The crossover, which originated from editor Mike Carlin and writers Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, and Karl Kesel, began in December 1992 and lasted until October 1993.

As Superman comic sales had declined in recent years, the writing teams felt the character had been taken for granted and decided to temporarily kill him to emphasize his importance.

The second depicts Superman's fellow superheroes and the rest of the DC Universe mourning his death, ending with his adoptive father Jonathan Kent having a heart attack.

[7][a] In the reboot, Byrne removed various elements of the Superman mythos, like Supergirl, to streamline the character for modern audiences,[8] which also allowed him to reintroduce them in a new way later on.

These meetings were often dysfunctional, with Superman writer/penciler Dan Jurgens noting they frequently disagreed when discussing story ideas and argued until one person was "left standing".

[10] While the creative teams believed the quality of the comics increased because there were more people working on them, they experienced a decline in sales,[10][13] primarily due to the popularity of violent antiheroes like the Punisher, Spawn, and Wolverine.

[15][b] The writing teams increased the romantic tension between Clark Kent (Superman's civilian identity) and Lois Lane in an effort to make the comics more appealing.

[6][13] The postponement disappointed the writing teams, as they had to put aside a year's worth of story planning and, according to Simonson, essentially had to come up with something at the last minute.

[10] Jurgens created the concepts of a monster tearing apart Metropolis and an issue dedicated to a single fight sometime before "The Death of Superman"; the teams combined these when developing the story.

[19] When deciding which villain should kill Superman, the writers determined that his existing foes relied too much on technology and intellect, and did not want to use one of them or his traditional weakness, Kryptonite.

[19] DC did not intend for Superman's death to be permanent and the teams kept this a secret; they signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from revealing the character would return.

However, the teams delayed all Superman comics for three months to create the illusion that he had really been killed because DC's solicitation cycle would have spoiled the resurrection.

[21] Furthermore, the teams knew bringing Superman back in that issue would be illogical and held an emergency summit at a hotel in Terrytown, New York, where they plotted the final parts of the story.

Simonson suggested that each writer create their own Superman, which not only solved the problem of what this new character should be like but also let the creative teams have independence after years of forced collaboration.

[12] Stern characterized Eradicator as an "Old Testament" Superman who was more alien than human and compared his character to Jack Kirby's Silver Surfer.

[10] Karl Kesel conceived Superboy for another series he pitched to editor Karen Berger beforehand and characterized him as "an MTV generation" Superman.

[21] According to Vulture's Abraham Riesman, DC "aggressively" promoted "The Death of Superman" since it had financial incentives to do so, as comic book speculation was at its peak.

[59] Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are sent to cover the battle for television, while Lex Luthor dissuades Supergirl from joining the fight and convinces her that she is needed in Metropolis.

At the struggle's culminating moment in front of the Daily Planet building, both lay a massive blow upon each other, killing Doomsday and mortally wounding Superman.

One night, while reading a newspaper story Lane wrote in Superman's honor, Jonathan begins to feel responsible for his son's death and has a heart attack in his wife Martha's arms.

[85] In actuality, Eradicator stole Superman's body and placed it in a regeneration matrix in the Fortress of Solitude, drawing on his recovering energies for power.

Taking extreme measures to 'make the world a better place', Lois kills Lex Luthor, the Joker and Batman and goes to fight the Cyborg Superman.

[20] Details of "The Death of Superman" were covered by the media before DC wanted them to and the company's publicists were not ready to talk about the story when it appeared in Newsday.

[7] Gerard Jones, who wrote the Green Lantern tie-in story, theorized that the phenomenon may have been due in part to the then-relatively recent poor ending of the Superman film franchise.

He thought that while killing off an important comics character was not an original idea, "The Death of Superman" was more ambitious and had a greater legacy than other similar events.

[23] Steve Morris of Comics Beat also thought it had a major impact, with "strong storytelling and a simple, if well-done, central narrative".

[104] Brian Salvatore, writing for Multiversity Comics, believed the story was effective and "present[ed] some pretty compelling arguments for why Superman is the greatest superhero of all time, without ever really coming out and saying that".

[112] To coincide with the release of the animated film adaptation of the crossover in 2018, a 12-part Death of Superman webcomic series began, written by Simonson and illustrated by Cat Staggs, Joel Ojeda, and Laura Braga, among others.

In the film, Lex Luthor uses forbidden Kryptonian genetic engineering projects to combine General Zod's corpse with his own DNA, creating Doomsday.

Costume designer Michael Wilkinson explained that director Zack Snyder planned to have Superman wear the suit when he was resurrected in the film, but scrapped the idea in pre-production.