Doomsday est un super-vilain appartenant à l'univers de DC Comics. Il est apparu pour la première fois dans Superman: The Man of Steel #17 en novembre 1992. C'est un ennemi de Superman, il est connu pour l'avoir tué dans Superman #75 : La Mort de Superman publié en janvier 1993, et plus récemment dans le long-métrage Batman V Superman : L'Aube de la Justice.

Biographie

Doomsday is portrayed as a deadly monster born from the depths of ancient Krypton. His creation imbued him with few feelings, mostly hate and destruction which led to his destroying worlds and eventually finding Earth where he meets Superman. The character is best known as Superman's murderer in the 1992 storyline, "The Death of Superman".




The Ultimate Killing Machine
Originally known as "The Ultimate", Doomsday was born in prehistoric times on Krypton, long before the humanoid Kryptonian race gained dominance over the planet about 250,000 years ago. It was a violent, hellish world where only the absolute strongest of creatures could survive. In a cruel experiment involving evolution, intended to create the perfect living being, the alien scientist Bertron released a humanoid infant (born in vitro in a lab) onto the surface of the planet, where he was promptly killed by the harsh environment. The baby's remains were collected and used to clone a stronger version. This process was repeated over and over for decades as a form of accelerated natural evolution. The agony of these repeated deaths was recorded in his genes, driving the creature to hate all life.

As it evolved, the child eventually became able to survive the high temperatures and searing atmosphere, only to be quickly slain by the vicious predators that inhabited the planet. Over time, and without the assistance of Bertron's technology, he gained the ability to thrive on solar energy without the need for food or air, to return to life and adapt in order to overcome whatever had previously killed him. The Ultimate hunted and exterminated the dangerous predators of Krypton. He then killed Bertron himself, whom he had come to identify as an enemy.

The Ultimate escaped Krypton via a ship that regularly arrived to deliver supplies to Bertron (who had wanted little contact with the planet's natives) and went on a killing spree across several planets. It began 245,000 years earlier on Bylan 5, where Darkseid was about to wed a princess (in order to obtain that planet's chemical deposits for Apokolips' weapons factories). Just as the Ultimate and Darkseid were about to meet in combat, Darkseid was forced to flee, as the rampage of The Ultimate had caused the planet's atmosphere to become toxic, thereby rendering the chemicals worthless to Apokolips. The Ultimate hitched a ride on an escaping shuttle, which crashed on Khundia. The warring Khundian clans united in order to build protective armor for a warrior named Kobald, who they hoped would survive long enough to force the Ultimate onto a rocket. Once the rocket was in space, the Ultimate killed Kobald and the resulting explosion sent him hurling through space.

He next crossed paths with a Green Lantern named Zharan Pel. The Ultimate took the Lantern's power ring and, sensing the power of the Guardians of the Universe, headed towards them. The hundreds of Green Lanterns that were sent to stop him were slaughtered. He continued to Oa, where a single Guardian sacrificed himself in battle to defeat him. The release of energies by the Guardian caused a tear in space through which the Ultimate fell.

Eventually arriving on the planet Calaton, he ravaged that world for three years. With only the capital city left, the royal family combined their life forces into a single energy being, the Radiant. The Radiant killed the Ultimate with a huge blast of energy (laying waste to over a fifth of his planet in the process). In common Calatonian burial procedures, the Ultimate's seemingly dead body was suited and shackled to prevent his spirit from escaping into the afterlife, and he was shot into space because the murders he committed made him unworthy of burial on Calaton. Eventually, his metallic casket crashed on Earth, the force of the impact driving it deep underground.


