preserve some of its cash flow if it made the move to becoming one of the few publishers to also distribute directly to the comic market. This backfired terribly when the bottom fell out of the market, as they were stocked with multiple printings of variant and "collectible" issues that were no longer in high demand, and they could not cover the costs of their distribution service. The bust can also be linked back to some of the series that caused the boom a few years earlier. DC's decision to publish two blockbuster stories depicting the loss of their two major superheroes ("Knightfall" — the breaking of the Batman — and "The Death of Superman"), and their subsequent flooding of the press as to their supposed finality, is considered by some collectors to have started a slow decay within the non-regular buyer comic community which then led to drops in sales. Many comic retailers believe that numerous comic speculators took the death and crippling of two major characters to signify the end of the Batman and Superman series. As many comic readers and retailers knew full well, very little in comics actually changes with any finality. Many aspects of the status quo returned after the story arcs were over (Superman died, but was resurrected, and Batman was crippled, but eventually recovered). Many comic speculators who were only in the market to see important comics mature, then sell them for a profit, did not quite understand how quick the turnaround would be on the story recant, and many rushed out to scoop up as many copies of whatever issues were to be deemed significant. Comic shops received not only staggering sales during the week that Superman died, but also had to try to meet the demand. This led to the saturation of the market and the devaluing of what was thought to be the end of an American icon. Some comic book retailers and theorists deem DC's practices in the press forum, and their relationship with the non-specialized consumer, to be grossly negligent of the status of the market, and that their marketing campaign, most likely not malicious in intent, spelled doom for the speculator market and comic sales in general. Others place the blame for the comic market crash on Marvel (whose product line had bloated to hundreds of separate titles by late 1993, including the poorly received "Marvel UK"