Can Doomsday be Permanently Killed (Is He Immortal)?
Doomsday is without a doubt one of the most iconic enemies of Superman, one of DC’s best-known heroes. Doomsday is a Kryptonian monstrosity that has only one goal in life – destruction. He killed whole planets and peoples using his immense power and his regenerative skills. Doomsday was defeated on several occasions in the comics, but he was never truly killed, raising the question – is Doomsday immortal?
Doomsday is – technically – not immortal, since he has died on several occasions, but his extreme regenerative abilities make him practically immune to death, as he’ll resurrect himself each time he dies.
Now that we’ve given you a short introduction, let us discuss the topic of this article in more detail.
Who is Doomsday?
Doomsday is the name given by Booster Gold to a fictional supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, primarily as an antagonist of the superhero Superman. He was conceived during a brainstorming session of the Superman writing team in 1991 as a foe that would match Superman’s physical strength; one of the writers wrote down a remark for the need of a “doomsday for Superman”, and the rest of the team liked it so much that they decided to name the monster – Doomsday. He made his cameo debut in Superman: Man of Steel #17 (1992), with a full debut in #18.
The origin story of Doomsday is pretty bizarre. He was created by an alien named Bertron and was left on prehistoric Krypton to evolve, if possible. Namely, prehistoric Krypton was a harsh environment where only the strongest beings could survive (this was long before the humanoid Kryptonians evolved and lived on the planet). The alien infant was killed but also revived repeatedly, becoming stronger after each resurrection.
Namely, Doomsday developed the ability to develop immunity to what had killed him, meaning that he could never die from the same cause twice. Combined with his extreme regenerative abilities, he was a powerful being even as an infant.
Doomsday was forced to endure the agony of death several thousand times, which eventually led him to hate all life. At one point, he became so powerful that he killed all life on Krypton and eventually located and killed his creator, Bertron. Doomsday eventually escaped and went on a killing spree across several planets, even facing a younger Darkseid, but the two didn’t engage in direct combat.
He eventually crossed paths with the Green Lanterns, killing thousands before eventually being killed by a Guardian of the Universe, who sacrificed himself to kill the Kryptonian monstrosity. Doomsday didn’t actually die, but was sent through a spatial tear and eventually ended up on the planet Calaton.
He terrorized the planet for years before its inhabitants created The Radiant, who killed Doomsday with one strong energy blast. But, as it usually is with Doomsday – he was not killed. He regenerated slowly, but he came back to life, now immune to the energy that killed him, just like every time before that.
His most famous storyline is “The Death of Superman”, where the Kryptonian monstrosity came to Earth. After defeating the whole Justice League in a matter of minutes, he engaged in a fight with Superman. He was the first supervillain to be a match for the Man of Steel in a physical confrontation and the cult series eventually lead to Superman and Doomsday killing each other. Thus, Doomsday became the first and so far the only supervillain to kill Superman in combat. Of course, both of them survived the famous clash and Doomsday would play a role in future DC Comics stories.
He has appeared in several derivative materials, mostly in animation (movies and TV shows), but also played a very important role – with a slightly different origin story – in the movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice within the former DCEU.
Can Doomsday be Permanently Killed
After reading a brief history of the character, we should certainly ask ourselves – can this monstrosity be killed?
As was seen on several occasions, Doomsday is extremely powerful and strong, with a plethora of different abilities and powers. He is a mindless beast whose only purpose in life is – destruction. But, where he lacks intelligence, he has strength.
Doomsday is without a doubt one of the strongest beings in the DC Universe, comparable to the likes of Superman and Darkseid. In a physical confrontation, he is practically unbeatable. He has enormous strength, is nearly invulnerable, has great leaping abilities (he cannot fly, but is not far from it), and can utilize a lot of the same powers as Superman.
He is also extremely fast and on top of that, he has exceptional regenerative skills, meaning that he can recover from any form of harm if given enough time (he can even recover in hermetic conditions, underground, without the Sun, but it takes more time). His only known weakness is entropy – he cannot adapt to that kind of environment and when he was sent to the end of time, he died along with the whole universe. Sans that, he is practically indestructible.
So, how to effectively fight him? Doomsday can be defeated and killed, although even that is extremely hard and will require a super strong opponent at his absolute best. So, he is technically not immortal – he can die. But, the catch is that once he is dead, he will – after some time (usually faster than any other DC Comics character with regenerative abilities) – recover and come back to life, stronger than before.
Due to the fact that he has died a countless number of times, Doomsday had to come back stronger in order to survive. And he did. Each time he would come back, he was stronger than before and immune to the manner by which he died or was killed before. A famous example is The Radiant’s energy blast; it killed Doomsday the first time, but once he came back, he was completely immune to the energy and was able to defeat his enemy.
So, how to kill the monster permanently? As we’ve stated, Doomsday has only one weakness – entropy. That is one environment he can never adapt to and if you let him die in such conditions, he will die permanently. This actually happened in Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #3 (1994), where a Mother Box sent Doomsday to the end of time and he was permanently destroyed along with the whole universe.
