Doomsday (DC) vs S-Class Heroes (One Punch Man)

[Sharpandpointies]

So, I'm fine admitting that it has been, like, 15 years since I have looked in the Death of Superman.

However, at the same time I'm going to note that the onus of proof is on the CLAIMANT. If someone wants to prove that Doomsday has vast amounts of superspeed, such that they can fight Superman on the same level of speed, that's up to them to do so.

I haven't seen anything of the sort, other than vague, uncertain feats that might be faster than comic book peak human and a bunch of statements. Certainly there are no explicit speedfeats of the sort that Rumbles would require to grant someone...I don't know, near-lightspeed fighting capability.

Having said that, I'm still going to go through the DoS trade because that's fair, I'm arguing on the other side, so I should jog the old memory.

Here we go.

Doomsday grabs Guy Gardner. Guy says 'So fast! I didn't see him mo-' and gets cut off meeting the ground. Okay, so here Guy, when grabbed, has enough time to say 'Huh?' out loud. Then he has enough time to think 'So fast! I didn't see him mo-' before he explicitly gets cut off by hitting the ground.

This is not exactly vast amounts of superspeed happening here.

The League then fights Doomsday. No speedfeats happening.

Doomsday charges Booster. Booster says - out loud - 'He's still coming! Gotta get my force field up before -' while there's a fist coming at his face. In the panel. He DOES get the force field up, despite that. This is not an indication of superspeed.

Superman joins the fray. Somewhat hilariously, he says 'I don't know if I've EVER been hit that hard!' when Doomsday kicks him...through a perfectly normal house. Yeesh.

Doomsday charges the League after Booster says 'He's comin'!' Booster...has time to say that. Booster also says 'Look out!' while Doomsday is mid-attack. Guy Gardner has time to say 'Where is he-?' before getting hammered. This kind of makes the whole idea of Clark marvelling at Doomsday's speed - 'His speed--!' - at the same time somewhat ridiculous when people without vast amounts of superspeed are not only seeing Doomsday coming and commenting on it, but continuing to comment mid-attack.

Doomsday continues to bust up the League while the League CONTINUES to react to what he's doing. Booster gets stuffed into a car door and has time to scream 'No!' before Doomsday inexplicably decides to slam the car door on his head. Both Clark and Bloodwynd charge Doomsday, chatting - they have time to talk - and Doomsday punches them, and a perfectly normal human starts commenting on the fight.

Analysis: No actual superspeed thus far.

On to the next part.

[Sharpandpointies]

Next part: Clark notes that 'this creature is fast and strong', but...still no actual speedfeats.

Clark then saves some people from a burning, collapsing house. CLARK doesn't really show any actual speed at this point, interacting with the people perfectly normally.

Doomsday jumps at a helicopter and the people flying it have enough time to chat about him incoming - like, three sentences full of discussion. Bog-standard humans.

Doomsday fights Superman while normal people look on and attempt to assist - soldiers, cops, whatnot - and show themselves perfectly capable of following what's happening.

Maxima joins the fight.

Tussle with Maxima, Superman, and Doomsday. We have Doomsday ducking to avoid Maxima's punch, so that she punches Superman in the face while saying 'How could he move so fast?' And yet, nobody is actually shown using their speed. One could argue that 'the entire fight is taking place at superspeed', but there's no indication of that, no proof of that, and every other part of the fight thus far has NOT been taking place at superspeed.

Classic gas station explosion, we will move to the next part.

Evidence of superspeed thus far: zero.

[Sharpandpointies]

Next Part: Doomsday continues to wander around wreaking havoc. Zero evidence of superspeed as he interacts with normals and they have more than enough time to understand what's going on and comment on it.

Then there comes a couple of bystanders saying 'What was that?' 'I think...the red an' blue blur is Superman. I don't wanna know what the other thing is!' Some evidence of speed? Sure. But bystanders are perfectly capable of spotting them, and this is Superman FLYING in a straight line, carrying Doomsday along, not fighting him at superspeed.

Edit: this is a thing. It is not the only time someone comments on the speed and it is Clark flying in a straight line as we will see.

Daily planet helicopters show up. Cameramen have no problem catching the fight on Camera. In fact, there are images on TV of Clark - perfectly detailed - fighting (this is on the page with Lex). So...not superspeed.

Fight continues, and the reporters are actually giving a play-by-play of who is doing what to who. They're having zero problems following it by eye. Same with spectators reacting to what's happening. No superspeed.

We have a comment from the helicopter pilot: 'I don't know if I can catch up with them, Ms Lane, not as fast as they're going.' Important point: Clark has THROWN Doomsday at this point, a vast distance, and is flying after him. So this is travel. No superspeed.

