Doomsday

Doomsday is a fictional character, a supervillain that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appears in Superman: The Man of Steel #17 (Nov. 1992), and was created by writer-artist Dan Jurgens. Since 1992, Doomsday is the only supervillain to have successfully killed Superman, although Superman was later revealed to be in suspended animation. In 2009, Doomsday was ranked as IGN's 46th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.

Doomsday was created in the distant past on Krypton, long before the humanoid Kryptonian race had gained dominance over the planet. It was a violent, hellish world where only the absolute strongest of creatures could survive. At the time, the world's dominant life-forms were said to be the most dangerous creatures in the universe.[4][5] In an effort to create the ultimate life-form, the alien scientist Bertron sent an infant who was born in a lab in vitro to the surface of the planet where it would be promptly killed by the harsh environment. Its remains were harvested and used to clone a stronger version of it, a process repeated countless times as a form of accelerated artificial breeding. The agony of these deaths were recorded in his genes, driving the creature to hate all life. Evolving, eventually the child was able to survive the hot temperature and rock landscape, only to be quickly killed by the savage creatures that inhabited the planet. Eventually, it gained the ability to return to life and adapt and overcome what killed it in its prior life without the need of Bertron's technology. "The Ultimate" hunted and killed all of the dangerous creatures that then inhabited Krypton, including Bertron, whom he had come to identify as unfriendly, due to having been "killed" by him hundreds upon hundreds of times.[4]

The Ultimate escaped Krypton via a ship that regularly came to deliver supplies to Bertron - who wanted little contact with the planet's natives - and went on a killing spree across several planets. It began 245,000 years ago on Bylan 5, where Darkseid was about to wed a princess (in order to obtain that planet's chemical deposits for Apokolips' weapons factories). Just as the Ultimate and Darkseid were to meet in combat, Darkseid was forced to flee, as the battle had caused the planet's atmosphere to become toxic and therefore worthless to Apokolips. The Ultimate hitched a ride on an escaping shuttle, which crashed on Khundia. The warring Khundian clans united in order to build protective armor for a warrior named Kobald, who was hoped to survive long enough to force the Ultimate onto a rocket. Once the rocket was in space, the Ultimate killed Kobald and the resulting explosion sent him hurling through space.

It next came across the path of a Green Lantern named Zharan Pel. The Ultimate took the Lantern's power ring and, sensing the power of the Guardians of the Universe, made his way to them. Hundreds of Green Lanterns were sent to stop it and were killed. It continued to Oa where a single Guardian sacrificed himself in battle to defeat it. But the release of energies by the Guardian caused a tear in space through which the Ultimate fell. Eventually coming to Calaton, it tore that world apart for three years.[4] With only the capital city left, the royal family combined their life forces into a single energy being, The Radiant.[2][4] The Radiant killed the Ultimate with a huge blast of energy (laying waste to over a fifth of his planet in the process). In common Calatonian burial procedures, the Ultimate's seemingly-dead body was shackled and masked to prevent his spirit escaping into the afterlife, and he was shot into space due to his murders making him unworthy of burial on Calaton. Eventually, it landed on Earth, the force of the impact driving the casket deep underground.