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Post by Batflunkie on Jun 2, 2023 19:07:54 GMT -5
I'll say this much for it, it gave us John Henry Irons/Steel and Kon-El/Conner Kent/Superboy II, which I always thought were neat characters
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Post by MDG on Jun 3, 2023 9:49:18 GMT -5
I never looked at it as more than an attempt to get some press and bump the sales numbers. I wasn't buying much at the time, so only picked up the landmark (i.e., prebagged) issues, maybe a few more after the fact in bargain bins.
Never found Doomsday interesting. TBH, I would've found it more compelling if Supes died more directly protecting the earth than getting the crap beaten out of him.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,041
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Post by Confessor on Jun 4, 2023 2:05:56 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the whole Death of Superman saga at the time, though I read it when it was collected, not as it was coming out as individual issues. That said, it's not an arc I've ever felt any burning desire to revisit particularly.
My over riding memory of reading the saga was just how nail-bitingly gripping it seemed. I thought Doomsday was a fantastic villain and seemed like a wholly credible threat. In particular, his having come out of nowhere to kill Superman was precisely what made him so scary and threatening as the tale unfolded. As a reader I can vividly remember thinking, "Who the hell is this monstrosity?" "Where does he come from?" "Why was he buried alive like that at the start?"
It's a classic horror movie trick: the less you know about a villain and their motives, the scarier they are. You simply wouldn't have been able to create such nail-biting suspense from an encounter with Lex Luthor or Brainiac because we've seen them go up against Supes hundreds of times. Even if they ultimately killed Superman, the build up to his death could never be as edge-of-your-seat gripping as a brand new, scarily powerful unknown villain coming out of nowhere.
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Post by chadwilliam on Jun 4, 2023 12:08:05 GMT -5
You simply wouldn't have been able to create such nail-biting suspense from an encounter with Lex Luthor or Brainiac because we've seen them go up against Supes hundreds of times. Even if they ultimately killed Superman, the build up to his death could never be as edge-of-your-seat gripping as a brand new, scarily powerful unknown villain coming out of nowhere.Although I disagree with this, you make a great point about Doomsday being the right character to kill off Superman. For a while, I thought that not using Luthor or Brainiac was a tremendous mistake since it would have raised the stakes in their eternal feud when Superman came back, but had DC gone that route, we would never have heard the end of it. No further appearances of Luthor or Brainiac or whoever without some reference to their having once killed Superman would there to be had - just endless, round-the-clock "I killed you once, I'll do it again, Superman!", "He's right - he killed me once, he can do it again!", "It's Brainiac, Lois! He killed Superman once, who's to say he won't do it again?", "Don't be foolish, Jimmy, Superman will stop him! ( thinking) Careful, Clark - Brainiac killed you once before - what's to stop him from doing it again?" I think that next to Killing Joke, nothing damaged the reputation of The Joker as much his killing Robin did. From then on it was all you heard about the guy as if nothing else mattered. Had it been a nobody, the story could have remained about Robin rather than just giving a big name villain another notch on his belt to be picked at again and again and again. Doomsday was effective because he was so one-note and bland - he should have come in, killed Superman, and never been heard from again.
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