The Death of Superman


After freeing one arm and smashing his way out of his buried vault, The Ultimate went on a rampage in Midwestern America, where he first encountered the Justice League. He defeated the entire team of superheroes in a matter of minutes, which in turn attracted the attention of Superman. Most notable is the fact that the creature fought the whole time with literally one hand tied behind his back (due to his ancient burial cables), yet was still able to lay waste to all opposition and much of the surrounding area. The only Justice Leaguer who could defend herself against the creature was Maxima. The creature gained its new name when League member Booster Gold remarked how the rampage resembled "the arrival of Doomsday". The comment reached the broadcast media and led to the creature becoming known by its new name of Doomsday. Five Leaguers, including Superman, combined their energy powers in an attempt to take Doomsday down, but succeeded only in destroying the last of his ancient burial cables, allowing him to use both hands.

During his rampage, Doomsday's interest was captured by billboards and television spots advertising violent wrestling competitions held in Metropolis, which appealed to his blood lust and thus enticed the otherwise mindless creature to head towards the city. In counterattacking the creature, Superman quickly found that his opponent's power was a match for his own, and he realized that if Doomsday actually reached Metropolis, the resulting battle could conceivably destroy the city and kill millions of innocent people. Doomsday developed a strong desire to murder Superman, a desire that was later explained in the Hunter/Prey miniseries: from the agony of continually dying during his creation process, Doomsday developed in his genes the ability to sense anyone Kryptonian, as well as an overriding instinct to treat any such being as an automatic threat.

In the space of a few issues of the Superman comic book series, Doomsday battled Superman in a titanic struggle, leading the hero to conclude that the creature would continue to attack relentlessly and endlessly, with no fear or compassion. Matters came to a head in Superman (vol. 2) #75, where
in both Doomsday and Superman beat each other to death in front of the Daily Planet building in Metropolis.

In the aftermath of Superman's apparent death, four super-beings appeared in his wake, two of them declaring themselves to be the "real" Superman. One of these four, a half-man/half-machine who greatly resembled Superman with cybernetic implants where he had sustained the greatest amount of damage from Doomsday's blows, took custody of Doomsday's apparently lifeless body. After strapping the creature to an asteroid with an electronic device attached, the cyborg flung Doomsday into deep space, on a trajectory supposedly certain to never intersect any other planet. The issue ended with a frame of a reawakened and laughing Doomsday, still chained to the asteroid but otherwise alive.


Round 2: Hunter/Prey
Eventually, after passing through a wormhole, Doomsday's asteroid was accidentally found by a deep-space scavenger ship. Upon closer examination of the peculiar-looking drifting rock, the ship's crew retrieved the object, hoping to find something of value. The scavenger vessel happened to be on a route to Apokolips, the home of the powerful tyrant Darkseid. Doomsday was fully rested and, after slaughtering the crew of the salvage ship, found himself landing on the harsh world. This was to be the setup for a final showdown between Doomsday and Superman, who had been uneasy about the possibility of Doomsday's resurrection. With the help of his JLA contacts, Superman procured a Mother Box, a sentient computer, after Darkseid's servant Desaad contacted Earth about a problem on Apokolips.

Unknown to Superman, Doomsday had faced and beaten Darkseid in single combat, even after withstanding the full effect of Darkseid's fabled Omega Beams, and was laying waste to Apokolips. Unfortunately, before Superman could deal with Doomsday, Desaad opened a boom tube to Calaton—the first world where Doomsday was successfully defeated—and sent Doomsday through, to what he believed was his defeat at the hands of the Radiant. However, Doomsday was able to adapt and overcome any opponent because of the process by which he was created, so, although the Radiant had defeated him once, he would not be able to defeat him again. Likewise, even though Superman had killed Doomsday once before, he was unable to do so again. Superman, while knowing this — having been filled in on Doomsday's history by the time-manipulating Waverider — was obsessed with stopping Doomsday and followed him to Calaton. He fought Doomsday again with the help of the Mother Box, but, despite it providing him with extra weapons such as an ultrasonic gun and an energy sword, Superman met with defeat. Doomsday had evolved biological weaponry that maimed and almost killed Superman. He was forced to use one of Waverider's time travel devices to leave Doomsday stranded at the End of Time, where Doomsday met the one force he could not overcome: entropy. Upon returning Superman to the present, the Mother Box healed Superman's injuries and then "died".


