Adventures of Superman#500

Adventures of Superman #500

Jun 1993 · DC

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★ 1st appearance — Cyborg Superman★ 1st appearance — Steel★ 1st appearance — Superboy (Kon-El)

About this Issue

Adventures of Superman #500 is the hinge point of DC's 'Death and Return of Superman' trilogy — it simultaneously concluded the 'Funeral for a Friend' arc and fired the opening gun of 'Reign of the Supermen,' introducing four distinct Superman successors in a single oversized issue. The issue delivered the first appearances of Superboy (Conner Kent), Steel (John Henry Irons), Cyborg Superman (Hank Henshaw in his cyborg form), and the Eradicator — four characters whose legacies have reverberated through DC's publishing line for over three decades. Its creative solution to the impossible problem of resurrection — placing Pa Kent at the center of a near-death spiritual battle rather than staging a conventional superhero comeback — stood as a deliberate counterpoint to the empty-spectacle comics trend of the early 1990s. The sheer density of debut appearances and its structural role as the prologue to an event that captured mainstream media attention make it one of the most consequential single issues of the Modern Age.

ComicBooks.com Value

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CGC 9.8 $89

CGC 9.6 $32

CGC 9.4 $32

CGC 9.2 $32*

CGC 9.0 $27

CGC 8.5 $23*

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CGC 8.0 $23*

CGC 7.5 $20*

CGC 7.0 $20*

CGC 6.5 $20*

CGC 6.0 $20*

CGC 5.5 $20*

CGC 5.0 $20*

CGC 4.5 $20*

CGC 4.0 $20*

CGC 3.5 $20*

CGC 3.0 $20*

CGC 2.5 $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

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History

The issue grew out of DC's 1992 annual 'Superman Summit,' where the four Superman creative teams gathered under group editor Mike Carlin to plan the storyline in concert; the editorial decision to run with all four teams' resurrection concepts simultaneously — rather than selecting one — directly shaped the issue's anthology structure. The lead story, written by Jerry Ordway and penciled by Tom Grummett, served as Ordway's capstone to a Superman run that had begun in 1987, while the four shorter back-up segments previewing each new Superman were contributed by the creative teams of the other ongoing titles: Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove (Steel), Roger Stern and Jackson Guice (the Eradicator/Last Son of Krypton), Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett (Superboy), and Dan Jurgens (Cyborg Superman). The Superboy segment in particular resulted from Kesel and Grummett's pitch — with Grummett famously sketching the character's leather-jacket look on an airplane napkin on his flight home from the summit and faxing the design to Carlin. DC released the issue in multiple editions: a standard newsstand edition with a Tom Grummett cover, a direct market Collector's Edition polybagged with a Jerry Ordway painted cover featuring a removable translucent overlay, and a Platinum Edition polybagged with a Bloodlines trading card that contained eight additional story pages not present in the standard version.

Trivia · 7 facts

First appearance of Superboy (later Conner Kent / Kon-El), created by writer Karl Kesel and penciler Tom Grummett; he escapes Project Cadmus with the Newsboy Legion in his debut segment.
First appearance of John Henry Irons (Steel), written by Louise Simonson with art by Jon Bogdanove; he emerges from Metropolis rubble during a gang war armed with a Toastmaster weapon.
First appearance of Hank Henshaw as the Cyborg Superman, written by Dan Jurgens; his introduction shows him destroying a Superman memorial plaque in front of the Daily Planet.
First appearance of the Eradicator as an in-costume Superman figure (the 'Last Son of Krypton'), written by Roger Stern with art by Jackson Guice; his identity as the Eradicator is not yet revealed in this issue.
The lead story, written and plotted by Jerry Ordway with art by Tom Grummett, centers on Jonathan Kent's near-death spiritual struggle to pull Clark's soul back from the afterlife — the narrative mechanism by which Superman's return is signaled.
The issue was released in at least three distinct editions: a newsstand edition, a direct market Collector's Edition polybagged with a removable translucent Ordway-painted cover, and a Platinum Edition polybagged with a Bloodlines trading card and eight additional story pages exclusive to that version.
The entire issue is reprinted in the collected edition 'The Death and Return of Superman'; it also serves as the prologue to the 'Reign of the Supermen' crossover, which ran across Action Comics, Superman, Adventures of Superman, and Superman: The Man of Steel from June through October 1993.