Doomsday and Superman continue to fight in the middle of the Habitat. Guardian - who doesn't exactly have superspeed - watches and comments on the fight. No superspeed.

Thus far? No actual superspeed happening.

On to the next part!

[Sharpandpointies]

Doomsday attacks construction workers, killing several. Even then, they have time to yell, comment, say things.

I mean...thus far, there are NO indications of Doomsday blazing around at superspeed. Same with Clark. Even when Clark is helping people, he's maybe FLYING fast but not showing any superspeed, as evinced by him chatting with them while carrying them and so forth.

Fight continues, Lois Lane watches continuing to give a clear play-by-play. She's obviously fully capable of seeing what's happening. No superspeed.

Fight continues. Supergirl gets her face punched in.

Cops start shooting Doomsday. Despite him charging towards them, they have zero problems hitting him with every shot. Not exactly a good indication of superspeed.

Cadmus soldiers show up with flight suits armed with laser cannons, start shooting, and they're blasting both Superman and Doomsday. And hitting.

Evidence of superspeed: Still nothing.

On to final part!

[Captain Morgan]

I'd like to note thag even if we grant Doomsday some degree of super speed, I'm pretty leery of Death of Superman era Clark being as fast as Flashy Flash. Who Blast casually blitzes. And Blast can just dimension dump Doomsday barring weird Phantom Zone shenanigans.

If you remove Blast, the rest of the S-Tier can't hurt Doomsday and can't ring this version out.

[Sharpandpointies]

Cadmus continues to shoot at both of them while they fight. We get the famous 'Have to move faster...match Doomsday's speed...or I'm done!' from Clark.

Here's the thing - Doomsday hasn't been showing any speed right now. Neither has Clark. And Clark has been matching his speed through this, said speed being...pretty normal. So, very dramatic statement, but that's all we have. A statement that isn't backed up.

Some fighting continues and...oh ho.

Here's the famous 'I want to keep firing but it's impossible! They're moving too fast!'

Okay, so I'm happy to admit I'm wrong. This doesn't happen while Doomsday and Clark are tussling and people are shooting them anyway.

No, this happens when Clark FLIES at speed, rams into Doomsday, and CARRIES him through several buildings in a straight line.

So sure, they're moving too fast to be targeted...because Clark is flying them in a straight line after ramming into Doomsday. This is not evidence of superspeed on Doomsday's part. This is evidence of 'Clark is flying fast'.

Doomsday moves to attack Jimmy and Lois... at speeds they can comment on, at length. They see him coming, they comment on it, they warn each other, Lois makes a plan to distract him and informs Jimmy of said plan. This is not superspeed.

Fight continues with Clark talking to Lois through the fight. No superspeed here.

They then slug it out with all of the onlookers commenting on what's happening. No superspeed.

And that's it.

Evidence of superspeed: still nil.

[Sharpandpointies]

I'd like to note thag even if we grant Doomsday some degree of super speed, I'm pretty leery of Death of Superman era Clark being as fast as Flashy Flash.

Oh, jeez no.

I mean...even if we say 'Doomsday is fast', how fast? As fast as Clark? How fast is Clark shown to be going? How fast is DoS era Clark on top of it? Is Clark shown to be using that speed in the fight (hint: no)? How fast IS Doomsday, then, and where is the proof?

[Sharpandpointies]

2. Additionally, an additional question for you: How strong is Doomsday? Because a lot of arguments that are used to argue against his speed (Chiefly, that he lacks non-combat feats to support being on Superman's level) apply to his strength as well. Doomsday wrecks up streets and buildings but to my knowledge he's never matched Clark's strength levels outside of. If that's ignored for Doomsday's strength, it's a double standard to night do so for his speed too.

As noted, speed is covered by PIS and is an extensive problem. Doomsday isn't just someone who lacks speedfeats, but in their fight Clark isn't shown using his speed. Doomsday hits Clark. What does this indicate, if Clark isn't actually USING his speed? PIS.

Are you now claiming Clark isn't shown 'using' his durability? That Doomsday being shown matching him or exceeding Clark when he's actually USING his strength, unlike his speed, is somehow a double standard in comparison with the speed (which neither Doomsday NOR Clark is shown using, backed up by everything that is happening around them)?

In any case, burden of proof is on claimant. Where's the proof for vast superspeed for Doomsday? I've been through the entire DoS, above. The speedfeats are - at best - VERY vague and based on statements, or 'better than comic book human'. Neither Doomsday nor Clark show any kind of real superspeed in the fights, held up by the interactions with bystanders and other people involved.

