CULTURE WATCH : Slay a Superhero?

Superman will die.

That was the headline last week--and no one who ever read a Superman comic as a youngster, or enjoyed the movies and TV shows that spun off from those comics, could have read the details without a tinge of nostalgic fretting.

DC Comics, which publishes four different versions of Superman comics, is going to kill off the first of all superheroes in the November issues. The Man of Steel will be done in by a powerful new villain called Doomsday, an “escapee from a cosmic insane asylum.”

Well, if you ask us, the whole idea of killing Superman is crazy. After all, Lex Luthor or Brainiac couldn’t do it. Neither could Mr. Mxyztplk, despite the seemingly endless supply of kryptonite, the one substance that can hurt Superman.

We suspect DC’s editors are crazy like the proverbial fox. For no sooner did word of Superman’s impending demise begin to spread than comic book retailers were reporting a record surge in orders for the November issues. And that has to help DC’s bottom line in the competitive comic book market.

And consider this quote from DC editor Mike Carlin: “We don’t really know what death means to a Kryptonian . . . never say we wouldn’t bring him (Superman) back.”

Uh-huh. Like when the creators of “Star Trek” killed off the popular Mr. Spock in their second movie. Somehow you just knew they would find a way to bring him back to life. They did, though it took another movie to get Spock back to full speed.

We expect something similar for Superman.