How 'My Hero Academia' Improved 'Death of Superman'

Welcome back to another edition of Comic Relief! where we talk about all the goings on in the world of Nerd!

They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, however, what would you call it when you take something and make it better? Last year, the hit anime My Hero Academia adapted the "All For One" arc from the manga that depicted the final stand of the World's Symbol of Peace: All Might, and while watching it I couldn't help but notice the similarities to the iconic '90s Superman story: Death of Superman. This is an article I have been meaning to write for quite some time, and honestly, that's in no small part due to the fact that I was struggling to find the proper words. However, having watched the set of episodes multiple times, and rereading the iconic storyline from the late 80s by Dan Jurgens, I think I finally have the ability to convey how My Hero Academia's Fall of All-Might takes Death of Superman and drastically improves upon it. (If you don't know much about All Might, check out this piece I wrote earlier about the unfair comparison to him and Superman)

For those who are not familiar, Death of Superman was the story where the Man of Steel finally met an opponent that was too much for him to handle in Doomsday. After Doomsday takes on the Justice League of America and beats each member within an inch of their lives, Superman steps in to take on the monstrocity. After a fight that tears through the city, Superman and Doomsday collide one more time for one final blow, each killing the other. With that, the world had lost Superman, and things looked bleak. That being said Superman would return eventually in the conclusion of the Reign of the Supermen storyline in the books to take down the villainous Cyborg Superman: Hank Henshaw, but even still, the weight of Superman's death was carried throughout the comic community as the pillar of the comic book community, the hero that really started it all, was laid lo and defeated.

As far as the base concept for the "All for One" storyline is concerned, it follows a similar dynamic. The League of Villains, an organization headed by All for One and the villain Togura Shiguraki, have a UA student, Katsuki Bakugo, in captivity. The heroes storm the two potential locations for the League simultaneously to rescue Bakugo and take down the villains' operation. While things initially go well, the second team goes up against the infamous All for One, and are soundly defeated. All Might goes to take on his ultimate adversary in another final showdown to bring the All for One to justice. All Might, again for those unfamiliar, is the world's symbol of peace and justice (essentially he's the Superman of his world) and he serves as the mentor to the main character of the series: Izuku Midorya or Deku. However, what is unbeknownst to most in this world is that All-Might's time as the number 1 hero is coming to a close as he has passed his quirk (superpower) onto a successor (Deku), and as such his power is rapidly fading. However, even before he passed this ability on, All Might had an even greater secret, that 5 years before this story began, he had been injured badly by a villain in a final showdown that All Might won at great cost: he could no longer limitlessly operate as the World's symbol of peace. His powers had a decreasing time limit due to the strain they put on the user's body. This villain's name was All for One, and he had been foreshadowed since the first episode, and the foreshadowing of these elements is just one of the things that make the story shine the way it does.

Since the beginning of the series, the audience has been teased with the eventual fall of All Might. It was never a question on if All Might would fall, it was a question of when. Knowing that All Might is actively a ticking clock to his own destruction added to the drama of the showdown much more than the fight between Superman and Doomsday. However, as great of a character as All Might is and while he definitely shines brightly in this arc, it would not have been possible without All For One. The thing that makes All For One that much more of an adversary than someone like Doomsday is that he's more than just a brute force villain, he has the cunning of a villain like Lex Luthor and unlike Doomsday who was just a character who came out of nowhere, All For One's story is tied directly to All-Might's. When the world was first introduced to Quirks, initially villains greatly outnumbered heroes, however, there was one villain who controlled it all and was the most powerful, and he went by the name of his quirk: All for One. All For One's abilities are that he can stockpile other people's quirks for himself, and simultaneously bestow quirks on other people. He used this ability to become the king of the underworld and sit upon an empire of crime. However, All for one had a younger brother, seemingly quirkless and with a profound sense of justice, they could not have been more different from one another. It is unclear All For One's motive in this decision, whether it was to force his brother to submit or to torture his brother due to the painful process of receiving a quirk from him, but All For one bestowed a Quirk to his brother, but the brother had a latent quirk of his own, the ability to pass on his quirk and stockpile power, it was called One For All. All Might is the 8th user of this quirk and had seemingly accomplished the mission of the One for All quirk in taking down All for One. However, All For One somehow survived their fight five years and has been making moves in the shadows all this time, plotting to destroy his enemy All Might, and in a way he does.

What ultimately sets these two stories apart, and places My Hero Academia on top is how they choose to end the story. The ending of Death of Superman is exactly what it sounds like. Superman dies. However, with All Might's last stand we get something far more unique. We get a different kind of death. All Might uses the last embers of One for all he has left to defeat All for One, and by the end of the story he's forced to retire as he can no longer be the symbol of peace, but where Death of Superman set up for the rebirth of the character at the end of the Reign of the Supermen arc mentioned earlier, My Hero Academia's end of All Might is permanent as he passes the reins on to his successor. Outside of some fan theories, this is the end of All Might. Truly his last battle, and this is ultimately the thing that makes this story stand above Death of Superman, that this is not something that All Might can come back from. The power of One for All has completely left him, All Might cannot be any more, the Symbol of Peace died, but in a different way. All Might may have stood victorious in their fight, but All for One took him away from the people as their symbol of Peace, and that may as well have the same effect.

All Might is still alive in My Hero Academia, he can muscle out for a few seconds, but his strength and the things that made him the number 1 hero have left him. Now his role is to prepare the next generation of heroes, namely Deku, to uphold the role that he held for so long and to maintain the peace All Might had created throughout the world. While the Death of Superman may have shaken the world of comics, it did not serve the purpose of preparing the world for a time where he was no longer there to defend it. At the end of the day, this should be one of the focuses of a story like that. There is a final chapter for us all, so it's important for a hero to ensure that there is someone to hold up what they built up in their time. 

This has been another edition of Comic Releif! I hope you have enjoyed and we will see you again soon! 

-Michael