A God for the American Century – Part VII

Do You Still Believe a Man Can Fly?

On May 27, 1995, Christopher Reeve was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia. The fall shattered his first and second vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. From that day forward, the man who had once been Superman required a ventilator to breathe.

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow — whether it was a good idea or not — laid Superman 1.0 to rest. Time for a reboot.

John Byrne was the mid-eighties flavor of the month. He’d just come off a wildly successful run at Marvel when he was tapped to reboot Superman for a new era. There’s no denying the relaunch sold well—but frankly, it would’ve been a shocking failure if it hadn’t.

Byrne’s changes were a mixed bag, if we're being honest.

The total ablation of Superman’s backstory wasn’t his choice, so I’ll leave that on the table. Taking Clark Kent out of the anchorman’s chair was smart—he’d only ended up there because Denis O’Neil, trying to keep Clark “relevant,” thought it made sense to stick him on TV. In the 1930s, the Daily Planet newsroom had been the internet of its time—a hub of information and the fastest way for Superman to hear about trouble. By the ’80s, a news anchor desk didn’t make sense for that, and it had never made sense for the low-key Clark Kent.

Resurrecting Ma and Pa Kent and keeping them in Clark’s adult life? That was fine. Siegel had only killed them off originally to keep Clark Kent’s life uncomplex. By the end of the Bronze Age, they'd developed enough as characters that their absence had started to feel like a gap.

Making Clark the “real” identity and Superman the mask, though? That felt off. It made the Man of Steel seem like a public performance, rather than the other half of who he truly was. Superman and Clark had always worked best as two sides of the same coin—earthly humility and unearthly power.

But the real damage was to Krypton.

Byrne’s Krypton was a cold, sterile, half-dead theocracy—reflecting the anti-religious hysteria that both the post-Watergate Left and Ayn Rand–worshipping Libertarian Right were treating themselves to in the 1980s. (I should know. I was part of it.) Jor-El and Lara weren’t lovers or heroes anymore—they were emotionally stunted scientists in a doomed society not worth saving. Krypton that had once felt a lot like Barsoom, was now a lifeless cathedral for a half abandoned faith. Making Superman the last Kryptonian alive felt dramatically pointless because everyone knew it wouldn’t last—and worse, it undermined the tragedy of Krypton’s loss. Seriously, who cared if that frozen shithole blew up or not?

As for Lex Luthor: turning him into a fat corporate raider may have reflected the Gordon Gekko zeitgeist of the decade, but it defanged him. Luthor was supposed to be the threat. The duke of hell versus the archangel. Making him a corrupt CEO made him just another sleazy executive in a decade already packed with them in both fictional and real worlds. It made Superman's arch-enemy small and that made Superman small.

Despite all that, the '80s comic book boom chugged along, buoyed by a thriving indie scene. But by the end of the decade, the cracks were starting to show.

Toward the end of the 80s, there was a string of indie publishers going belly up. Each case had its own complications—licensing issues, cash flow problems, no control of IP—but they all pointed to an oversaturated market. Think of it like an unchecked population of herbivores eating everything green, and then starving to death.

The collapse came courtesy of the Man of Steel.

The commercial success of Crisis on Infinite Earths had created a dangerous precedent—readers had been trained to respond to stunts and mega-events. Both Marvel and DC leaned into that hard, and to be fair, it worked at first. But there’s only so long you can sell empty spectacle.

And then DC decided to throw the biggest event of all.

Thanks to Tim Burton, Batman had become DC’s top-selling character. However, Superman, was still the company’s official masthead, mascot, and standard-bearer. DC felt it needed something to put him back into the spotlight without cannibalizing Batman’s sales.

So they killed him.

The Death of Superman landed in 1992. The collectors’ market had already entered Tulip Fever territory. Comic shops in strip malls across America—many run by late-arrival speculators—loaded up on high profile collectors issues for display, often on credit, to cash in on the hysteria. These weren’t fans. These were speculators.

When Death of Superman was announced, everyone and their cousin rushed to buy a copy. They weren’t thinking story—they were thinking investment. That issue was going to pay for their kids’ college, for a house, for retirement..

The Death of Superman’s print runs were gigantic. There were multiple editions, and many came sealed in commemorative black polybags. To normies, that looked rare. But to anyone with even a passing knowledge of comics—or basic economics—it was laughable. Rarity creates value. Mass production kills it. As Joe Kennedy said, “when shoe shine boys started giving me stock tips in 1928, I knew it was time to get out of the stock market.”

