[Meeting…] Doomsday

Today we will talk about Superman, a character known to everyone and a general stereotype when we talk about comic superheroes. There are so many characters based on him that, despite not being many people's favorite, it would be stupid to say that he is a bad character.

However, in general terms, Superman is a character that does not always connect with the public, especially when it is made up of teenagers who want to see violence and blood, something quite common in the 90s, the era in which almost all heroes went dark.

At a certain point, people stopped caring about Superman, his sales dropped drastically, and from what I've been able to read, someone within DC Comics said "If they don't want Superman, let's give them a world without him." In other words, They were going to kill the most iconic character in the world of heroes and in the process they were going to gain a lot of publicity and increase sales (something similar to what Marvel did years later with Captain America).

HOW TO KILL SUPERMAN?

The death of Superman appeared on the news around the world, such a drastic event had never happened before in the world of superheroes and although It was foreseeable that this event was only the beginning of a saga that would end with his return (The Death of Superman and the Reign of the supermen), the interesting thing was knowing how they would make the hero of Metropolis bite the dust.

The logical thing would be to think of a story that involved many characters from the Superman stories, the return of old villains, the total destruction of Clark Kent's secret identity, let's do something similar to what Alan Moore did when he was in charge of writing What happened to the man of tomorrow? Story considered the end of the classic Superman, which Moore was dying to write (said gossip that he even threatened to kill editor Julius Schwartz, in order to get it to be given to him).

However, the reality was different, mainly because we were in the 90s, where muscle is stronger than brain, where blood, torn clothes and darkness had more weight than a story or moral. A teenager from the 90s didn't want to see a return to Mr. Mxyzptlk, I didn't want homages to the Golden Age, I wanted blood and violence.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT HAS ARRIVED

Superman's death went more or less like this: an unstoppable creature of unknown origin appears, that being destroys absolutely everything that comes across it, it makes no distinction, if it sees a bird, a tree, a deer, Blue Beetle's ship or a truck, it destroys it. Eventually the trail of destruction of that monster will reach the Man of Steel, who will discover in the worst possible way that this being called Doomsday (sometimes translated as Last Judgment in Spain) seems to be invulnerable to his blows. The battle between both giants ends with a clean punch and leaves two corpses on the asphalt of Metropolis, that of Superman and that of Doomsday himself.

After the death of Superman, a new story began called the Reign of the Supermans, where other characters (Steel, Cyborg Superman, Eradicator and Superboy) seek to take the Man of Steel's place. Superman's corpse is buried and Doomsday's is launched into space by Cyborg Superman.

THE ULTIMATE WAY OF LIFE

At the time of Doomsday's creation, nothing is explained about the character and in general he could be defined as "A very strong big monster" a very vague and pathetic description that, for a character with the death of Superman on his resume, It seemed like the idea had come to a child and not to a group of professional writers..

Fortunately, a few months later the comic appeared that would explain everything to us about the monster, making some sense of his strength, endurance, and his ability to resurrect.

That comic was called Superman-Doomsday: Hunter and the Prey, and he told us how Superman (after being resurrected) is unable to sleep, because he has nightmares in which Doomsday finds him and kills him again. This comic showed us a quite humanized Superman, afraid of facing his executioner, to the point of unconsciously slowing down his speed, allowing the monster to “escape”, using alien technology to face it with more possibilities or avoiding hand-to-hand combat and trying to eliminate Doomsday from the sky.

As for Doomsday, Hunter and Prey tells us the curious origin of the being, which It was created more than 200,000 years ago by a group of scientists who sought to create the ultimate form of life.. The laboratory was in a world where flora, fauna and atmosphere were lethal. The scientists created a being (similar to a baby) and left it outside the laboratory to see its evolution, where it obviously died after a few seconds. The corpse was collected and cloned, repeating the process constantly.

This forced evolution caused that baby to little by little develop immunity to the lethal world in which it was created, dying thousands of times during the process. Time passed and the scientists continued with their routine month after month, year after year. The baby He had evolved forcibly, his body was now enormous, he did not need to eat, breathe, he had no exposed weak points, he did not retain anything that would make him vulnerable..

