In 1992, DC released Superman #64, featuring a story called “Metropolis Mailbag.” a touching Christmas story, “Metropolis Mailbag” became a fan-favorite of the “Triangle Era” and spawned a sequel — which, due to what was going on in the Superman books at the time, ended up selling many, many times more copies than the original. Why? Well, let’s get into it…!
“Metropolis Mailbag,” written by Dan Jurgens and featuring art by the late, great Jackson “Butch” Guice, took Superman away from supervillain combat for a month and showed the hero answering his mail. At Metropolis’s 34th Street Post Office, they hold stacks of mail from around the world, all from people who want to ask Superman for help. In Superman #64, Jurgens established that every year, the Man of Steel goes there during the holidays and does his best to help people in need.
Superman says that it’s his most thankless and depressing job: while he might make headway against villains, the mail never ends. He also acknowledges that a lot of it comes from people either pitching him on something shady, or asking him to do the literal impossible. Finding the ones where he can make a real difference is the challenge.
In the years following Crisis on Infinite Earths, writers like John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson and Jurgens were tasked with reinventing a Man of Steel whose powers had been scaled way back, whose parents were still alive, and who was meant to be more of an everyman rather than being clumsy and awkward. The”Metropolis Mailbag” stories interrogated the question of — in Lois’s words — “what Superman is about” by demonstrating his love for humanity, and his frustration with the apparent futility of certain aspects of his never-ending battle.
In the issue, Superman is tasked with bringing an aging Holocaust survivor face-to-face with her sister one last time before the sister passed away.
“I still can’t believe a man as important as you has the time to help me!” Says the woman as Superman flies her to Germany. “There must be so many more urgent matters that require your attention.”
Superman is having none of that, of course, and points out that there aren’t people who are more or less “worthy” of his help. It feels a little bit like a call forward to Wonder Woman‘s famous line that “it’s not about deserve.”
In another letter, a child asked Superman to help excise an inoperable brain tumor from his father. Superman, knowing he couldn’t do it, still tracked down the family to offer his condolences and explain that he isn’t a god. He did, however, help save a life by encouraging the man’s wife to donate her husband’s usable organs.
And here’s where things get…weird.
A year after Superman #64 would be Superman #76 — and if you remember the ’90s, you know where this is going.
The Man of Steel battled Doomsday across the country, with both combatants dying in the street in Metropolis, in Superman #75. A month later, how does “Metropolis Mailbag II” even work?
Well, other superheroes, honoring Superman’s legacy, decided to go to the Metropolis post office and answer his mail, knowing it’s what he would have done.
“Mailbag II” (this time written and drawn by Jurgens, with finished art by Brett Breeding) is not only a sequel to “Metropolis Mailbag” but also to the Death of Superman storyline, dealing primarily with the Anderson family. The Andersons were featured heavily in the “Doomsday!” storyline; their house was trashed by Doomsday, and at a key point in the battle, Superman chose to lose his advantage against Doomsday in order to save Claire Anderson and her infant daughter from a house fire.
Mitch, Claire’s teenage son, had started out as somebody who thought Superman was old and lame, but came around to him during the course of the Doomsday battle and would become one of Superman’s biggest fans in the years to come. That was, ironically, the path that a lot of the readers were taking right around that time.
The Superman titles had been critically acclaimed but had not sold especially well in the direct market during the first two years of the 1990s. By 1992, the writing teams put together The Death and Return of Superman arcs and sales exploded. Anecdotally, there have been years of stories about readers — myself included — who tuned into Superman comics they weren’t reading for the event, then fell in love with the titles and stuck around for years to come.
It’s because of The Death of Superman a month before that Superman #76 was a multiple-sellout issue that went back for additional printings. While it might not be as pure an expression of the “Metropolis Mailbag” idea, it was a heartfelt story that delivered on feelgood holiday vibes at a time when the title really needed them.
At the time, though, the trade paperback market hadn’t really taken shape for most monthly superhero comics. Most people would have had to go track down the single issue for backstory on the “Metropolis Mailbag” concept and, in a lot of smaller towns, the hype around Superman had made back-issue hunting extremely difficult.
How long would it be before the issue was finally released in a collected edition? Well…a long time. Superman #64 was reprinted in 2018’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes Holiday Special, which was a 100-page giant released exclusively at Walmart. The widest commercial release of the issue since 1992 was in Superman: The Triangle Era Omnibus, a $100 hardcover collection released in October 2015.
