A Heartfelt Tribute to Superman From...The Nightstalkers?!

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Apr 30, 2019

In their look at creators talking about comics in their comics, CSBG shows the Death of Superman getting a nod in an issue of...Nightstalkers?

In Meta-Messages, I explore the context behind (using reader danjack's term) "meta-messages." A meta-message is where a comic book creator comments on/references the work of another comic book/comic book creator (or sometimes even themselves) in their comic. Each time around, I'll give you the context behind one such "meta-message."

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Chris M., we look at a heartfelt tribute to Superman in the pages of...the Nightstalkers?

As you, I am sure, are aware, in 1992 DC killed off Superman. It was kind of a big deal...

It was such a big deal that it actually got covered in the honest-to-goodness NEWS news!

Obviously, in the DC Comics, there was a whole big deal made about Superman dying. There was a whole storyline specifically about his funeral and stuff like that...

However, the reaction to this death was not just limited to DC comic books. No, amusingly enough, Superman got a touching tribute in none other than the pages of Nightstalkers #4 (by D.G. Chichester, Ron Garney and Tom Palmer). The Nightstalkers was part of Marvel's Midnight Sons line of comics. They launched right around the same time that the Death of Superman was just starting (like, a month before). The concept of the line was to come up with a connected group of supernatural characters for a sort of horror-inspired line of comics that could cross over with each other when appropriate, all based on the really strong sales of the main book in the line, Ghost Rider (of course, in the end, the line probably hurt Ghost Rider more than helped it, as suddenly, Ghost Rider readers were being expected to support five other titles. That often leads to people just dropping them all).

Anyhow, one of the series took three recurring characters from Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer's Tomb of Dracula series (Frank Drake, Blade and Hannibal King, the vampire private detective) and had them form a sort of heroes-for-hire team (under the name Borderline Investigations).

In Nightstalkers #4, they are attacked by a team of terrorist/horror-themed villains working for Hydra. Hannibal King was stabbed, but was not stabbed through his heart, so he lived...

Blade had a problem with being on the same team as a vampire and he even considered just letting the bad guys kill King...

However, it was clear that if the bad guys wanted him dead, then it must be important to keep him alive, so Blade went to go save King. They were then trapped up on a hot air balloon when King (who had gotten the stake out of his chest) saves himself and Blade...