The Doomsday Wars
Doomsday returned yet again in the miniseries The Doomsday Wars. In this series, Prin Vnok, an underling of Brainiac, uses his technology to travel to the End of Time to retrieve Doomsday in order to combine the beast's massive power with Brainiac's formidable intellect after his original body was badly injured in his last fight with Superman (this was explained as having taken place at the time of the timeline's reconstruction following the events of "Zero Hour"; the reconstruction of time meant that Brainiac was able to change the events of Doomsday's defeat). However, he was unable to erase Doomsday's consciousness with drugs because he reacted too fast for the process to work. With Doomsday's strength of will too strong for Brainiac to permanently overwhelm him on his own, Brainiac instead opted to use a human host to genetically engineer a Doomsday clone without the mind of the original, while temporarily lodging in Doomsday's head to use the creature's strength until he would be forced out. He chose to use Pete Ross and Lana Lang's newborn baby, born eight weeks premature and transported by Superman to a hospital. Brainiac intercepted Superman and stole the baby to hurt his long-time foe, correctly deducing that it was the child of someone close to Superman. In the end, Superman thwarted Brainiac's plot by driving him out of Doomsday's body via the use of a telepathy-blocking "psi-blocker". He then lured Doomsday to the moon, where he placed him in a kind of stasis with four Justice League teleporters. Perpetually transporting between those four booths, Doomsday would never be more than 25% integrated, and was thus unable to escape.


Our Worlds at War
Following these events, Doomsday was released by Manchester Black's Suicide Squad to battle Imperiex, a threat that was judged to be even greater than Doomsday himself. Once freed, Doomsday slaughtered the Squad, then went on to battle Imperiex's numerous probes (his mind having been altered by Black to regard them as the threat he normally perceived Superman to be), which had thus far managed to seriously injure or kill most of Earth's heroes. Doomsday tore through numerous probes with seemingly little effort, while aided by Superman—the only time the two enemies would come close to teaming up—before finally confronting Imperiex himself. Imperiex proved too much for Doomsday—he blasted the creature, reducing him to a glowing skeleton.


Sentience
Superman (vol. 2) #175 commemorated the 100th issue since the death of Superman in battle with Doomsday, by staging a rematch. Doomsday's skeleton was retrieved and his flesh regrown by Lex Luthor (using Superman's Kryptonian DNA), who handed Doomsday over to Darkseid to repay Earth's war debt to Apokolips. By this time, Doomsday had evolved intelligence and sentience. Luthor arranged for the Joker to set Doomsday loose in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate that he was "in good working condition". It also happened to be the anniversary of the day that Superman had died while stopping Doomsday. Despite being weakened by kryptonite exposure when Luthor attempted to exploit Doomsday's Kryptonian origins, Superman's heart was restarted by Black Lightning and he reached Doomsday just as the monster was struggling with the Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz). Learning from J'onzz that Doomsday wanted to kill Luthor because he blamed Luthor for his "death" in the Imperiex War, Superman would soon fight Doomsday again and, this time, humbly defeat the creature by knocking him out and proving to himself and the world that Doomsday would never be Superman's equal anymore:




“


You're different now. You can think for yourself. So think about this. Before, you were a mindless thing. Nothing could hurt you. You couldn't feel pain, much less understand it. But once you have felt it—it changes you—forever. And you'll begin to understand something new. Fear. I've lived with it all my life. You don't want to die again, do you? The agony of what's happened to you affects your speed—your strength...and that little bit of doubt—that you cannot win today—grows. You understand now, don't you? You will never hurt me again. You will never kill me again. Never again!



”



Darkseid attempted to replicate Doomsday, producing an army of Doomsday "clones". Darkseid was not able to duplicate perfectly the creature in all its raw power, and they were defeated by a combination of heat vision and Batman's explosive batarangs during an attack on Paradise Island, while Darkseid kidnapped the newly arrived Kara Zor-El/Supergirl.

