10 Times DC Proved Doomsday Is Basically a God Much to Superman’s Dismay

Superman has fought many gods in his time, protecting the Earth from various cosmic threats – but few threats have been as great as Doomsday. These gods usually have specific goals, like Perpetua wanting to remake the multiverse or Darkseid seeking the Anti-Life equation. These goals can be understood and possibly reasoned with, but Doomsday has proven to be a god who only wants to destroy all life.

While Doomsday isn’t technically a god, he will soon be, and he’s demonstrated enough power that he’s more than capable of being considered one. Between Doomsday’s strength, speed, and complete inability to die, it’s hard not to view the monster as a true cosmic threat, more powerful than some of the greatest gods in the DC Universe. As much as Superman may hate it, it’s possible that Doomsday is on his way to becoming the darkest god that DC has ever seen so far.

10

Doomsday Can Move Faster Than the Speed of Sound

Action Comics #684 by Roger Stern, Butch Guice, Denis Rodier, Glenn Whitmore, and Bill Oakley

There are plenty of speedsters in the DC Universe, but they rarely have absurd brute strength on top of that. While the Flash is the fastest character around, he’s not exactly punching through buildings or tossing Superman across the city. While Doomsday isn’t nearly as fast, he’s still more than capable of moving at half the speed of sound.

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While that speed might not seem impressive at a glance, Doomsday is all about evolving. He is currently capable of moving at half the speed of sound, but if he continues to evolve, he will surely grow faster and faster and might even one day be able to rival the Flash. Speed has never been Doomsday’s claim to fame, but he’s definitely shown that he’s perfectly capable of keeping up with characters like Superman and might even one day surpass him with god-like speed.

9

Doomsday Killed Radiant, a Being of Pure Energy

Superman / Doomsday: Hunter / Prey #2 by Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Gregory Wright, and Bill Oakley

It’s rare for someone to defeat Doomsday with finality, but even if they do, they almost never manage it twice, as proven when Doomsday ended up on the planet Calaton. On this planet, the royal family summoned Radiant, a being of pure energy. When Radiant confronted Doomsday, he killed him with his impressive energy-based abilities. It seemed that the planet of Calaton was saved, but their peace didn’t last.

Years later, Doomsday returned and fought Radiant again. While Radiant was confident that he could defeat the monster once more, not only had Doomsday evolved past the ability to be harmed by Radiant’s energy attacks, but he had also developed the ability to physically harm Radiant. Doomsday killed Radiant quickly and brutally, proving that even energy-based beings aren’t safe from Doomsday.

8

Doomsday Has Taken Over Four Thousand Punches from Superman

Action Comics #960 by Dan Jurgens, Tyler Kirkham, Ulises Arreola, Sonia Oback, and Rob Leigh

Few beings on Earth could take a full-powered punch from the Man of Steel. Superman has stated in the past how he has to constantly hold back his physical power so that he doesn’t accidentally obliterate people or buildings. When he goes up against a villain, he only ever uses as much strength as necessary to subdue them, but when he was faced with Doomsday, he tried to unleash his full strength, to no real effect.

Superman hit Doomsday over four thousand times, and Doomsday was able to keep coming at his sworn enemy. It’s a testament to just how durable Doomsday is that he’s taken more punches from Superman than just about any other villain in fiction. It shows that his durability is truly on a god-like level, possibly even above, as not even Darkseid has taken as many hits at once as Doomsday has from Superman.

7

Doomsday Wasn’t Even Stopped by a Million Nuclear Bombs

Superman / Doomsday: Hunter / Prey #3 by Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Gregory Wright, and Bill Oakley

Superman is incredibly durable – but not as durable as Doomsday. In The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, a single nuclear bomb nearly killed Superman, draining him of his powers and forcing him to suck the sunlight out of a nearby flower field. It was a surprising amount of damage for a single nuclear warhead to do to Superman. Doomsday has no such weakness, though, as he was exposed to what was considered the equivalent of a million nuclear bombs, and he wasn’t even knocked unconscious.

Doomsday immediately got back up and continued attacking Superman. The explosion was so powerful that the ground became as smooth as glass, but Doomsday was completely unscathed. If Doomsday’s ability to survive over four thousand blows from Superman doesn’t prove his godly durability, then surviving over a million nuclear explosions certainly does.

6

Doomsday Nearly Wiped Out the Green Lantern Corps

Doomsday Annual #1 by Jerry Ordway, Dennis Janke, Glenn Whitmore, Kevin Cunningham, Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Louise Simonson, Chris Batista, John Nyberg, Roger Stern, and Gil Kane

The Justice League is an amazing force for good, but they’re mostly relegated to keeping the Earth safe. For help with matters in space, the Green Lantern Corps are usually the heroes that people turn to. Each section of the universe is protected by a Green Lantern who does their best to uphold order and peace. It’s an extremely important job and, naturally, Green Lanterns are given significant power to achieve it.

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When a world-ending monster like Doomsday ends up on a planet, it’s a major emergency, and just about everyone responds as fast as they can, including the Green Lantern Corps. On one occassion, Doomsday took on thousands of Green Lanterns and slaughtered just about all of them. Things got so bad that Doomsday even took a Green Lantern ring for himself, using it to travel through space and cause even more death and destruction.

