Superman: Doomsday

Superman: Doomsday is an animated movie adapting the comic storyline of The Death of Superman, and is the very first of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies.

An illegal excavation funded by Lex Luthor for an energy project inadvertedly unleashes an unstoppable monster that had been buried there long ago, whom Superman now has to fight, even at the cost of his own life. But shortly after his funeral, it appears the Man Of Steel has returned. But things aren't all what they seem...

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Tropes used in Superman: Doomsday include:

• Beware the Superman: I'm sorry, beware the clone Superman.
• Cloning Blues
• Composite Character: The cloned Superman combines elements of three of the replacement Supermen from the comics - The Last Son of Krypton(who killed common criminals), The Man of Tomorrow (who turned out to be the villain of the arc) and The Metropolis Kid (who was a clone of Superman).
  • Also seen in uKryptonsing Luthor as the creator of the Superman clone as opposed to yet another character they would have had to introduce. In the comics, the "Last Son" was a byproduct of the Eradicator, Cadmus made the Superman clone, and Hank Henshaw actually has multiple origins through interactions with various forms of Phlebotinum.
• Conveniently Empty Building: In the making of the production, the production team mentioned that they had to redo several frames of animation so that Superman did not save Lois Lane by sending Doomsday into a occupied building.
• Creepy Doll
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Deconstructed - Lex invents a cure for muscular dystrophy... and orders Mercy to turn it into an expensive, lifetime-long treatment.
• Darkskinned Blonde: Mercy Graves
• Death Seeker: It's hinted that Lois may have developed some of these tendencies following Superman's death out of grief -- she's still throwing herself headlong into dangerous situations but, as Perry points out to her, Superman isn't around to swoop in and save her anymore.
• Determinator: Superman. Even when Doomsday has beating him to the point he pukes blood, he JUST. WON´T.QUIT!
• Dug Too Deep: And discovered Doomsday! Good job, Lex.
• Dungeon Bypass: Lex thinks he's safe in a panic room full of kryptonite and lit with red sunlight lamps. Clone Superman locks the door, rips the room out of the building, and drops it to the street below.
• Explosive Leash: Clone Superman discovers that Luthor has implanted a tiny lead-walled pellet in his brain containing Kryptonite, which Luthor can break open remotely if he feels the need to take Clone Superman down.
• Giant Spider: Superman fights one (as the Take That entry below shows, it's a hell of an in-joke).
• Gory Discretion Shot: Used for most of the murders Doomsday commits, but one example sticks in your mind. Towards the end of their fight Doomsday has Superman in a neck lift and is repeatedly ramming a fist into his stomach with enough force to make the ground shake. Cut to Lois looking on and flinching away as we hear the fourth punch... and we hear Superman vomiting, and Superman's blood splatters across her face. Her horrified expression as she realises this says it all.
• Grave Robbing: Lex Luther steals Superman's corpse from his grave, and then Superman's robot assistant steals it back.
• Have You Told Anyone Else?: Poor Mercy. Though in this case, it's more like "have you cleaned up every loose end besides yourself?"
• He Who Fights Monsters: What happens to clone Superman.
• Infant Immortality: Averted in one shocking scene.
• Ink Suit Actor: Kevin Smith as a bystander.
• Innocent Bystander: A little girl is crying off slightly to the left when Doomsday rampages, this is enough to earn his murderous ire since he can't distinguish between friend or foe, something threatening or harmless.
• It's What I Do: A variation is used just before Superman goes after Doomsday one last time, after Lois tries to convince him not to re-enter the battle.
• Man in White: Luthor's attire.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Played with; Superman and Lois have begun a romantic (and, it's heavily implied, sexual) relationship, but Superman refuses to tell Lois his secret identity. Lois, however, has clearly already worked out that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person, but just wants him to open up to her as a sign of trust and commitment. The fact that he won't causes tension between them.
• Morality Chain: Apparently this is what Superman is to the world, without him it's not pretty.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The fight between Superman and Doomsday is brutal, with Superman clearly taking the worse punishment out of the two. Towards the end of the fight, he starts vomiting blood.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Superman's Robot stealing Superman's nearly dead body from Luthor and nursing him back to near-health
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Among other things, it streamlined the Reign of the Supermen segment/act and put Luthor in his traditional appearance and role rather than the long hair and beard he was sporting and pretending to be his own son like he was at the time of the story it's based on. Unfortunately, they also had to cut out Steel.
• Product Placement: Anyone notice the wrecked BMW Z3 Convertible on the bridge before the Doomsday-Army/Superman Battle?
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Superman feels bad about the fact, that with all his powers and knowledge he still cannot cure a cancer. This is contrasted directly with the Cut Lex Luthor a Check example above.
• Secret Keeper / Secret Secret Keeper: Played with, Lois knows Superman is Clark Kent, but wants Superman to willingly tell her. However, Superman knows she already knows, but still doesn't want to admit it. He finally does admit it in the end.
• Shadow Archetype: Clone Superman is Superman raised by someone like Lex Luthor.
• Shooting Superman: Actually worked this time... with his evil clone.
  • It was a kryptonite bullet.
• Shout-Out: A lot of the stuff in the Fortress is a callback to various other incarnations of Superman (the special mission suits from Superman: The Animated Series, the prisoner rings from the movies, the robots from one of the Fleischer shorts). Toyman's giant robot spider and Kevin Smith's mocking of it refer to a well-known script that was proposed for a Superman movie. The teenaged Superman clones in Luthor's lab resemble the Superman design from Season 1 of the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon.
  • The above mention about curing aids but deliberately stretching out the treatments is also a Shout-Out to an early Post-Crisis storyline. In the comics, Luthor came up with a cure for Lois's mother's unspecified illness but manipulated the formula to require extended and unaffordable treatments to maintain leverage over Lois.
  • Superman's trying to cure cancer, having a machine that receives transmissions from the future, creating miniature suns from dwarf star matter and Lex Luthor's Kryptonite Gun are all shout-outs to All-Star Superman.
  • The clone Superman's rescue of an old lady's cat from a tree reminiscing the scene from Superman: The Movie.
• Stock Phrases: Not quite to the point of "the universe will be destroyed including earth" but doubled for Robo Speak.
• SuperCloning: Seriously, how many times has Supes been cloned now?
  • Successfully (i.e. not counting Bizarros and other screw ups) no more than once per continuity. Generally, they have to wing it or fake it.
• Take That: The giant robot spider is a Shout-Out to an infamous (never filmed) draft for a Superman movie.
  • To further drive the point across, Kevin Smith actually makes a cameo in Ink Suit Actor form, commenting on how lame the giant spider was. Kevin Smith was originally forced to include a giant spider into the script of said never filmed movie by the producer.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Luthor sees that clone Superman took out the kryptonite grenade he sums up his situation nicely.

Luthor: Oh hell.

• This Is Sparta: "My rumpus room has been outfitted with red solar lamps, and of course, Kryptonite. Red and green. The colors of Christmas. And YOU! Are ON! The NAUGHTY! LIST!!!
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: As in the comics, fighting Doomsday is one of the few exceptions Superman has ever made to his rule against killing.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Clone Superman
• What the Hell, Hero?: Jimmy notes that going right to using a Kryptonite laser to try and kill the rogue Superman "isn't very Superman-like". This is never followed up on in any fashion, because this is a terrible movie.
• Why Am I Ticking?: see Oh Crap
• Would Hurt a Child: Toyman kills a 4 year old girl offscreen while taking a preschool hostage. Also Doomsday, due the whole unable to tell friend from foe thing.