Animal Man gave us the blink-and-you-missed-it remark about Superman as he
goes to confront Buddy Baker and check up on the whole "mysterious return
to life" thing. So sometime between Action Comics and Superman, he does
die in some variation prior to the "modern" time. We still aren't
sure where the genetic material for Superboy came from, but we can guess The
Death of Superman is too iconic to completely ignore - you know, like
a Crisis of some sort on multitudes of planets.
Still, the exact time Supes bit the
bullet--whether it was Doomsday or some other Big Heavy--remains to be seen. It
wouldn't shock us if the end of Justice League's first arc was his death
or even a massive beating that could lead into a retelling of Reign of
Supermen.
