ID: I want to talk about death. As someone who has “died,” what can you tell us about it?
Superman: You know, that’s an interesting question. I guess, to be honest, I was a little busy to notice. I mean, I remember dying. But death, like the afterlife- I was preoccupied. The stress of everything that came with dying, everything that preceded it, and the aftermath I knew I was leaving behind, I never really took stock in being dead, surveyed the area to notice if I was in an Elysian Field or if there were chubby winged babies. I guess, too, I was in constant transition; I didn't get a moment to rest on my laurels- even in death there seemed to be a lot of demands on my time.
ID: Okay. Then let’s start with dying. What do you remember?
S: Doomsday. The thing about dying, is you always picture it as quiet, a last goodbye to friends and loved ones, maybe a kiss, closing your eyes, and letting go of that last heavy breath before you drift peacefully away.
Instead, my last moment was Doomsday. The hot, hateful stench of his breath, his sweat, all of the things he’d trampled on and through. The taste of my blood in my mouth, and pain, scorching pain everywhere. Being as durable as I am, I can survive a lot of punishment, but as it turns out, that means anything strong enough to kill me really hurts. And the sight of him- because Doomsday was massive; it might have been bittersweet to see Lois, Jimmy, even Perry’s mug over his shoulder, but instead all I got was his craggy, bony face, mouth in a sharp snarl, nostrils flared, beady red eyes focused on me like there wasn’t another thing in creation.
And it was fast- that moment. Doomsday was quick, nearly as fast as I am, and that punch, I knew, I told myself this was it. I had to hit him, hit him with everything, because this was the last punch I was ever going to be able to throw. And up to the end, I thought I was going to collapse in exhaustion- that this was surely the end of the fight- but I thought I was going to win, that I was going to hit him just fast enough to avoid his crushing blow. And I didn’t. I remember that huge, horrible fist suddenly filling my vision as those big, bony claws gashed into my forehead. And the last, conscious thought I had was, “I’m dead. He’s going to pierce my brain.”
ID: It turns out he didn’t, but he did kill you- at least as far as medical science was concerned. Even your friend, the Martian Man
S: J’onn.
ID: Yes, J’onn Jones, he thought you were brain dead at a minimum, because he couldn’t detect any brain activity telepathically.
S: Of course, at the time, he was “pretending” to be Bloodwynd- I tease him about it, call it his “Shaft” phase. I eventually told him that, as a shapeshifting green Martian, he didn’t have to act like the most uptight white guy in the country. Of course, he countered that the most uptight white guy was either Bruce, Alfred or the Question.
ID: Alfred?
S: In-joke. Sorry. Let’s just say he’s a very English butler.
ID: Okay, so death. Boom, the monster Doomsday’s fist hits your skull.
S: My eyes close instinctively; a white, pointed explosion flashes in front of me as he makes contact. And I realize that’s it. That’s the last moment of everything. I won’t get to say goodbye to Lois; I won’t ever feel the sun; I think the last thing I’ll feel is that ground rushing up to me. I thought I could still feel the sensation of falling, falling, and after a moment I knew that must not be true, because I still felt that dizzying sensation, and I couldn’t still be falling, I had to be on the ground by now, but I still felt like I was spinning.
And I remember, slowly at first, but building, like a crescendo in a big orchestral number, that I became okay with it. I was dead, but I knew I’d saved my city, my wife, my friends, and not to romanticize it too much, but at the time, it felt like I’d saved the world, maybe everything. I’d fought the good fight, and it had claimed me, but if I had to say goodbye to everything, it wasn’t all that bad of a way to go.
You know… I’m slowly building back up to that. Examining my own mortality, I’ve really been looking towards putting my affairs, and I had no idea how many irons I had in my fires, until I tried to start sorting them all out, get them into some order that the people I leave behind could make some use of.
So I’ve really been trying. Talking to my friends, my loved ones. And it’s hard to get to that point. It’s hard to let go of life, when everything, every cell in your body is saying to you that you’re not ready to let go, that there’s life still left in you.
So I guess I’m still fighting the good fight. Monsters. Madmen. And my disease. Fighting the good fight. Trying to go out on my own steam.
ID: And right now there's no happy ending in sight- the cancer's killing you. So what's the happiest ending you can envision right now? How do you want to go out?
S: Honestly? It seems like there's always something else out there. For every time we beat back a Darkseid, or a Brainiac, a Mageddon or Imperiex comes in his wake. The worst thing about my condition is worrying that there's something coming, something worse than anything that's come, something the Earth, and my friends, need me for. It really just digs at me to think that I might not be there for them. So a happy ending would be fighting the worst thing we've ever fought, beating it, and all of us going home, and having just enough energy to make it back to Lois, curl back in my own bed. Tell her I love her, squeeze her hand one last time, and she holds my hand until it goes limp. I think that's a happy enough way to go.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
