DC Just Killed Off Superman, Confirming The 1 Villain Who Can Beat Him
DC's newest supervillain megathreat officially kills Superman after murdering an unknown number of famous heroes. While many street-level rogues boast terrifying body counts, an exclusive tier of DC villains has specialized in the slaughter of superheroes. The Anti-Monitor's rampage during Crisis on Infinite Earths resulted in the erasure of infinite dimensions. On a more intimate but equally brutal scale, Superboy-Prime single-handedly tore through the Teen Titans and the Justice Society with bare-knuckle ferocity before beating the Golden Age Superman (Kal-L) to death. Parallax has slaughtered the entire Green Lantern Corps, while Darkseid routinely executes entire pantheons of heroes. The myth of Superman’s absolute invulnerability has been broken multiple times across DC history, with a select few villains who have successfully claimed the ultimate prize. Doomsday is the most famous, but other foes such as the alien assassin Zunial and the cosmic-powered zealot Gog have murdered the hero in different timelines. In The New 52, "The Final Days of Superman" saw Kal-El succumb to a fatal combination of cell degradation from the fire pits of Apokolips and severe Kryptonite poisoning after unleashing a final, maximum-effort solar flare to incinerate a volatile energy clone.
Kryptonite has spelled death for Superman the majority of the time for a reason, and new additions to DC Comics lore know it.
Matriarch Kills Superman Using Kryptonite And A Green Lantern Ring
Wonder Woman #33; Written By Tom King; Art By Daniel Sampere And Alejandro Sanchez
Matriarch kills Superman using Kryptonite in Wonder Woman #33
The birth of Lyssa and Trinity in DC continuity creates a timeline where Lyssa grows up to become Matriarch, Queen of America. Matriarch possesses absolute power, able to execute any individual she desires. So far, Matriarch has captured and possibly executed DC figures as big as Bane, Batman the Flash, and at least one Green Lantern. However, she keeps Superman alive only to torture Diana's whereabouts out of his dying body. In Wonder Woman #33, Matriarch herself is shocked to see her piece of Kryptonite overperform, killing the Man of Steel before he reveals Wonder Woman's location.
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In this timeline, Superman dies in a similar way to Jon Kent, who dies of Kryptonite exposure in the form of a Green Lantern ring, with Matriarch finishing him off by stabbing him in the chest. When Matriarch kills Damian Wayne, she also taunts him about Batman's death, and Damian ends up meeting his father's fate. Now, it's up to Wonder Woman and Trinity to defeat Matriarch, who has wiped out a great part of the world's metahuman population. Though, as Wonder Woman proves when she slices off Zeus' leg, Matriarch may be no match for the final team-up between the surviving Amazons.
Superman's Death Might Be Undone, But Matriarch Is Here To Stay
Matriarch's Reign May Only Be The Beginning
While Superman's dark fate leaves the future of the DC Universe in ruins, the door is open for time-loops or a magical reset that eventually undoes the Man of Steel and the other heroes' deaths at the hands of Matriarch. That said, Matriarch's inevitable defeat doesn't equate to her permanent death or surrender. After all, Wonder Woman writer and Matriarch creator has confirmed her dystopian reign is only the start of Lyssa's DC history. As King explains in Wonder Woman #31:
"What you started to see in issue #25, the big launch of this character, is she exists in the future. I was sort of inspired by the comics of my youth, where the great villains came from the future. In the future, she has left Themyscira, has conquered Earth, and has killed the Justice League. When you see each of their deaths, their last words to the Matriarch before they succumb to her total power are 'Wonder Woman,'who's the last hope against this villain."
Tom King and artist Daniel Sampere have explicitly built the tyrannical rogue Amazon to serve as a permanent cornerstone of the DC Universe. In her future timeline, Matriarch has already cemented herself as an even bigger villain than Lex Luthor, who serves as her liege. Her reign won't last long, and Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Damian Wayne, and Jon Kent are bound to return, but regardless of how the temporal dust settles and how many dead heroes are revived, Lyssa’s chilling brand of fascism has secured her a permanent, recurring home at the very top of DC's rogues' gallery.
How powerful do you think Matriarch is compared to Superman's other villains? Wonder Woman #33 is now available from DC Comics.
