Batman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2006
- Messages
- 36,515
What the heck was the point of Doomsday, since nobody believes they're really going to kill off Superman anyway? Oh yeah, there's never any point to Dumbsday in any Superman story, ever.
I'm a Doomsday apologist, because he has his uses and wasn't as bad a concept -- not a character, but a concept -- as people make him out to be. Not every villain has to be a schemer. Sometimes they just need to show up and smash stuff for no other reason than that's what they do. Doomsday, in his original form, was a force of nature. That's enough to make him a mortal threat even to Superman. I'm good with that. Once they tried to give him the Kryptonian origin story was where things went off the rails.
But I digress.
Doomsday could have worked as a cinematic villain in much that same vein.
After Superman is down and people doubt him following the events of "Man of Steel," Doomsday punches his way out of the Earth and goes on his rampage. Sacrifice some D-List heroes to show just how badass this creature is and offer up some fan service. Then Superman rises to the occasion and stops Doomsday at the cost of his own life.
Then we get a couple of the solo films to introduce the other Justice League members and see the aftermath of Doomsday. The destruction, the "World Without a Superman," and just how much the world did in fact need Superman. Along the way, we get some hints that Superman might not be dead after all.
Finally, around 2018, the Justice League comes together -- arranged by Batman -- to stop another huge threat. Maybe follow the Mongul/Coast City storyline to introduce or showcase Green Lantern. That's when they bring back Superman and truly form the Justice League.
So, after all that, Doomsday could have had a very important place in the DCCU instead of as a throwaway secondary villain. The problem with Doomsday in movie form is that audiences want the "cool" bad guy. If using Doomsday as the main villain, the movie has to very much be about the heroes — what drives and motivates them, how they interact with their world and what they mean to it. Doomsday isn't going to carry a movie with witty banter. In that way, Doomsday can be a tremendous villain. The director and cast just have to make you care enough about the heroes to not care that the villain isn't throwing out one-liners every 30 seconds. They have to get the audience to change the way they think about superhero movies, and that's hard to do.