When Superman traveled to Apokolips to reclaim the life of Steel, Mortalla (Darkseid's wife) ordered his troops to release Doomsday in an attempt to help Darkseid. Doomsday's short freedom was quickly halted by Steel in the Entropy Aegis, an armor with incredible power that had been built out of the remains of an Imperiex probe. Doomsday disappeared and was seen wandering the harsh lands of Apokolips.

With his newfound intelligence, Doomsday managed to escape Apokolips and return to Earth. Upon his arrival, Doomsday encountered a series of emotions previously alien to him—love, compassion, and kindness. Exploring the full range of these new emotions, Doomsday made his way to Metropolis once more, though not in the destructive manner he had before. Upon his arrival in Metropolis, Doomsday found Superman at the brink of death at the hands of Gog and intervened to help Superman in an ultimately futile fight against Gog's army.

In a new future, Doomsday was remembered as one of Earth's greatest heroes, who continued Superman's legacy by leading an army under his name against the army of Gog. This new timeline ended when it was revealed that Superman was still alive, trapped and tortured with kryptonite for two centuries by Gog. Ultimately, Superman managed to convince Gog of the error of his ways. Gog offered to correct the past by returning Doomsday to an earlier point in the timeline but, in the process, Doomsday would lose his intelligence and humanity. Returned to the present, an unconscious Doomsday was transported away by a younger version of Gog to an unknown location for an unknown purpose.


Infinite Crisis
During Infinite Crisis, Doomsday was freed from captivity in a cavern near the center of the Earth by Doctor Psycho and Warp. Doctor Psycho mind-controlled him and used him as the "spear-carrier" of a super villain assault on Metropolis. As he came into full view in front of Green Arrow, he was stopped by Kal-El and Kal-L, who made quick work of the villain as, for the first time since the first Crisis, the two Supermen acted as a team.


New Krypton

Doomsday returned in the final page of Superman (vol. 1) #681, crashing in Metropolis shortly after the representatives of Kandor met with the President. Doomsday was then apparently killed on Earth's moon when Superman, Supergirl, and many of Kandor's inhabitants pummeled him to death in Action Comics #871, crushing the monster's skull.

After the fight, Doomsday's mangled corpse ended up in the hands of General Sam Lane, who was in charge of a mysterious government agency determined to halt the Kryptonian "invasion" of Earth. It has been hinted at that General Lane sent Doomsday after the Kandorians in the first place, and the creature is only one of the "weapons" at Lane's disposal. General Lane put Lex Luthor to work on apparently "improving" Doomsday who, by the end of New Krypton, had still not awoken from his most recent death.

During the fight, Zor-El (Superman's uncle) told him that Doomsday was created by Kryptonians on ancient Krypton through "forced evolution" and, as a result, the creature hates all Kryptonians.


Reign of Doomsday

Doomsday returned to carve a new path of destruction throughout the DC Universe. His journey started in the Steel one-shot and continued into Outsiders #37, Justice League of America #55, Superman/Batman Annual #5, Superboy #6 and into the milestone Action Comics #900.
Doomsday, exhibiting an increased, broadened power set which seemed to adapt to each of his opponents, attacked, defeated and abducted Steel, the Cyborg Superman, the Eradicator, Supergirl and Superboy, before taking them to a cloaked satellite at the former location of New Krypton. Superman discovered that this was all part of a plot by Lex Luthor, which had become obsolete. After locating the satellite, Superman attempted to free his allies, only for them all to discover the apparently still-inert body of Doomsday, as well as three separate clones or copies—each with a different power set.

Attempting to flee from the clones with Doomsday, the Superman Family discovered that their ship is now on course for Earth with the potential to trigger an extinction-level event if it were to strike. Their attempt to divert the ship was interrupted by a being called "Doomslayer", who resembled a cyborg version of Doomsday and was later revealed to be a Doomsday who was tossed down an infinite tube that gave it time to evolve. Doomslayer effortlessly tore Eradicator apart and proclaimed that Earth must die for the future.

