Unless I am missing something (which is always possible) Superman and Doomsday have slugged it out on three different occasions in animated form; two times on Justice League/Justice League Unlimited and then in the Superman: Doomsday animated film. Each fight is epic on its own but they certainly upped the ante with every confrontation. My original plan was to post all three fights but finding a decent video of the battle from Superman: Doomsday has proven difficult. So instead of posting something substandard I will stick to these two followed by some commentary.
Fight #1: The Justice Lords episode from the second season of Justice League.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnF9Nacj-as
I really liked the Justice Lords episodes of Justice League. Any episode that opens with Superman killing Lex Luthor is going to grab my attention. It was a great take on the alternate Earth idea and I dug the fact that these characters weren’t out and out evil just…well, misguided seems too soft a term but you get the idea. The costume redesigns were really cool as well.
I was slightly disappointed at the time the episode aired that this was the first time Bruce Timm and company animated Doomsday and he didn’t fight the “real” Superman. The fight itself made up for that and I particularly like the part where Doomsday and the alternate Superman hit each other resulting in a shockwave that shatters glass in the immediate vicinity. The biggest surprise was that Doomsday spoke (voiced by former Spawn and future Gotham City crime lord Michael Jai White no less) but it worked within the context of the series. All in all a fantastic fight from a superb set of episodes.
Round Two: The Doomsday Sanction episode from the season four episode of Justice League Unlimited.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GoX98qxJX4
The origin of Doomsday in the DCAU works for me. I like that he was a government experiment that was cast aside. Not only that it tied nicely into the over arcing storyline going on in Justice League Unlimited. I doubt that was the intention when they animated the initial fight but it is a nice use of past continuity to tie the whole series together.
The fight itself is pretty epic. The volcano setting gives it a primal feeling and I appreciated that Superman doesn’t just slug it out with Doomsday. He uses his vision powers and even tries to reason with the creature for all the good it does him. The little touches like Doomsday evolving from the past battle and Superman being shirtless at the end are nice callbacks to the comic book versions of Doomsday and the battle itself.
What they don’t show in the video is that Superman ends up sending Doomsday to the Phantom Zone, a decision not every member of the League agrees with. On its own this is a fantastic fight. In the context of the series it was another chapter in an amazing storyline that pushed the animated Justice League to the next level.
Next time: More media coverage of the death of Superman.
Have a good weekend, everybody!
More to follow…
I just went on iTunes and found a Death of Superman study guide. I didn’t know the death of Superman was something to study!
Weird that Doomsday could speak……..
Webmaster, I am the admin at SEOPlugins.org. We profile SEO Plugins for WordPress blogs for on-site and off-site SEO. I’d like to invite you to check out our recent profile for a pretty amazing plugin which can double or triple traffic for a Worpdress blog and we just posted a video showing the plugin in action. You can delete this comment, I didn’t want to comment on your blog, just wanted to drop you a personal message. Thanks, Rich
The story was fantastic before the retroed and added all kinds of weird stuff to the origin of ole doomsday. I liked the fact that it was insanely powerful monster that just arose from nowhere and practically raped the Justice League and could actually stand toe-to-toe with Superman, himself. Superman vs Doomsday was a fantastic story without all the Kryptonian origins stuff that cam later – but still, it wasn’t too bad.