But the Reign of the Supermen that came afterwards I really enjoyed (only the Cyborg Superman and Eradicator one’s).

I still don’t understand why DC let Supes keep the mullet when he returned from the dead, it was already waaay out of style even by then!

1. in regards to blue beetle. i’ve thought the same thing about batman for years, lol

2. dude it was huge. and when i was a kid i don’t remember reading about superheroes dying. it became pretty common after that, because obviously it sells comics. and come on it was Superman dying, a character who’s been shown invunerable for more than 50 years. a character who most thing is the most powerful fictional being to ever exist. it’s easy to write it off now. but dude it was on the news, in a time when comic stuff rarely made mainstream tv.

Fortunately for Doomsday, DC powered the rings down quite a bit from the Silver-Age “Can do ANYTHING as long as you have the willpower to make it happen” schtick. Otherwise, ol’ Grey and Gruesome would have been disintigrated by Guy, end of story.

Then again, Guy is no Hal (nor John either for that matter).

On the other hand, we have Superman. Everything has come so easy for him – superpowers, loving family, adulation of millions, etc, etc.

So, yeah, I love Luthor, but that means I always find myself rooting for the (supposed) bad guy and that doesn’t make for a very satisfying comic.

Bloodwynd was a real character, but the Martian Manhunter was also posing as him for a period because of mind control.

That said, a Green Lantern ring at the original power set it was capable of in the early Hal Jordan issues should have been able to completely disintigrate Doomsday, so even with his “willpower being overwhelmed”, Guy should have been capable of so much more damage. The league was written WAYYY weak for this fight, and I never liked that.

BTW, for the record-who WAS Bloodwynd anyway? That issue had someone saying something like “OMG, Bloodwynd is really…” and then Doomsy interrupted. The only other JLA I bought around then was the Funeral For a Friend issue, so I never found out wth was going on there.

They certainly made time to attend the funeral.

Still, the scenes of the bloodied Superman, dying in Lois’ arms, his last words being not about himself but about the safety of everyone else, where VERY touching.

But I will agree, it could have been told in much less than seven issues, and it is the weakest part of the trilogy. (I was surprised at how moving it was to see President Clinton delivering the eulogy. At the time, it felt gimmicky, but going back, it was really affecting. Then again, I could just be a sentimental sap. )

A Despero clone crash lands on Earth and beats up the Justice League, then he beats up Superman, but by then, the Justice League have got up again, so he beats them up again, but by then, Superman has got up again, so he beats him up ….again, and so on and so forth for seven long issues. It was the worst type of lazy writing.

I think DC missed a trick in not having Luthor kill Superman. As T has pointed out, Superman’s arch-nemesis often looks a little overmatched and this would have been an opportunity to raise the stakes in subsequent battles – if he’s killed him once before, maybe he can kill him this time.