Some of the brighter speculators caught on early and liquidated their comic books. And just like that, the keystone popped out of the arch.

The Tulip Fever broke and the collector’s market collapsed.

Books that had been gone for hundreds of dollars the year before were now barely above $2 long box prices. High-interest debts came due. Comic shops failed, one after another, like a row of dominoes across the American retail landscape. Each shop liquidating, added to the glut on the collectors market driving down prices even further.

The follow up to Superman’s inevitable resurrection -or rather - resurrections felt like a pitching machine firing shit at the wall to see what would stick.

DC was trying to drag the stunt out as long as possible. So the readers were presented with four different aspects of the original representing a fractured Superman. Expecting the audience to buy that one of the four candidates we were being presented would become the new Superman.

When superman did show up, he was wearing a black suit and a mullet because now he was now 90s, RADICAL, and EXTREME!!!

Had he died as a sacrifice for all of us, it would have meant something but he was just beating up another monster. His death had no meaning and the sacrifice was pointless, because we KNEW he’d be back. His resurrection couldn’t be a joyous miracle, because it was fucking inevitable.

We didn’t buy it. How could we?

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We were Generation X

We were promised moon colonies. We got laser printers.

We were told we’d do better than our parents—then found the doors slammed shut behind them.

The Greatest Generation built the world. The Baby Boomers inherited it. Generation X was left to sweep the floors after the party ended.

We grew up on stories of greatness—gods in capes, men who could fly. But when our turn came, the superpowers we inherited were a Pepper’s ghost illusion of smoke, mirrors and glass. Our Superman stayed dead, replaced with variant covers, marketing gimmicks, and a corporate smile that didn’t reach his eyes. A pointless return from the dead had made him a zombie god.

We were angry—because we had a reason to be.

We were cynical—because we didn’t have a choice.

We were a generation of survivors. Generation X either went to jail, rehab, or the military. We weren’t looking for superheroes because we didn’t need them, hell, we shattered every army that stood against us. No, we were looking for stories that understood what it felt like to get your face slammed into the concrete, then get up and keep walking. Comics that understood us. We found them in things like: The Crow. Alien Legion, Cyber Force. Miller’s Sin City. Spawn. Dixon’s Punisher. Grit, blood, fire, betrayal—these weren’t escapism. These were our career paths.

But deep down, we still remembered what it felt like to believe.

We didn’t hate Superman. We still wanted him to be around even if we weren't reading him anymore. We couldn’t accept the big lie but we missed the big dream.

We still wanted to believe a man could fly.

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On a bright Tuesday morning in September, the towers fell, and we knew—
The American Century was over.

Epilogue: The God Who Fell to Earth

Superman was never just a character. He was a proposition.

That somewhere in the vast machinery of the modern world, there could still be room for virtue. That power need not corrupt, but could instead reveal. That a man could be both strong and good, invincible yet kind. A being who could enslave the world — for its own good of course — chose instead to serve it—quietly, faithfully, without reward.

That was the dream.

It began in the depths of the Great Depression with a vigilante that was too strong to be destroyed by the rampant corruption of the age.

Over time, Superman became the mirror of America’s soul. He fought for the little guy during the war years. He soared with optimism in the Jet Age. He endured the silly, technicolor twilight of the Silver Age with a smile—and even that had its charm. But somewhere along the way, the world changed, and he didn’t.

The Bronze Age made him a stranger. The Modern Age turned him into a relic. The 2020s turned him into a clown. In a cynical time, his sincerity became suspect. His morality, once aspirational, now felt naïve. And so the world that once looked up to him began to look through him.

They tried to update him. Reboot him. Reinvent him. They made him edgier, angrier, darker. But Superman was never supposed to be "cool,” “rad,” or “fire.” He was supposed to be good. And in a world that no longer believed in goodness, that was the one thing they couldn't forgive.

And yet—

He endures.

Like a tattered flag in a forgotten corner of the battlefield. Like a candle still burning at the grave of someone holy. Like the last page of a book we don’t want to end.

Because even now, in a broken century where the future has gone dim and the good, beautiful, and true has all been deconstructed, if you ask:

Do you still believe a man can fly?

Somewhere deep down, we do.

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