Doomsday
1500 BCE - Doomsday is created by ancient Kryptonian scientists in an attempt to engineer an indestructible war golem. The eventual retrovirus is more stable, but the original test subject is far more dangerous, and is kept in deep space.
1200 BCE - Doomsday is deployed against a planet's population by Kryptonian warlords, decimating the planet. They are condemned by the Guardians of Oa and use of the Doomsday virus is deemed a intergalactic war crime. He is hyperspacially locked in deep space.
1166 - Doomsday's hyperspacial prison is triggered by the local arrival of a boom tube. Darkseid and Killroy are stranded on an alien planet, stalked by the creature. Darkseid defeats their attacker and launches it into space, it's prison now unstable.
5 years ago - Doomsday's hyperspacial prison is activated by misued Kryptonian technology on Earth. He crashes on the planet and carves a path of destruction, decimating the Justice League and putting Ted Kord in a coma. He is finally defeated by Superman, who has to expend every last bit of stored Solar Energy in his system to do so. His body is thrown into deep space.
Doomsday has become one of the premier Superman villains; it's very difficult to find a telling of the Superman mythology that doesn't somehow prominently feature this character in one way or another. This presents quite a few story quirks, because Doomsday barely qualifies as a character; he's a plot device. Yes, he's been slowly fittied with the barest shadow of a backstory, but it's almost laughably pointless; this guy exists for one reason and one reason only; to kill Superman. Once that story is done, so is he. The fact that we keep retreading Doomsday is really a symptom of the fact Superman stories keep rehashing old storyarcs. Since we're not going to do that, our Doomsday only needs to exist for a small period of time.
Even still, he's probably one of the most important comic storyarcs in the last forty years. Let's do him right.
Even still, he's probably one of the most important comic storyarcs in the last forty years. Let's do him right.
Doomsday's Comic HistoryThe writers for the various Superman comics in the late 80's and early 90's would meet yearly to discuss story ideas for their shared corner of DC's world. This model actually worked really well: Superman's comics became very insular during this period but also experienced quite a bit of innovation, with new story arcs advancing the overall story in new and unexpected ways. In 1991, the idea that Superman's villains all fell into similar veins of either being technologically or intellectually superior led them to imagine a new enemy that would be far physically superior to Superman, without any technology or magic that could be externally disrupted.
How successful were they? It's debatable, honestly. Doomsday fulfills the requirements they set out to fill, but only on the most simplistic level. He is stronger that Superman. He looks very cool and threatening. Done. He doesn't really have a functional motivation or characterization at all; he's simply a relentless engine of destruction, a natural disaster with legs. This might have been a one-off baddie, except that the same brainstorming session that produced him also produced a new idea for a comic story arc that was absolutely groundbreaking at the time; They would use Doomsday to actually kill their main character. |
The resonance of the death of Superman is impossible to overstate. It made waves out of the world of comics and into the actual news media. Everyone was talking about it. It's often said that it brought new relevance to the character; I don't know how true that is because I don't imagine Superman was ever IRRELLEVANT, but it certainly brought him into the public consciousness in a way he hadn't been for years.
Still, this is all more attributed to the Death of Superman arc than to Doomsday himself. He's been brought back a number of times and is always thoroughly underwhelming, because there isn't a whole lot going on under the hood. It might best be illustrated in his actual design, and the way his ubiquitous bone-spurs actually grown down over his eyes. The character doesn't even really see his enviornment, he just punches it. This isn't a condemnation of the idea of Doomsday, incidentally. Even if he's just a directionless force of nature with a badass look... that's still a cool contribution to the overall look of Superman's rogue's gallery. Even if he only participates in one story, it is a very good story. |
Our Doomsday StoryObviously, we are including the death and return of Superman in out timeline. Comic book characters have an annoying tendency to die and come back (something this story has a real hand in starting), and we've put forth some effort to keep the worst of that sort of thing out of our version of the larger story. Superman's death, however, essentially defined an entire decade of comic stories.
We tried to dig into Doomsday's story a bit to make him make a little bit more sense. He's still a prototype of an ancient Kryptonian bio-weapon, but we've gotten rid of the weird applied evolution concepts that were core to his hastily-assembled origin. Also, rather than have him conveniently imprisoned in a capsule on Earth, we trapped him in deep space. This way, since Earth is essentially the only planet that still has Kryptonian technology, it makes sense that he would happen to be sent there. This does raise a small question about exactly whose fault Doomsday is. Is Superman's existence on Earth actually the catalyst for Doomsday's attack? That's an unsettling thought, especially as it essentially proves Lex Luthor right. We're more prone to imagine that it was actually the misuse of that tech that brings him here, either deliberately by Hank Henshaw of accidentally by the folks at Star Labs. Either way... We happen to really like his green costume, and would like him to spend more time in that before he hulks out on us. |