So where is the proof that Doomsday has ~lightspeed reflexes or whatever he would need to match a PIS-less Clark in a fight?

3. WRT to other versions of Doomsday and their speed feats, there's one various ambiguious moment in the DCAMU version of Death of Superman, wherein he gets blitzed by the flash for a few moments, then his eyes are fltting around as if Tracking the Flashes moments, and then Doomsday's able to land a hit on him

This is a completely different thing, and potentially worth investigating.

[Sharpandpointies]

Also, blargh, I'm tired and done. I think this is enough for tonight, and will note on top of that, based on my re-read of DoS, that I am pretty done with the whole thing. There's nothing in DoS to convince me that Doomsday should be granted lightspeed reflexes or whatever on a par with Superman's best - in fact, quite the opposite, it looks like a bucketload of PIS, considering the lack of speedfeats in the fight between Superman and Doomsday, period.

I'm happy inviting a mod to come in and make comments or a mod-ruling to determine Doomsday's (potential lack) of speed.

[Jcogginsa]

Your commentary on Death of Superman has me satisfied on the Speed Front

The point about Clark's durability similarly satisfies me on that front, so I withdraw my complaint there too.

WRT the DCAMU feat, llooked around for a video of the full fight to get the context, here is the first half which contains the feat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AvaDKHlGq0

If Doomsday does have Super Speed, then it seems to disappear right after he KOs Flash, since Batman manages to run away from him

Also found a few moments from the DCEU where Doomsday seems to punch a speeding Superman out of the air.

[Rightoya]

He hasn't, really. The absolute best he gets is the vague, not-very impressive, and often contradicted by what's drawn on-panel stuff in DoS we've discussed already on the thread.

Well even though Doomsday is a bit of a one-off villain that got overused anyway in my opinion, i will still say that they have done Doomsday dirty in that case.

In DBZ, people are at least shown to be using vast amounts of superspeed. And I can't speak to all of DBZ, as I don't follow it.

I was more talking about all their capabilities, like destroying planets and the likes, but even their shown speed is typically vaguely faster than the normal human eye can follow fighting.

In Shiva's case, we don't actually get a whole lot of her interacting with bullets. ^_^ What do get is some actual feats for speed while fighting with Cass when Cass is also pretty blatantly using her speed, as well as some other feats that are interesting in different comics under different writers. An example of a feat for her occurs in a fight against Cass who is shown running at such speeds that a woman's hair is yanked sideways by her passage and gets to Shiva from halfway across a restaurant while a dropped gun hangs spinning in the air'. Shiva then punches her out of this superspeed charge - casually, while turning around, and while the gun continues to hang in the air, then turns back around, sticks out her hand, and lets the gun fall into it. And then Cass - in the fight - explicitly pushes herself in an attempt to land hits on Shiva by blitzing, fails, and gets her ass kicked.

One of the arguments against this is that Cass, at the time, is fighting without her body-reading ability. Her skills are degraded (though she has clearly regained her speed) and she literally HAS no defense. Shiva, with body reading, would only need to be fast enough to NOT get blitzed by Cass (not 'as fast as Cass') to manage quite well against her.

Between this and a bunch of other speedfeats, Shiva basically ends up being judged on the board as somewhere between Comic Book Peak Human and a full-on bullet-timer in speed: fast enough that she has an advantage over a CBPH but cannot blitz them, and slower than a bullet-timer but capable of still fighting them without getting blitzed.

That's how it ended up, and one of the big reasons was 'Shiva doesn't have any actual bullet-time feats'. And thus, shouldn't actually be given parity with Cassandra 'At the age of six, I dodge sniper rounds after I let them get within 12" of my head' Cain.

And why did things go that way? Because Rumbles is fully aware that speed kills, and also that giving people speed parity based on 'can fight with a speedy person' is a slippery slope that leads into the abyss of Captain America and Batman having hypersonic reflexes or worse. Plus, there's the whole 'feats versus PIS' stuff in the rules.

Hence, the pickiness.

That's not to say it cannot be ARGUED. People are free to debate this kind of thing into the ground. At some point, though, if there is zero resolution, it comes down to a mod-ruling just to put a stop to it. Which could happen here with Doomsday (has happened before, I know, but mod-rulings were largely started over with the reset back in 2015 or whenever).

That didn't happen with the Shiva thing; I was one of the main arguers for Shiva having speed on a par with Cass, and I eventually saw the point about 'no, this is how we do things around here, Shiva has a whole lot of instances of not showing bullet-time speed and no actual bullet-timing - speedfeats are nice, they're beyond Peak Human clearly, but they aren't clear-cut bullet-time - so Shiva should not be considered a bullet-timer for Rumbles purposes'.

