A falling cabinet of chemicals and a lighting strike give Barry Allen horrible burns which claim his life hours later. He curses that he was unable to get out of the way in time . . .

After shielding a hitchiker from the deadly Gamma Bomb, Bruce Banner contracts fatal radiation poisoning, growing weak, then dead, in a matter of days . . .

An escape vessel from the planet Krypton smashes into the Kent household, kills its alien passenger and two farmers and leaves nothing but a smoking crater . . .

Promising student and photographer Peter Parker contracts leukemia from an irradiated spider . . .

After losing his parents in an armed robbery, Bruce Wayne falls to his death in an uncharted cave on his estate. The last thing he sees before dying of multiple organ trauma is a bat . . .

These -- and many others -- are the Superdead.

Superdead (or "metalemures," as the Hierarchy calls them) are both feared and admired by the residents of the Underworld. Each of them died in a bizarre and traumatic fashion and escaped their Caul . . changed. Although the Legions of Murder and Mystery are the source of most metalemures, these giants among wraiths are often above ghostly politics. Most wraiths, who died in more mundane ways, regard them with a combination of fear and envy. After all, ghosts become what they are due to their passions. Do the superdead unwittingly diminish the importance of other wraiths' emotions because their feelings seem to grant incredible powers? Are metalemures more passionate, or merely Fate-crossed?

Many metalemures prefer to fight for the common wraith regardless of affiliation. Unfortunately, some souls come howling to Oblivion with the same charged nature. Beside Shadow-eaten schemers like Coldheart, villains like Doctor Doom (killed in a lab accident unwittingly caused by super-Moliator Reed Richards) forge soulsteel machines in the shadow of Onceborn like Darkseid and Thanos.

The superdead have powerful fetters, and this is both a blessing and a curse. The alleged alien called Metagaunt loses his powers when he's confronted with rock from the crater at Smallville. The Shadowy Spider-Ghost haunts model-actress Mary-Jane Watson, and inspires his enemy, the Grey Goblin, to lash out at her. Some of the Quick intervene in Superdead affairs. One of the most notable interlopers is Orpheus president Tony Stark, who developed skimming technolongy to arrest a fatal heart condition. In his metal coffin, the techs call him Iron Man -- and something about his technology makes him a formidable power, able to go toe to toe with entities such as Far Shores "god" called the Mighty Thor!

Despite singular natures, even the superdead have social distinctions. The Hierarchy has outlawed the so-called "X-Dead" -- metalemures who regularly Rise, taking their powers with them. Despite his expertise on the subject, Professor Xavier denies teaching novice wraiths how to Rise at his academy for Arcanoi mastery. The Smiling Lord's soulsteel Sentinels creep throughout Stygia looking for members of the cult. Then there are troublemakers like the American Legionnaire (who died in WW2 after using dangerous therapies to negate his 4-F status), who pursue a program of democratic reform . . .