Superman #74 (December 1992)
Superman #74 (December 1992)
Superman meets Doomsday! The beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Last week in Justice League America #69, the JLA got completely trashed by this murderous mass of muscles who came out of nowhere, but now Superman's finally here to help. Supes doesn't seem too impressed with the guy at first, but Doomsday gets his attention by kicking him right through someone's house, demolishing the whole thing. Superman and what's left of the League then combine their powers to form Captain Pla– er, take out Doomsday… but he just shrugs it off. All they accomplished was to expose his left nipple.
"Thanks, guys. I get so sweaty in this thing."
On top of that, the League's powers are now completely drained (Booster Gold ran out of battery, Fire ran out of… fire, etc.), and on top of that, the ruins of the house are set ablaze after Doomsday punches Bloodwynd while he was in the middle of shooting an eye beam. Doomsday is like "whelp, my work here is done" and leaps away, and Superman goes after him to prevent further destruction… while trying to ignore the desperate cries for help from a kid stuck in the burning mess (along with his mom, baby sister, and the knocked out JLA).
WHAT DO?!
Plotline-Watch:
The screaming kid is Mitch, the high schooler who dissed Superman in class last week, and who still thought Supes was a dope until about 5 seconds before getting trapped in a fire. Don Sparrow's hot take: "If you’re reading this storyline for the first time, I know – Mitch Anderson is pretty much the biggest jerk in these pages since Jeb Friedman. Seriously, from his hockey-hair, to his heavy metal t-shirt, to reducing his sweet, and nurturing mother to tears (with a semi-violent outburst no less) this guy is just the worst. But, please, take comfort (and gentle long-distance spoilers) that Mitch will someday realize what a complete and utter dick he’s being, and turn over a new leaf."
Speaking of repenting jerks, where's Maxima? After the huge beating Blue Beetle took last week, this issue opens with Ice announcing Beetle will die if someone doesn't get him to a hospital soon, and Maxima is like "That's too bad. Off to fight Doomsday, then!" However, Ice convinces Max to abandon the fight and save Beetle as thanks for helping her that time a cosmic jerk conquered her planet (no, not Brainiac, the other time).
Doomsday's first major victim in this storyline: Booster Gold's original suit. Taken too soon, crushed by a car door. Don points out: "Doomsday has been buried underground for centuries, but instinctively knows how car doors work, insofar as how to hurt someone with them. Easily forgotten in this sequence is that Doomsday effectively ends Booster Gold’s superhero career in one panel, when he shreds Booster’s futuristic suit, and source of all his powers. It’ll literally be years before we see Booster in a form-fitting, non-armored suit again." RIP.
And… I'm just gonna let Don keep talking now, because he's got a lot to say. Click to continue!
Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):
We start with the cover, and it’s a great one, featuring the guest-starring Justice League–or what’s left of them. The cover also does a great job of establishing the level of threat that Doomsday presents while still keeping his appearance mysterious until about halfway through the issue. Though, keeping the mystery hampers the cover slightly, as Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding cheat a little, not showing the details of Doomsday’s face means that he has a weird glowing smiley face, that looks a bit weird given the seriousness of the rest of the cover. Doomsday’s height differential also means that Gardner, Fire and Superman’s concentrated blast is mainly directed at Doomsday’s crotch, which is weird once you notice it. Moving on. [Max: CAN'T UNSEE.]
The repeated panel from last week’s bloodbath, of a comatose Blue Beetle sprawled out is all the more realistic given shape by Breeding’s inks, and it just looks so painful.
Ice’s fearful expressions throughout are well observed, and the story wisely uses her (arguably the weakest team member, now that Beetle is down) as its point of view character, making the reader feel all the more afraid of the seemingly unstoppable Doomsday
Speaking of painful, Beetle’s clearly broken leg is one of many hard-to-look-at panels.
The use of the juxtaposition of Mitch “the worst kid in the world” Anderson’s quiet home life and the destruction Doomsday brings is well done, and, despite what a jerk Mitch is (seriously, what a piece of garbage this kid is at this point) it’s actually a welcome breather from the wall-to-wall carnage we’ve seen for a couple issues now (also interesting turn of phrase that Mitch refers to his home with his adorable baby sister and caring mother as a “war zone” given what the JLA is facing).
The panels of poor Ice being hurled through the window are effectively disruptive, and loaded with painful details–dig the cookie jar and phone she knocks of the hook, small details that really sell that this is happening in an average everyday home.
This whole sequence, and indeed, the entire issue makes me so squeamish and uncomfortable, mainly because of the presence of Becky, the Andersons’ infant daughter, and it’s such effective storytelling–we’ve certainly seen in the past two issues what Doomsday can do to the most innocent of creatures.
Plus there’s so much dramatic irony, because we, the readers know the danger, and no one else seems to, with dark foreshadowing like Guy asking Superman whether Doomsday is “too tough, even for you”.
The panel of Superman actually meeting Doomsday is a great one, and a pretty good example of something we later learn about Doomsday’s abilities, namely, that he seems to rise (or evolve) to the level of whoever he’s battling. While Doomsday’s first blow is apparently deafening, it doesn’t really manage to do much damage to Superman. But his next strike, a kick to the stomach, really seems to inflict some harm on Superman. The sequence where the remaining members of the Justice League blast Doomsday full force is very effectively drawn–it’s such great staging that we actually lose sight of Doomsday while they fire away, which shows both the intensity of their barrage, but also sets up the reveal to come.
