The DEATH of SUPERMAN
This article describes the events of the original 1961 "Death of Superman" story by Jerry Siegel. Superman has also died in Last Son of Krypton chapter 25; in the 1993 "Death and Return of Superman" storyline published by DC Comics; and in the final chapters of All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison.
Superman #149 (October, 1961) contains a three-part imaginary tale by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, and George Klein. In it, Luthor carries out a cunning scheme to annihilate Superman. After using his scientific genius to discover a cure for cancer while serving a term in Metropolis Prison, Luthor receives a speedy parole at the urging of Superman and promises to spend the rest of his life making additional scientific discoveries for the benefit of Mankind.
When members of the underworld, enraged over Luthor's apparent reformation and at his refusal to use his talents to help them destroy Superman, begin making numerous attempts on Luthor's life, Superman builds his former enemy a fully equipped satellite laboratory and launches it into outer space so that Luthor will be able to carry on his noble scientific experiments free from underworld interference. 
A week later, however, after having kidnapped three of Superman's closest friends - Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White - so that they can bear witness to his final triumph over Superman, Luthor lures the unsuspecting Man of Steel to his orbiting satellite laboratory and annihilates him with deadly kryptonite rays. 
As Superman's body lies in state at Metropolis Chapel and the entire universe mourns the passing of the Man of Steel, Luthor and his underworld cronies - who realize now that Luthor's bogus reformation was only part of his scheme to assassinate Superman - celebrate the joyous occasion at a lavish party on some remote isle.
The festivities are rudely interrupted by Supergirl, who smashes through a wall of the underworld banquet hall and carries Luthor away to the bottle city of Kandor. 
Imprisoned in a bulletproof glass enclosure in a Kandorian courtroom and forced to stand trial for the brutal murder of Superman, Luthor is found guilty of the heinous crime and banished, for all eternity, into the Phantom Zone, even as Supergirl vows to take up Superman's fallen mantle and carry on his crusade for justice throughout the universe. 
The Death of Superman is available in The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told
Above text on this page taken from The Great Superman Book © 1978 by Michael L. Fleisher.
Superman TM DC Comics & © DC Comics, Joanne Siegel, and Laura Siegel Larson
"Superman was coming back into his body again. He felt the familiar organs of his chest and stomach appearing back where they belonged, the dark viscous blood coursing through his arteries faster than a speeding bullet. It was Luthor's voice he was hearing now, rooting for him, urging him back to the world of three dimensions and energy-matter relationships, where there was a good and an evil and where the distinction was not very difficult to make." (Last Son of Krypton 25)
entry origin: stta 1.0