From: akhale@pollux.usc.edu (Abhijit Khale)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Doomsday: I'm not impressed.
Date: 13 Nov 1992 18:05:18 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.usc.edu
Keywords: Superman, Doomsday, spam, spam, baked beans, spam

In article <1992Nov13.203537.12626@u.washington.edu> harmonix@stein.u.washington.edu (Chaz Stevens) writes:
>	Well, so far I am not impressed with the Doomsday storyline in
>the current Superman titles.  They said that Superman would die "a death worthy
>of Superman", but so far alls I've seen is mindless death and destruction.
>They have simply created a mindless destructive force that is more powerful
>than Superman.  Doomsday has been moving far too fast for the big red S to
>stop to think about what he's doing and form a plan of attack.  Also, under the
>new (post-Crisis) reckoning, Superman is not necessarily the most powerful
>being on the planet.  Captain Marvel and the Martian Manhunter, just to name
>two, can go toe-to-toe with Superman, so surely the three of them together
>could stop Doomsday's rampage.  Throw in a Green Lantern or two that actually
>know what they are doing (other than that idiot Guy Gardner), and Doomsday
>would quickly be yesterday's news.

I think Superman is still the most powerful non mystical hero on the planet. I
agree that a combination of Earth's mightiest heroes could have beaten him,
but there just hasnt been enough time for Superman to collect Earth's heroes.
Jonn is incommunicado (or if he's BloodWynd, he's knocked out). Captain Atom
is Giordano knows where. Firestorm and Captain Marvel arent much in evidence.
Hal and Valor are probably off planet. Orion is probably on New Genesis. Laurel
is in the wrong century :-). DC's mystical heroes are difficult to gather at the
best of times. 

Doomsday did beat Maxima, BloodWynd, Gardner (idiot or no) who are the most powerful
of the League members beside Superman.

>	In short, to me, a "death worthy of a Superman" means that Superman
>uses *all* his abilities (brains as well as brawn) to to try to defeat this,
>and he still comes up short.  But they aren't exploring anything beyond
>Superman's physical strength in this series, and we *know* it is possible to
>render Doomsday inert (after all, he *was* imprisoned for awhile).

Hmm .. I both agree and disagree. I agree that the plot is too simple. On the
other hand, the post Crisis Superman has not been known for using his brains. 
By contrast, the pre-Crisis Superman was really brilliant, often using his
brains to defeat adversaries. Not to mention that he was a scientific genius
as well. This was dramatically underscored a while back when Superman had to
really think hard to solve a puzzle when beating Mr. Mxy. [ The pre-Crisis
Superman would have solved that in a flash]. 

So it actually makes a perverse kind of sense for the current version of Supes to meet
his end using just his powers and not his brains. 

>	In all, the Doomsday storyline has me pretty bored.  Certainly not 
>a fitting end to the Man of Steel.

Yes, I agree its boring. Actually, if I had wanted to kill Superman, I would have
Superman decide that its time to get rid of Darkseid once and for all. He and
a bunch of allies attack Apokolips, defeat Darkseid's para-daemons and the
Furies and finally take on the Lord of Darkness. After a climatic battle, 
Superman defeats Darkseid, but dies in the process. It would be more fitting
as well, since Darkseid is probably DCs number one villain post-Crisis. 

Abhijit
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc