From: akhale@pollux.usc.edu (Abhijit Khale)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: I'm not buying Superman #75!
Date: 23 Nov 92 04:19:37 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.usc.edu

In article <> albert@chain.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu (Rick Jones) writes:
>In article <> khale@camilla.Eng.Sun.COM (Abhijit Khale) writes:

{ Details a long list of heroes who should/could have come to Superman's
help during the fight with Doomsday }
>	All of theses characters have a connection to the JLA of some kind
>and would be expected to be ready to pitch in to help.  After all, they
>are members (or reserve members) of the JLI, _and_ are fast enough to  
>get there at a moment's notice.

There are lots of things that are wrong with the Doomsday plotline, but
this isnt it. The whole Doomsday story since Superman and the JLA got
involved does not seem to have run more than a few hours. Its unreasonable
to assume that DCs most powerful heroes could have been summoned
in that time. Valor is in space. So is Hal. Most of the JLE is probably
busy in Russia. DCs mystical heroes arent that easy to find at the best
of times, and these days Deadman and the Spectre seem to be off on trips
of their own. 

The DC universe is loaded with gods, demons, heroes and heroines. Practically
every DC story written since the dawn of the Silver Age could be criticized
with the statement : but hero or heroine  X could have handled this in one
second. Why wasnt he/she there ? Only Crisis would escape this sort of
criticism unscathed since it involved just about everybody and even then one
could ask why the Spectre didnt get involved till pretty late. To take
some examples just off the top of my head : 

--- The Krypton man storyline last year in Superman : why didnt any of DC's
other heroes seem to notice the nasty things happening to our planet. 

--- Panic in the Sky, Eclipso ; Why didnt DCs mystic brigade do anything ? 

--- When Swamp Thing invaded Gotham back in the Alan Moore written ST # 53,
why didnt Batman seek the aid of more powerful heroes/heroines ? (yes
he's a loner, but he doesnt let his pride get in the way of saving his
city). 

--- How come none of DC's heroes seemed to intervene during the extremist
saga of two years back ? [ I know the UN forbade them, but how come the JLE
was the only one to break this ban ]

--- To draw another analogy, consider the Despero saga of two years back in
JL. Despero arrived on Earth, went berserk and started beating up the JL. Why
didnt  Superman or Captain atom stop him ? [ this is actually a very good
analogy since the Despero saga took place over the same time scale, i.e. a
few hours as the D-day story did]. 

and so on ....

The fact is that any writer who wants to write a manageable story given
DCs vast cast has to narrow down the list of heroes and heroines who will
participate or the story will become unmanageable. The Doomsday plotline
was not the first story to do this (practically every batman story does
this), nor will it be the last. 

[ About ways of beating D-day ] 
>	Guy/Hal/Maxima picks up D-Day by the scruff of his neck, and starts
>flying for the moon.  If D-Day breaks free, grab again.  Don't waste power
>trying to hold him, just be ready to catch the fool when he breaks free.

As far as I understand the Maxima character, she's supposed to be a warrior.
She wouldnt try and fly someone up to the moon, rather she'd try and confront
him directly, which she did. Nor does she seem the type who would be concerned
with innocents who might get hurt if she fought him on the ground. 

Practically the same holds for Guy : he could care less about innocents,
he would much rather try and pound someone face on, rather than carry them
away. This is GUY we're talking about here, someone who's so brain-dead he
actually thought he could beat Batman in hand-to-hand combat without his ring.

Hal ? he wasnt there. Besides, even if he had been there, I wouldnt have been
too surprised if he had been kaoyed too : he's beaten by some real losers
at times. 

>>This is not the pre-Crisis Superman. Ater the beating hes taken, I dont think
>>he's capable of throwing Doomsday beyond a few blocks. Ditto for carrying
>>Doomsday. He doesnt have the speed of the old Supes, who could have flown
>>Doomsday into outer space in a blink. 
>
>	Superman was able to lift an ocean liner and fly with it for a while.
>If he can't throw D-Day more than a few blocks, than D-Day would sink into
>the ground because he weighed so darn much.

My point was that after he'd been beaten up by Doomsday, Superman could
not have thrown him very far. 
>
>>In particular statements like "hero X could have beaten
>>Doomsday" are irrelevant, since hero X isnt there.  
>
>	But there's little reason why the JLI's big hitters (even if you 
>take away Marvel and Valor, you've still got an intelligent GL who is 
>smart enough to know not to go hand to hand with D-Day like Guy did)
>wouldn't be able to get there quickly.

See my arguments above. 

And speaking of intelligent GLs, how many times has Alan Scott been kaoyed by
Grundy, who is very much a D-day style villain ? Or how much trouble
Validus (another D-day style villan without the viciousness) has given
Superboy and Mon-el, beating them on several occasions despite their 
arsenal of powers ? 

Dont get me wrong : I think the Doomsday saga is a loser, but not for the
reasons you mentioned. 

>	I haven't given it a lot of thought, but IMHO, only two characters
>are 'worthy' of killing Superman: Lex Luthor and Darkseid.

Egads, I have this incredible spectacle of some of DCs biggest losers being
told by a DC continuity cop : "Kill Superman", and said losers saying
loudly " We're not worthy. We're not worthy. " :-). 

So, who would be least worthy of killing Superman (even worse than D-day)?
My vote goes to Dr. Light, followed by Capt. Boomerang. 


Abhijit
Xref: sparky rec.arts.comics.misc:7146 alt.comics.lnh:179