You all voted, now here, as part of our celebration of Superman and Lois Lane's 80th Anniversary, are the results of what you chose as the 40 Greatest Superman Stories!

Enjoy!

25. “The Living Legends of Superman” (Superman #400)

Elliot S! Maggin teamed up with a variety of top-notch artists (Joe Orlando, Al Williamson, Frank Miller, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin, Wendy Pini, Mike Kaluta and Kelly Adler and Klaus Janson) to tell a variety of short stories where people reflect on what Superman means to them. It begins in the present and slowly goes further and further into the future until we get the point where Superman has basically become a religion. Fascinating stuff. I especially like the one bit where two college professors in the future debate whether Superman ever actually existed.

24. “The Origin of Superman!” (Superman #53)

Bill Finger put together all the various aspects of Superman’s origin that we had learned over the years to provide the first cohesive origin of Superman (although while still omitting his time as Superboy for some reason). The art was by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye.

Here, we see the first real attempt at describing how young Clark Kent decided to become Superman. Few Superman origin stories really seem to get into the whole WHY he became Superman (because the whole "He was Superboy" deal takes care of that for the most part), so this was an intriguing take. It's interesting to see Finger put such an important spin on a character that he was not really known for writing...

23. “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” (Action Comics #858-863)

In this six-part arc, Geoff Johns, Gary Frank and Jon Sibal brought back the Levitz-era Legion of Super-Heroes as Superman finds himself on a futuristic Earth where the planet has been turned away from all aliens, including most of the Legion of Super-Heroes! Can Superman, an alien himself, turn the tide?

And what happens when he sees that the Earth, in the future, has a RED Sun??!?

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22. “The Supergirl from Krypton!” (Action Comics #252)

The whole Superman mythos changed dramatically when Superman met his super-powered cousin, Kara, in Action Comics #252 (by Otto Binder and Al Plastino). This opened up the whole "different versions" era of Superman, which some people believe ultimately diluted the brand too much, but for a time there, it was REALLY popular and we got Supergirl out of it and she was a fine character. I can never get over how ADORABLE Al Plastino draws her here...

21. “Reign of the Supermen” (Action Comics #687-691, Adventures of Superman #500-505, Green Lantern Volume 3, #46, Superman Volume 2 #78-82 and Superman: The Man of Steel #22-26)

Superman is dead! Long live…Superman? And Superman? And Superman? And Superbo…Superman? In this epic tale by the entire Superman creative team (Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway and Roger Stern on the writing side and Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Jon Bogdanove, Dennis Janke, Tom Grummett, Doug Hazelwood, Jackson Guice and Denis Rodier on the art side), the seemingly dead Superman is replaced by four different mysterious men all claiming to be his replacement as Superman. A cyborg, a killing machine, a man in armor and a clone of Superman. They all take their place on the world stage but then things turn tragic when one of the four turns out to be eeeeeevil. Luckily, as it turns out, it takes a lot more than beating him to death to kill Superman!

The classic sequence where the Superman from Krypton, the seemingly stonehearted one of the group, teams up with the Cyborg Superman to investigate an imminent attack on Coast City and suddenly the Cyborg Superman betrays him...

The destruction of Coast City would end up having a major impact on the future of DC Comics, as it would lead to Hal Jordan snapping and becoming Parallax.