The scientists' routine, repeated for years, was cut short one day when they launched their experiment into the deadly world and lost contact with it. Obviously they thought he had died once again and set out to look for the corpse to continue the experiment, but instead they found the planet devastated and the monster heading towards the only place where there were still living beings: the laboratory.

No hace falta ser muy listo para adivinar lo que hizo Doomsday con sus “padres” iniciando así su carrera de “supervivencia a base de eliminar al resto”. Con el paso de los años, civilizaciones enteras cayeron ante Doomsday sin posibilidad de hacer nada por pararlo, y en cierto modo era mejor así, pues si alguien lograba (de alguna manera) acabar con su vida, el monstruo renacía más fuerte, fruto de la forzada evolución que le dio origen.

Pese a todo esto, Doomsday no es un personaje malvado en el sentido más clásico de la palabra, simplemente es victima de su origen y crianza, el considera que necesita destruir al resto para asegurar su supervivencia y es ese el motivo que lo lleva a destruir con la misma brutalidad a un pequeño pájaro, un coche o un animal. Dentro de su limitada inteligencia, Doomsday sabe valorar el alcance de una amenaza para él y darle prioridad a la más peligrosa de todas, motivo que servirá como excusa para mantener viva su rivalidad con Superman.

Con el paso de los años y debido a la particularidad de que este personaje no es solo inmortal, si no que no conviene ni intentar matarlo (pues solo lograrás que se vuelva más fuerte) los superhéroes han tenido que usar estrategias extrañas (y rastreras) para lograr quitárselo de encima, siendo la más curiosa la de encerrarlo en la nada, donde no hay nada más que él mismo y por lo tanto, ya puede desaparecer en paz.

Obviamente los villanos también han visto en Doomsday un aliado poderoso, aunque claro, no puedes sentarte con él a hablar de tus planes y convencerle de que te ayude, de manera que quien quiera a este monstruo en su bando ha de buscar la manera de mantenerlo bajo control, tal como hizo el Dr. Psycho cuando se formó la Sociedad en la colección Villanos Unidos. Doomsday no solo era capaz de luchar contra dos Supermanes a la vez, si no que su sola presencia lograba que muchos héroes huyesen nada más verlo.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Este es un personaje curioso, especialmente porque no es el típico monstruo que desea dominar el mundo ni nada por el estilo. La historia de Doomsday es simplemente una historia de supervivencia, pues lo primero que vio en su vida fue un mundo letal que acabó con él millones de veces, que permanece en su subconsciente.

Es innegable que este personaje se hizo popular porque fue creado para matar a Superman, de lo contrario es muy posible que hubiese caído en el olvido o permanecido en un segundo plano ya que su aparición inicial fue forzada y sin ningún matiz que despertase interés alguno en él.

Sin embargo he de decir que pese a la decepción inicial que supuso Doomsday para mí, desde que leí su origen lo he visto con otros ojos. Me gusta pensar en él como si fuese una catástrofe natural, es algo que si llega, va a ser inevitable. Lamentablemente su limitación en personalidad significa un hándicap muy grande para ganar carisma y aumentar su número de fans, quizás por eso en varias de las reinterpretaciones de este personaje le han añadido nuevos matices y han modificado su historia, tratando de convertirlo en un personaje interesante y en un enemigo a temer.  No les culpo por intentarlo, pero en lo que a mi respecta, prefiero al Doomsday básico, que solo mata porque ha de hacerlo, al fin y al cabo es la forma de vida definitiva.

Si queréis leer algo sobre Doomsday, lo primero sería echarle un vistazo a La Muerte de Superman y luego a Hunter and Prey. Tras esto, existen otros cómics donde este monstruo hace acto de aparición como Doomsday Wars, Villains United, Reign of Doomsday y por supuesto las colecciones de Justice League y del propio superman.

En términos audiovisuales, podemos encontrar a Doomsday en algunas series de televisión como la de la Justice League o incluso Smallville (con origen cambiado, por supuesto), en videojuegos como Death and Return of Superman,  Injustice: Gods Among Us, DC Universe Online y en películas como Superman: Doomsday o Superman Vs Batman Dawn of Justice.