10 Times Superman Was Forced To Kill

2. Doomsday

The Death And Return Of Superman are not good comic books. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and boy do we comic geeks manage to stretch. We put Richard Simmons to shame with our stretches.

The killing of DC's biggest character and cultural icon wasn't ever meant to be a good story, however, it was just supposed to be an "event". It was a publicity stunt that was 100% successful, as the story got picked up in mainstream news outlets across the world and consequently the issues in question sold like hot cakes. Like, at least forty cakes. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

For a storyline that was particularly uninspired in its conception, the method of Superman's demise was similarly dull, with new villain Doomsday being introduced explicitly as the Man Of Steel's only physical equal, which meant that long-term fans and children alike were treated to a multi-page action scene of splash pages where Superman was pummelled to death by a big grey dude with protruding bone things. The final image was of Clark Kent beaten, bloody, bruised, and limp in Lois Lane's arms.

It was all rather upsetting. Thankfully Doomsday had also died at Superman's hands during their brawl that took in the whole of Metropolis and caused a level of damage that would make Henry Cavill jealous. This was after the monster - who was Kryptonian in origin, because of course he was - had already laid waste to the rest of the Justice League and clashed with Superman on numerous occasions. On this final one, however, Kal-El decided to break an oath that even super glue couldn't piece back together at this point, punching Doomsday to death just before he expires himself.