Convergence #0 DPS - Death of Superman!

Okay, given that I showed this piece on YouTube a month ago, I figured it was time I posted it to my gallery.

As many of you know, I am a huge fan and collector of Tom Grummett's art. However, despite collecting comic art since 1997 and with so many other collecting priorities in hand, I didn't actually start buying Grummett's work until sometime around the '03-'05 period. Because of that, I missed out on all of the Death of Superman art, which was scattered to the winds by then. I would also have been happy to own any representative piece from the story regardless of artist, but Dan Jurgens had illustrated most of the truly representative pieces and had kept most of the art.

Since then, I've always wanted just a single representative piece of art to commemorate that storyline, and for me that would have to be the scene in which Lois cries in anguish over Superman's body, with Doomsday's body in the rubble off to the side and Superman's shredded cape blowing in the wind on the right side. Of course, I've always known I'd never be able to acquire the original pages to that scene, so I quietly put it out of my mind.

Then one day in the not too distant past, I discovered the existence of the comic book titled Convergence #0, which was a prequel to a Convergence mini-series. This prequel would be the only issue drawn by Ethan Van Sciver and as a fan of his work, I took a look at the issue. When I flipped through it and reached pages 6 & 7, I was blown away to see this double page splash staring me in the face! Yes, due to the Convergence story plot it features the MANY deaths of Superman published throughout DC history and not just the one most of us remember most from 1992, but those less remembered deaths are all a part of filling in the background of this piece and they serve as more of an extra "bonus" if you will, to the main attraction which is the 1992 death.

Clearly, Van Sciver wanted this DPS to stand out, so he went to town on it. The piece has all three of the elements that I feel are most emblematic of this now classic story: Lois screaming/crying out in anguish over Superman's badly beaten body, flanked by the also defeated Doomsday to the left and Superman's shredded cape blowing in the wind on the right. Van Sciver's attention to detail here is exquisite and I honestly can't imagine a more perfect representational piece to own aside from the Jurgens pages from the original story.

Note: The image of the Earth 2 Superman being cradled by Power Girl was originally drawn as Lois cradling the New 52 Superman, but the editor asked for changes and Van Sciver had to white out parts of the drawing to draw the requested changes. In the additional scans I've added above, you can see what the art looked like before the changes were made, taken from a YouTube video produced by Van Sciver himself.