696 WHEDON, JOSS
So, before they are banished, Moore makes grand use of the “Superman family”
that had included not only spin-off comics featuring “girlfriend” Lois Lane and “pal”
Jimmy Olsen, but futuristic cohorts the Legion of Superheroes, the Legion of Super-
pets, and super-villains such as Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Mr. Mxyzptlk, all at long
last killed in this tale, the last by Superman himself in violation of his personal code,
which requires the end of his career. Revealed as the source of all the trouble in the
story, Lois notes that Mr. Mxyzptlk, the cartoonish imp from the Fifth Dimension
(introduced in Superman #30 in 1944) “looked diff erent somehow. He didn’t look
funny anymore,” one of the story’s wry acknowledgments of the revisions under-
way in superhero comics. Th e story thus blends elements of the trend towards grim
“revisionism” that would be most dramatically marked by Moore’s Wa t c h m e n and
Frank Miller’s Th e Dark Knight Returns (as well as Moore’s Batman one-shot Th e
Killing Joke ) with a much more sentimental quality, which would characterize later
DC stories, such as Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come (1996), which
also envisions a future, happily married Superman. Th e clever line that concludes
Moore’s expository introduction to the story (“Th is is an Imaginary Story... aren’t
they all?”) has often been cited as a gentle riposte to attempts to distinguish “real”
events in the continuity of the DC universe from what it had explicitly identifi ed
as “Imaginary Stories” or (beginning in 1989) as Elseworlds tales. Like many of the
fanciful Silver Age Superman stories it simultaneously emulates and puts to rest,
Moore’s story ends with a wink to the reader, letting us in on the secret of Super-
man’s disappearance and presumed death, and providing the seed for future stories
even as a long run is being offi cially shut down. Eventually Moore’s battles with DC
would make his work on the central fi gures in DC’s pantheon unthinkable, but his
rare take on the company’s central icon remains a highlight from a half-century of
stories.
DC repackaged the two comic book issues as a single square-bound volume in
1996, and the story has since been reprinted in DC Universe: Th e Stories of Alan Moore
(2006). Th e Deluxe Edition of the story ( joined by Moore’s two other Superman stories)
appeared in 2009.
Selected Bibliography: Klock, Geoff. How to Read Superhero Comics and Why.
New York: Continuum, 2003.
Corey K. Creekmur
WHEDON, JOSS (1964–). Joseph Hill Whedon was born in New York City to televi-
sion writer Tom Whedon and high school teacher and writer, Lee Stearns. His parents
divorced when he was nine years old and he subsequently divided time between them.
His teenage years were spent at a private boys’ school in England and he went on to
study feminism and fi lm at Wesleyan University. Whedon lists his fi lm studies profes-
sor Jeanine Basinger, his mother, and his wife Kai Cole as the three most important and
infl uential women in his life and his work.