5

Even the Guardians of the Universe Failed to Defeat Doomsday

Doomsday Annual #1 by Jerry Ordway, Dennis Janke, Glenn Whitmore, Kevin Cunningham, Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Louise Simonson, Chris Batista, John Nyberg, Roger Stern, and Gil Kane

While the Green Lanterns are certainly powerful, they are nowhere near as strong as the Guardians of the Universe, the beings who created the Green Lanterns. Ganthet, one of the primary Guardians of the Universe, is so powerful that he’s often part of DC’s Quintessence: a group of the absolute most powerful forces for good in the DC Universe, which includes characters such as the Wizard, Hera, Zeus, and the Phantom Stranger.

Ganthet being in that group shows he must be one of the most powerful in the universe, and it’s fair to assume that the other Guardians of the Universe have similar powers. After Doomsday defeated the Green Lanterns, he was attacked by a single Guardian of the Universe who unleashed so much power that he ended up self-destructing, obliterating the entire mountain they were on and tearing a hole in space – but not managing to obliterate Doomsday.

4

Doomsday Has Defeated the Justice League Several Times

Superman: The Doomsday Wars by Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Gregory Wright, and John Workman

When Doomsday first landed on Earth, the entire superhero community arrived to try and stop him. One by one they fell against his incredible might, and it’s not the only time that he’s ended up facing off against the Justice League. After having his body stolen by Brainiac, his power was used to easily take down every member of the Justice League, with only Superman managing to escape him.

Out of every member of the Justice League, it has only ever been Superman who has managed to stand up against Doomsday, and even then, it takes absolutely everything the Man of Steel has to defeat Doomsday. This habit of taking on the entire Justice League, and often winning, puts Doomsday in the same category as characters like Perpetua and Darkseid, who are both gods themselves.

3

Even Darkseid Is No Match for Doomsday

Doomsday Annual #1 by Jerry Ordway, Dennis Janke, Glenn Whitmore, Kevin Cunningham, Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Louise Simonson, Chris Batista, John Nyberg, Roger Stern, and Gil Kane

Darkseid has routinely gone up against the Justice League and Superman, and it’s usually a crisis-level event to bring him down. Darkseid is so powerful that he recently created his very own universe using the energy expended by his “death.” It would take a being of immense power to bring Darkseid down in a one-on-one fight, and that’s exactly what Doomsday did. Despite Darkseid’s best attempts, Doomsday absolutely manhandled him.

Even the Omega Effect itself proved useless against Doomsday, and Darkseid was nearly beaten to death, even stating that Doomsday seemed to be “beyond death.” It wasn’t until Superman showed up and the two teamed up to fight Doomsday that Darkseid stood a chance, and even then, Doomsday wasn’t defeated, he was simply forced off of Apokolips. This battle is the only fight that Darkseid and Doomsday have had, and Doomsday was the definite winner.

2

Doomsday Was the First Villain to Beat Superman to Death

Superman #75 by Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Glenn Whitmore, and John Costanza

One of Doomsday’s most impressive feats by far is his defeat of Superman. Up until the publication of Superman #75, one of the biggest moments in superhero comic book history, Superman was practically unstoppable and, while he may have lost here or there, he’d never been physically beaten to death. The Death of Superman was a major story and one that cemented Doomsday as one of the biggest physical threats that DC had to offer. Since then, every time Doomsday has shown up, it’s been a nightmare situation for the Super-Family.

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Young Jon Kent used to have nightmares about Doomsday, viewing him as his own boogeyman, and even Superman has admitted that Doomsday is the only villain that scares him. Superman has gone up against literal gods several times. He traded blows with the Anti-Monitor and Darkseid, but it was only Doomsday who managed to put the big Boy Scout in the ground.

1

Doomsday Couldn’t Even Be Contained by Hell

Superman #15 by Joshua Williamson, Rafa Sandoval, Alejandro Sánchez, and Ariana Maher

While all of Doomsday’s past feats of strength and durability are certainly impressive, what proves Doomsday’s divinity is that not even Hell itself could hold him. After being killed and sent to Hell, Doomsday nearly wrestled the throne from the First of the Fallen. After failing to take the throne and become the new King of Hell, Doomsday began banging on the gates of Hell, and eventually, he broke through in a story that still has ramifications in 2025.

Not even a place of eternal damnation and torment could keep Doomsday held hostage. Simply physically breaking out of Hell is without a doubt a divine action and shows that Doomsday is definitely on the path to becoming a god. While he isn’t quite one yet, DC has made it clear that if Doomsday continues to evolve, his feats will only become more and more impressive, outpacing even Superman.

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Superman

The icon who launched the entire world of superheroes, the last son of Krypton escaped his dying world to crash land on Earth and be raised as Clark Kent. The world knows him better as Superman, the Man of Steel, the leader of the Justice League, and the most well-known hero in the DC Comics Universe. Blessed with the powers of a demigod, Kal-El of Krypton fights enemies both small and cosmic in his endless pursuit of truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.

Created By

Joe Shuster
, Jerry Siegel

First Appearance

Action Comics

Alias

Kal-El, Clark Kent, Jonathan Kent

Alliance

Justice League, Superman Family

Race

Kryptonian

Summary

The icon who launched the entire world of superheroes, the last son of Krypton escaped his dying world to crash land on Earth and be raised as Clark Kent. The world knows him better as Superman, the Man of Steel, the leader of the Justice League, and the most well-known hero in the DC Comics Universe. Blessed with the powers of a demigod, Kal-El of Krypton fights enemies both small and cosmic in his endless pursuit of truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.

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