In every Look Back, we examine a comic book issue from 10/25/50/75 years ago (plus a wild card every month with a fifth week in it). This time around, for the fifth week (which opens up 20/30/40/60/80 as options) we're headed to December 1992 for the funeral of Superman and the surprising pallbearers at the tragic event.

Amusingly enough, the last three months have had fifth weeks, so I was able to spotlight the introduction of Doomsday in the October 1992 Superman titles, the death of Superman in the November 1992 Superman titles, and now, in December 1992, we'll look at the aftermath of Superman dying, which was represented with the crossover event, "Funeral for a Friend."

Adventures of Superman #498 (by Jerry Ordway, Tom Grummett and Doug Hazlewood) kicked the story off in November with the attempts of everyone nearby to revive Superman using Cadmus technology. It failed, which brought us to the more "official" funeral stuff in the December books.

RELATED: 75 Years Ago, Superman's Creators Launched a Failed Attempt at a New Superhero

WHAT HAPPENED DURING FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND?

The first December issue of "Funeral for a Friend" was Action Comics #685 (by Roger Stern, Jackson Guice and Denis Rodier), which saw Supergirl have to step up as the new "main" hero of Metropolis in the wake of Superman's death...

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The issue also had some memorable character moments, like Lex Luthor (who was in a cloned body and passing himself off as his own son, Lex Luthor II. Hey, kids, comics!) freaking out on Doomsday's corpse, and not for the reasons that the people around him think...

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The issue ended with a character moment by Bibbo Bibbowski, which really just speaks to something that has always amused me about these comic books. They were SO POPULAR for this period due to the death of Superman, so there were SO MANY new readers, but the subplots were still based on the way that the comics were at the time, so characters like Bibbo got spotlight moments, and new readers likely were thinking, "Who the heck is Bibbo Bibbowski?!?"

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This led into Part 3 of the event, Superman: The Man of Steel #20, by Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove and Dennis Janke, which had the actual funeral for Superman....

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RELATED: 50 Years Ago, Superman Reintroduced the Comics World to Captain Marvel

WHO WERE THE PALLBEARERS AT SUPERMAN'S FUNERAL?

There was an interesting minor subplot about Jimmy Olsen dealing with all of the attention he was receiving for the photo he took of Superman's death. It must have been a real mind screw for ol' Jimmy...

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The actual funeral procession was handled really nicely by the creators, as it truly seemed to evoke historical funerals, like Abraham Lincoln's funeral...

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The first clue that the Dan Jurgens/Brett Breeding promotional poster for the event was not going to reflect the actual funeral was when we see that Batman was not part of the actual ceremony, but was rather standing in the background, taking care of threats that might pop up at the funeral...

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A while back, I wrote about the clever joke that this issue made about DC's own commercialism regarding "cashing in" on Superman's death (you know, the black bagged edition of Superman #75, complete with a black armband)...

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Okay, so the funeral begins, and have you made your very guesses as to the pallbearers? Well, if you thought Supergirl and Superman's then-teammates in the Justice League, then you won! Except for Blue Beetle (who was in a coma at the time) and Fire (who hated Superman, and wanted him dead, so that's why she wasn't allowed to be his pallbearer. Or perhaps there was just not enough room for her. One or the other), there was Bloodwynd, Maxima, Ice, Guy Gardner and Booster Gold (wearing his non-superhero clothes, since his costume was destroyed by Doomsday). Bloodwynd would later turn out to be Superman's old friend and teammate, Martian Manhunter, but no one knew that at the time. It was just Superman's then-teammates being the pallbearers, which makes sense (especially as they were the only other heroes there who had personally fought Doomsday).

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Amusingly, despite him not actually yet being President at the time this comic book came out, Bill Clinton appeared at the funeral with soon-to-be First Lady, Hillary Clinton...

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Throughout all of these comics, there has been a regular plot, too, of Lois Lane coming to terms with the death of both Superman AND her fiancée, Clark Kent, as she gets together with Clark's parents and Lana Lang, the only four non-superheroes who know that Clark is dead, too. They have their own private ceremony for Clark (I hope Clark dug that stuff up later).

The following week, Superman #76 (by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding) saw Superman's fellow superheroes address the Christmas letters that were sent to Superman every year.

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Last year's CSBG Advent Calendar was a 1990s Christmas, so I did a write-up of Superman #76 then, if you'd like to read more about it.

The final December comic book for Funeral for a Friend was Adventures of Superman #499 (by Ordway, Grummett and Hazlewood), which saw Superman's body stolen by Cadmus!

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As for how that was resolved, well, that's a story for another month...

If you folks have any suggestions for January (or any other later months) 2013, 1998, 1973 and 1948 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we're discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.