said Stern.

"Something tells me I'll be able to handle anything better than ever," the original Superman says at the end.

by CNB