Adventures of Superbro: Doomed

Doomed was one of those crossovers that went way too long and derailed Action and Superman/Wonder Woman series. But we all probably have some stories that we know aren't very good, but for one reason or another we like them. Doomed is one of those for me. And well, I'm not going to try to persuade anyone that it is worth getting or totally key event in Superbro's life. I got something weirder instead.

As any totally not insane person I sometimes wonder how to improve a flawed story. And Doomed is, if anything, very flawed. So I did what any other normal person would do - "found" digital files of Doomed and decided to improve it by altering those files. So what follows is a list of changes that I made and my explanation for why I made them.

I'm okay with Pak's and Soule's writing, Lobdell and Bedard? Not so much. So one of the goals was to remove as much of their writing as possible since it usually was noticeably weaker than Pak's or Soule's. For that reason I removed 019-021; 026-029, 032-035 files. Asides of being written by Lobdell, scenes with Eradicator and Kryptonians waking up really didn't have anything to do with the story. I also had to remove the last panel from 025 file since it leads directly into 026.

Next I removed 045 file. Wondering if it is ok for Superman to kill Doomsday and if it is sentient could be an interesting plot point, but it never really gets developed so I think it is better if it is dropped entirely. In 062's last panel I removed "Clark" speech bubble since it leads to 063 and I really wanted to drop it for ridiculous WW's "bring me his head" moment.

But while I overall enjoyed Soule's work I removed some of his stuff as well: 183-204. One of the reasons was that it really did read like a filler and it featured Red Lantern Supergirl. Whats my problem with that story? I wouldn't say that I have problems with it, but I think it is just adding more fluff for story that doesn't need it. Besides, towards the end we see her back to normal without much explanation so it does read a bit weird.

Naturally I ended up removing Red Lantern Supergirl related files from following chapter written by Pak: 211-222. And I really didn't understand Superdoom's fight with that alien dude, it just reads weird to me. And well, it is obvious filler.

Towards the end of the story we get two fillers of Supergirl by Bedard. It is mostly terrible stuff that doesn't have anything to do with Doomed or what will happen next with Supergirl. So for that reason I removed 361-382 and 445-466 files. Sure, technically first filler has Cyborg Superman in last two pages, but I don't feel like it adds anything meaningful and main chapters provide sufficient explanation for their connection.

One thing that bugged me for a long time is that Action Comics #30 is not fully collected in Superman - Dommed collection nor in Superman - Action Comics Vol. 5 - What Lies Beneath. And well, getting Superman - Action Comics Vol. 6 is redundant if you already got Superman - Dommed. Anyway, Doomed has only pages featuring Doomsday, but nothing with Harrow who ends up being relevant to the overall story as well. So I also "found" digital files of Action #30 as well and added them to the beginning of the story next to those Doomsday files.

So thats that, this certainly doesn't "change" the story, if you didn't like it before you are not going to like it after these changes either. I also don't expect any sane person to repeat these steps that I did, but I did them and I felt like I had to let it out so that my insanity wouldn't live only in my head and my computer.

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