Superman: Doomsday - The Collected Edition

by Louise Simonson, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, et al.

Superman's unforgettable battles with Doomsday, the incredibly powerful creature responsible for the Man of Steel's death, are collected in this massive graphic novel. The two foes are-locked in hand-to-hand combat in story after epic story, as Doomsday tries again and again to take down his greatest foe once and foe all!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401211070
• ISBN13: 9781401211073
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: DC Comics
• Length: 412 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

A classic.

One of the best Superman books I've ever read, holds up to the classic Death of Superman saga well.

How could this not be good?

I wanted to get the Death of Superman collection since it was first published. This is exactly what I wanted. It is a nice hardcover collection of the comics surrounding the Death of Superman.

Gutsy graphic novel

No one can be a lamer character than Superman, but this collection really hits lots of high points. The whole issue of genetic engineering is addressed in a surprisingly intelligent and forceful way. Facing your fears is another powerful theme, and how Doomsday is finally defeated is so clever and so wise it can make you relook at Superman as being a viable character again.

What a match-up!

Suffice to say, this is a blockbuster of a compliation :D I first got hooked on Superman vs Doomsday with The Death of Superman story (which is also excellent) and was really pleased with the stories in this novel. The art although about 15 years old (for most of the stories) is great with Superman showing his emotions and thoughts in a very real way. He LOOKS real, unlike the modern final story in the compliation where he looks like a blow-up doll due to the different art. This also goes for Doomsday art-wise. He looks scary and menacing in the older style art but looks a bit ridiculous in the 2000 story. That is the only whinge I have. Buy this now if you can, I highly recommend it.

IT HAS IT'S FLAWS BUT IT'S WORTHWHILE

Back in the early 90's, DC comics came up with one of the greatest marketing promotions in the history of comics...They planned to kill Superman. And thus over the course of a number of different issues and titles, Superman faced off against a threat far greater than he had ever faced. A mysterious, monstrous creature named Doomsday, whose origin was shrouded in mystery. A being who wiped the floor with the entire Justice League and did the unthinkable...he, or it, killed Superman. Well, of course it was a big media event and the issue where Superman died sold a bazillion copies. Sure, we comic fans knew that it's very rare that a character truly dies and DC certainly wasn't going to kill off the franchise. But it did what it set out to do, namely sell a lot of comics and generate a lot of PR. The trouble was it wasn't a great story. What was Doomsday? Where did he come from? How come we never heard of him before? Those questions remained unanswered in favor of basically one big slugfest where lots of things get destroyed. Now in fairness, in the introduction to this book, writer Dan Jurgens who wrote the original story states that that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to give Superman a villain who could go toe-to-toe with him. This Superman Doomsday Omnibus collects the sequels (and prequels) to the monumental storyline. The initial sequel from Superman Doomsday Hunter/Prey # 1 - 3 is actually superior to the original Doomsday storyline. Superman is actually having nightmares about the creature and shows genuine fear. Convinced that Doomsday still lives he sets out in space to find him. His instincts were right as not only has the menace survived, but he's now on Darkseid's world of Apokolips. Even Darkseid cannot withstand Doomsday's power and he's severely defeated in battle. Superman finally learns the origin of Doomsday. He was created through a decades long process of evolution some 250,000 years ago that constantly died but became stronger each time he was re-born genetically, until he killed his creators. I found Hunter/Prey vastly superior because it DID finally reveal Doomsday's origin, rather intelligently, and there was a definite suspense about the book that the first lacked. I mean, we all knew that Superman was going to die long before the issue came out. The sequel at least has some mystery and as Doomsday had once again evolved to become more powerful and you wondered how Superman was going to survive and defeat the creature. The next portion of the book is actually some nicely done prequels which unfortunately present some problems. In these tales we see Doomsday first encounter Darkseid some 245,000 years ago and yet in the opening Hunter/Prey story, Darkseid clearly acts as if it's their first encounter. Then we see Doomsday battle the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe. He even kills hundreds of Green Lanterns. Yet no one seems to know who or what Doomsday was just a yea