For this week’s drawing I picked a moment that actually isn’t directly shown, but sort of between panels. One of my favourite things about this storyline was the realism brought by the fact that Superman wasn’t the only one who made a great sacrifice in this storyline. Several Justice Leaguers would be left maimed, comatose or powerless in his wake, giving the story a lot more punch. I loved that, though it took Superman, the best and most powerful of all the heroes to stop Doomsday, the JLA members fought valiantly and at great personal cost to weaken Doomsday. So the idea that Fire would essentially de-power herself by exerting her flame beyond its capacity was pretty inspiring–and a great testament to the faith these team members have in Superman, who exhorted her to ignore her exhaustion, and to “just keep pushin’” (You know it’s serious when Superman starts dropping his G’s). So I drew her firing at full power , just moments before her flame was completely spent, as on page 13. And that’s our PANEL OF THE WEEK!
All this heroism is only the set-up for the reveal, both of Doomsday’s face (which is completely terrifying in that first, big panel) but also that all the Justice League did was blast away at Doomsday’s Calatonian restraints, freeing up both his arms. I realize I’m going to end up scanning almost every panel in this issue, but there’s so much great art here–the panel directly after that last one is so good, too–seeing the surprise, and I daresay, fear in the faces of Superman, Fire and Booster is pretty shocking.
Finally, the pained indecision on Superman’s face is actually one of the most important panels in this story, and indeed, a great summation of the difference between the comic book Superman we’re so familiar with, and, say, the Superman of the new Snyder films. As Superman strives to stop Doomsday before he can get to more populated areas, he also hears Mitch Anderson’s outburst (heh) behind him, as he pleads for help for his family. It’s difficult to say what the right decision is–every moment Doomsday is free has the potential for more destruction and casualties, and Superman indeed might be able to stop him here, when he has more energy than a later point in the story. But can a Superman block out an inferno that will claim the life of innocents (a toddler no less!) and also his downed teammates.
Besides the Superman issue that follows, I’d say this comic is the most frightening of the Doomsday storyline, precisely because of its small scale, and narrow focus. Through the peril we feel for the Anderson family, we’re shown the danger Doomsday presents to the whole world, and it has real stakes. Instead of just showing mindless destruction, and building after building getting leveled (like many superhero movies of today seem to), making the choice of showing how dangerous Doomsday is to a single house, a single family really makes us care about stopping him. While many have called the Doomsday storyline an uncharacteristically mindless slugfest, this issue, perhaps above all else, that it really isn’t.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS:
Is Maxima correct that she shouldn’t leave the battlefield? She proclaims on page 2 that only an Almeracian could stop Doomsday, and she might be right–in the previous issue (and in future ones) Maxima does pretty OK against Doomsday. If she had been around the whole time, might the end result have been different? (My mind keeps searching for an “out” from the inevitable result of this storyline.)
I love Mitch’s mom. She easily could have a churlish attitude, like Mitch, about the danger that has randomly fallen into their lives via Doomsday, especially since it so directly threatens the safety of her children. But instead, she bravely rescues Ice, literally saving her life once the fuel line blows in the house.
I gotta admit, I’m a little confused as to why Doomsday has nipples. Knowing what we know about how he came to be, and how his powers work, I can’t imagine the evolutionary purpose they serve. I mean, in a future, Gil Kane-drawn, Jerry Ordway-inked Annual, we see that Doomsday doesn’t even have genitals. So why would he need nipples?! [Max: Well, according to the DC Comics Encyclopedia (2008 edition), those aren't real nipples, he draws them on with a sharpie.]
They really work hard to establish that though he’s enormous, that Doomsday is incredibly fast, as though everything else he had going for him wasn’t enough. Superman refers to his speed when he charges them on page 15, and then in between blows, Booster remarks that he’s faster than even Flash!
GODWATCH!: Surprisingly little this issue. Mitch’s mom invokes the Almighty in horror when she realizes that the gas line could ignite, and that’s it. But as the battle continues, this section will grow…
I love that the average American teen doesn’t even know who Bloodwynd is. He’s just “the blood guy.”
I wonder if they had the backstory for Doomsday all planned out by this time. They keep giving hints at explanations, almost like test balloons. Fire offers that he’s “maybe a robot, or something from another dimension” on page 16 and later Superman asserts that “he doesn’t appear to have any magical powers, so I don’t have to worry about that!”
Even though things are looking bleak when the Anderson home explodes, and the JLA will never be the same after these issues, we’re still treated to one last excellent Fire butt shot with the team still intact. Brings a tear to my eye. [Max: Glenn Whitmore was apparently distracted by Fire's butt, because he colored her hair like actual fire.]
Knowing that Bloodwynd is J'onn J'onnz actually hurts the story a bit, because he’s a lot more useless against Doomsday than I would have thought. Mostly he just comes up with different insulting descriptions for Doomsday (“this monstrosity” “this horror”) and then gets beat up. [Max: BLOODWYND IS J'ONN J'ONNZ?!]