Doomslayer believed the original Doomsday to be an infection, so it planned to destroy Earth, as it considered Earth to be ground zero for Doomsday's "infection". Superman and his friends escaped the ship with the original Doomsday and stopped the ship from crashing on Earth, pushing it into Metropolis's bay. Afterward, Doomslayer attacked the city with the Doomsday clones, determined to erase all trace and knowledge of Doomsday from existence. The clones spread across the world, wreaking havoc, while Doomslayer's second plan was to entice the Doomsdays to reach the Earth's core so that he could expand the universe inside the ship's tower and destroy the planet from within, thus erasing all knowledge of Doomsday from the universe.

In S.T.A.R. Labs, Superman's allies used the original Doomsday's body to try to find a way to stop the Doomsday clones. Doomsday awakened, but Eradicator (who was thought to be killed by Doomslayer) was in control. As Eradicator and the heroes attack the Doomsday clones, he warned that Doomsday's mind was beginning to awaken. In the final battle, a weakened Superman made contact with the ship's artificial intelligence before it reached Earth's core, hoping to have the tower teleport away. Meanwhile, the Doomsday clones were defeated by Earth's heroes and sent back into the pit in which the tower was located. Eradicator arrived and defended Superman, now very weak, from Doomslayer, quickly throwing Superman out of the tower and allowing himself to be trapped with Doomslayer before the tower teleports away.


The New 52
In The New 52 (a reboot of the DC Comics universe), Doomsday made his official debut in September 2013 as a part of "Villains Month". In Batman/Superman #3.1 Doomsday attacked Krypton many years ago when Lara was a lieutenant in the elite military seminary. Colonel Zod faced him wearing an ancient armor of Krypton's warrior founders but their battle caused the death of thousands of Kryptonians. Zod apparently defeated Doomsday sending him to the Phantom Zone. Years later General Zod, now also imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, communicated with the child Kara Zor-El telling her how he admired the creature because it destroyed everything, an attribute he seeks in order for his people to be strong as years of complacency have made the Kryptonians weak. Zor-El narrates a prophecy in which the last knight of the House of El will travel to a distant planet after the destruction of Krypton. Doomsday will find and battle the last knight to save his people, but sacrificing his own life to do so.

In Superman/Wonder Woman Doomsday mysteriously appears in the North Atlantic Ocean and fights Wonder Woman, breaking her arm before vanishing into thin air. After describing her attacker to Superman, both travel to the Fortress of Solitude where Diana identifies Doomsday on a Phantom Zone viewing device. Superman assumes that the walls of the Phantom Zone are failing, which has allowed the momentary escapes for Doomsday.

Months later, the creature once again escapes the Phantom Zone to wreak havoc across the globe, changing as it goes into an even deadlier form; now, every living thing in its vicinity dies, and even physical structures crumble. Superman, Wonder Woman, Steel and the Justice League struggle to defeat it, even calling on the aid of Lex Luthor; in the end, Superman drags Doomsday bodily to the planet Venus and incinerates it. Believing Doomsday dead, Superman returns to Earth, only to watch in horror as the creature teleports to Earth. Finally realizing he has no choice, Superman kills Doomsday, slicing the monster in half and, as it disintegrates, inhaling its ash-like remains to contain them within his indestructible body. However, soon after he starts to change; mentally showing signs of exacerbated stress and aggression, and gradually physically as well, resembling Doomsday itself more and more. It is revealed Doomsday was released by the Phantom King (Xa-Du), on instigation of Brainiac; the latter orchestrated it to get rid of Superman as he prepared to assimilate the consciousnesses of all human beings in the world. Superman managed to take control of the raging power and fury of Doomsday for long enough, however, to attack and defeat Brainiac's gigantic mother ship, dragging it into a black hole - ridding himself of the Doomsday infection in the process.

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