Thursday Night Thinking #185

Yeah, it's been a while. But I'm back, and so is Thursday Night Thinking!

That's our Superman; always thinking about others.

Question, though: what the hell was Barack Obama doing in that issue? Last time I checked, he's not president in the DCU...

Gloomsday

According to the February solicitations (and a post on the Source) the next big Superman event involves... Doomsday?

Forgive my bluntness, but hasn't Doomsday been, well, done to death? The character made a big splash (not surprisingly) during the Death and Return of Superman arc in which he was introduced. There, Doomsday served his purpose well: as a nigh unstoppable force of nature which only Superman could stop And only then at the cost of his own life. Doomsday was really more of a prop than anything else. A tool to set up the much more interesting "Return" part of the equation.

But rather than let the MacGuffin fade away DC kept bringing Doomsday back. Over and over again. Bits were added to his origin along with intelligence, drive, and any number of other things. And the result was a monster villain that became a muddled mess.

Each further appearance was less interesting that the one that came before. Eventually we got to Infinite Crisis (which I believe was Doomsday's last appearance up until now) and Doomsday was beaten by a pair of Supermen in something like two pages. Whatever power he had as a character was wiped out then and there.

Which brings me to this storyline (apparently called "Reign of Doomsday") where Doomsday shows his face for the first time in a number of years. Now it's true that I have a fondness for some of these characters (like Doomsday) that were created in the 90's. But unless the writers of this story can bring back that "force of nature" feeling to Doomsday while instilling the character with a new sense of menace (no easy feat) I'll probably end up passing the story by.

No Krypton

Well, I spent the weekend up in Madison, Wisconsin at my college roommate's wedding. I enjoyed myself, but boy is it awkward to be the only single person in a room full of the married, the engaged, and the attached...

Anyway, COMICS! I'm sure everyone knows by now about the upcoming "New Krypton" story arc that's going to be running through the Superman books. Is anyone else not looking forward to it as much as I'm not looking forward to it?

See, I've always liked the whole "Last Son of Krypton" thing. I can abide a Supergirl and I'll admit that Krypto has really grown on me (being back in America and having a dog again has been good for me). But really, I hate all the other Kryptonians. As I've said before, they're alternately arrogant bumblers and the "Assholes of Space." So you can imagine that I'm not too pleased about a whole city of those jerks showing up.

But then, I know as well as anyone that it surely won't last beyond the nine (does it have to be nine?) part story that they're kicking off soon. Chances are before it's all over Kandor will be back in a bottle and safely in the Fortress of Solitude. But I have another idea.

I've made no secret my fondness for a lot of the horrible, horrible characters and concepts that arrived at DC in the 1990's. I'm talking about Azrael, Bane, and yes, Doomsday. So, my dream ending to "New Krypton"? Doomsday wrecking up and killing like half of Kandor. How great would that be?

Superman/Doomsday

So I finally got around to watching the animated Superman/Doomsday movie that I got as a gift for my birthday. I know there's been a lot of criticism on the Internet of it, and after watching it I can understand that.

It certainly bears very little resemblance to The Death and Return of Superman. But that's to be expected. A proper animated treatment of that story would take hours and hours. It just wasn't feasible.

Instead, the creators took a different route. They took the bare bones concept of a killer fight with Doomsday and then buitl their own story around it. By and large, it works. The voice actors are better than I thought they'd be, and the story is entertaining enough.

Still, there are a lot of problems. There are scenes that feel unnecessary, and some of the characters act in ways that just don't feel true to who the characters really are. So in the end, Superman/Doomsday never rises to the level of quality I've come to expect from DC's animation products.

But the Superboot was awesome! If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Superbot stole the show and made up for any shortcoming the rest of the movie had.

I love Superbot.