And so it goes. No real point about getting bent out of shape about it. ^_^ While I, myself, am fairly convinced that Shiva and Cass are supposed to be somewhere on par with each other, when I'm on Rumbles I cheerfully discuss 'Cass the High-End Bullet-timer' and 'Shiva the Faster-Than-CBPH'. Because that's how things worked out around here, according to the rules.

Well i still think this is a questionable way to do things, but i initially thought the conclusion was that Cassandra Cain's super speed in the fights got just ignored entierly and Shiva threated like a bog-standard comicbook peak human who just gets blitzed by bullet-timers, so this at least makes a lot more sense than what i initially thought it meant.

The Sacrifice fight, I will say, was absolutely chock-a-block full of weird stuff that didn't make sense. Getting into the superspeed is the least of the problems.

I remember reading a quote from Gail Simone somewhere that said that they got forced to change the original fight to make Superman look better even though it was just a good fight already, which is not very surprising considering that Wonder Woman had the misfortune to have either the Batman or Superman editorial and people like Eddie Berganza were still poisoning DC at that time, and i would suspect the very weird and unfitting birds scene for example was originally just Superman being out for a bit from what still looked a lot like broken rips, and that they probably also altered a few other scenes in such a way.

And even if we get into the superspeed, Clark CLEARLY isn't in his right mind, he's CLEARLY not functioning at his best nor fully rationally, so him not 'noticing' or whatever that Doomsday is suddenly faster (Doomsday being a guy who evolves all the time as well) isn't exactly way out there, in my opinion. ^_^

Oh no, i am not saying that that it would be a big deal even if we assume that Doomsday had all of a sudden super-speed from Superman's perspective, it was after all even acknowledged in that fight that Maxwell Lord managed somehow to let Superman fight Wonder Woman without questioning why Doomsday was clearly doing very non-Dommsday-like things as he dodged her lasso lol:

[Sharpandpointies]

Your commentary on Death of Superman has me satisfied on the Speed Front

The point about Clark's durability similarly satisfies me on that front, so I withdraw my complaint there too.

Cool, cool; it got me to do a full review and satisfy myself as well, while correcting some of my incorrect memories. If there are any weird comments in the above posts (I don't think there are?) that don't make sense, I might have had a couple of drinks last night and these days that's all it takes to get me a ways tipsy.

Granted, the two drinks DID give me the intestinal fortitude to forge my way through the entire story for the sole purpose of searching for feats whist writing commentary.

WRT the DCAMU feat, llooked around for a video of the full fight to get the context, here is the first half which contains the feat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AvaDKHlGq0

Is it just me, or is this a crapton more impressive than the original story? Because Byrne-Era stuff was far less powerful as whole?

This is actually fun to watch and gives a more grandiose and threatening feeling, rather than the original comic where we had stuff like Clark getting kicked through someone's house and saying 'wow, I don't think I've ever been hit that hard!'. Or the exploding gas station. Please don't tell me that also happens later.

If Doomsday does have Super Speed, then it seems to disappear right after he KOs Flash, since Batman manages to run away from him

Also found a few moments from the DCEU where Doomsday seems to punch a speeding Superman out of the air.

I'd be tempted to chaulk this up to the same sort of writing weirdness that allows Ikaris to 'see/predict where Makkari will be' (the writers of the Eternals movie themselves described it this way) and attack there to grab her, when the writers clearly aren't considering the fact that to Makkari, Ikaris can be seen slowly....reaching...out...to where she's going to be and she could, you know, just adjust to this glacially moving enemy.

But let's watch the fight first before making that judgement.

*watches fight*

Yep, that's how it feels.

I will say, one thing I do like about the Flash fight is that Flash doesn't just keep 'running past' him to attack. He's fast, so he just basically...wanders around him at superspeed hitting him.

Then Doomsday inexplicably hits the Flash.

This totally feels like the usual 'speedster is utterly dominating, then does something like running into the outstretched arm of the non-speedster'. I mean, I probably sound pretty negative towards this being superspeed, but everyone who has read comics has seen this kind of thing before. Like, in a dozen different comics with different speedsters. Speedster uses superspeed. Speedster suddenly and inexplicably cannot adjust to something like 'arm sticks out' or 'predicts where they will be and hits THERE'.

And you're absolutely correct, Doomsday then does not suddenly demonstrate Flash-level superspeed after that.

For me, this feels like the usual speedster stuff. But mileage, it may vary.

Well even though Doomsday is a bit of a one-off villain that got overused anyway in my opinion, i will still say that they have done Doomsday dirty in that case.

Oh, ABSOLUTELY.

My feeling? Giant, powerful, monstrous looking beings look less threatening somehow when they are zipping around at superspeed. They wanted Doomsday to be this big, hulk-like creature of pure destruction, and having him zip around like the Flash tearing up the town? Impossible to stop and a little silly, honestly (I mean, not if you're THERE, but drawn on panel?). Also, they wanted him to FIGHT with the other heroes, not simply steamroll them in a single panel.

Writing-wise, they wanted him to show off his brute power, his cruelty, his viciousness, and the fact that he's unstoppable and unhurtable. So he needed to crush his way through the heroes while shrugging off their best shots.

I was more talking about all their capabilities, like destroying planets and the likes, but even their shown speed is typically vaguely faster than the normal human eye can follow fighting.

You'll need to bring this to the guys who do the DBZ debates. It probably has something to do with 'This character is shown to have this level of power (blow up planets) and this second character completely overwhelms them, ergo...' But you'll notice a distinct lack of Sharpandpointies in those debates (because I know little to nothing about DBZ beyond what I've picked up in the occasional thread here); I can't really speak to that. ^_^

Well i still think this is a questionable way to do things, but i initially thought the conclusion was that Cassandra Cain's super speed in the fights got just ignored entierly and Shiva threated like a bog-standard comicbook peak human who just gets blitzed by bullet-timers, so this at least makes a lot more sense than what i initially thought it meant.

There are some speedfeats, etc. Again, it was enough to push Shiva into the category of 'holds a speed advantage over CBPH types, can fight with bullet-timers but they have a speed advantage on her' kind of situation hereabouts.

I remember reading a quote from Gail Simone somewhere that said that they got forced to change the original fight to make Superman look better even though it was just a good fight already, which is not very surprising considering that Wonder Woman had the misfortune to have either the Batman or Superman editorial and people like Eddie Berganza were still poisoning DC at that time, and i would suspect the very weird and unfitting birds scene for example was originally just Superman being out for a bit from what still looked a lot like broken rips, and that they probably also altered a few other scenes in such a way.

There was the birds. Yeesh. There was Clark 'turning on his superhearing', which isn't a thing (and I'm sure even a normal human could have heard Diana breaking out of a gigantic chunk of ice...). There was Clark inexplicably turning away from a frozen Diana to search for a boulder to hit her with (a boulder...made of granite...which to both himself and 'Doomsday' is the equivalent of grabbing a giant fluffy pillow) rather than, I don't know, punching with his harder-than-diamonds nigh-indestructible fists.

There's a whole lot of stuff in that fight that is just...weird and nonsensical. And yeah, I myself would have enjoyed a fight that showcased Diana fighting and winning against Superman thanks to him being a little off his game due to being messed up in the head, and her being ON her A-game and managing to eke out a win. Would have made the point that maybe Clark has more raw power at his disposal, but Diana is at least competitive and has equipment and skill that can bridge the gap.

Oh no, i am not saying that that it would be a big deal even if we assume that Doomsday had all of a sudden super-speed from Superman's perspective, it was after all even acknowledged in that fight that Maxwell Lord managed somehow to let Superman fight Wonder Woman without questioning why Doomsday was clearly doing very non-Dommsday-like things as he dodged her lasso lol:

...yeah, the weirdness with the lasso.

I don't know, maybe Lord turned off part of his brain? ^_^ No, seriously - maybe he just forced Clark to accept this is Doomsday and ignore/rationalize anything that didn't fit?

.....

Okay, I got nothing. ^_^

[Jcogginsa]

...yeah, the weirdness with the lasso.

I don't know, maybe Lord turned off part of his brain? ^_^ No, seriously - maybe he just forced Clark to accept this is Doomsday and ignore/rationalize anything that didn't fit?

.....

Okay, I got nothing. ^_^

Maybe he thinks Doomsday evolved to have prehensile Hair or some shit?

And evolved to be a foot shorter than normal

[Cody]

Iirc I remember asking about how fast DoS Superman was a while back and I think the only thing I was told was that he had some feats that suggested he was like, Super-hypersonic? Idk what feats specifically but yea. Don't think the Flash was all that fast back then either.

[Captain Morgan]

Iirc I remember asking about how fast DoS Superman was a while back and I think the only thing I was told was that he had some feats that suggested he was like, Super-hypersonic? Idk what feats specifically but yea. Don't think the Flash was all that fast back then either.

Nope, that isn't a thing.