DOOMSDAY IS DESTRUCTION FROM NEIL GAIMAN’S THE SANDMAN

Enjoy your new headcanon, it’s compulsory.

In 1992, DC Comics published THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, a major event which introduced – Doomsday, an alien agent of annihilation who emerged from nowhere to kill the mighty Man of Steel, dying in the process but always returning to destroy – destroy! — DESTROY!!

Also in 1992, over at DC’s imprint Vertigo Comics, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman embarked on BRIEF LIVES, a nine-issue storyline in which the book’s titular character, Dream of the Endless, with his sister Delirium, seeks out their missing brother, Destruction.

At the end of Brief Lives, The Sandman’s Destruction disappears into nowhere. At the beginning of The Death of Superman, Doomsday appears from nowhere. The conclusion is evident – Read on and you too will agree!

“♬ Kraaaka Kraaaka-Doom Mow Mow Kraaka Doom Mow Mow Karaaaka-Doom Mow Mow Kraka-Doom Mow Mow! Now have you heard he crushes a bird? Yeah on the next page Doomsday crushes a bird! ♬” (Man of Steel #18)

Brief Lives, in short, goes like this: At the core of The Sandman universe are seven siblings – The Endless – each of whom are incarnations of human mood and mortality, all kindsa fun stuff. Some time ago, one brother – Destruction – abandoned his office and disappeared without a trace.

Dream and Delirium undertake a quest for their sibling, and find him living in the Greek Isles, boring everyone to death with his antics. 

Having been found, Destruction explains that, since things have been getting plenty destroyed all right without his help over the last 300 years, he didn’t see the point in returning to his former responsibilities, or passing them on to a different aspect of himself (which is normally the policy). 

And having said that, he gathers up a few things and vanishes into space.

(What exactly constitutes an aspect isn’t defined in a detailed fashion in Sandman, but Dream is later depicted passing on his mantle to a human baby who was born in the land of Dreams, so apparently that’s one way to go about it)

Destruction, fucking right off into space at the end of Brief Lives (The Sandman #48, Brief Lives Part 8)

The Death of Superman is slightly more straightforward: Superman is beaten to death in the streets of Metropolis by a monster of absolute rage called Doomsday, an unkillable brute.

Destruction’s exit from the universe gives him the means, motive and opportunity to appoint an aspect to his important old job in the Office of Blowing Shit Up. With a new aspect on the loose, ex-Destruction would be free to fart around the universe, probably. And if the new aspect is an inarticulate engine of chaos, then there’s no one to spill the beans! A flawless scheme!

The timelines for the events line up well enough (for comics), and it’s frequently been established that there’s a shared continuity between the universes of Superman and Sandman: The second incarnation of Dream has guest-starred with the Justice League (JLA #22-23, Sep-Oct 1998), Death has visited Lex Luthor (Action Comics #893, Oct 2010) and, more hilariously, Captain Atom (Captain Atom #42-43 Jun–Jul 1990), and the list of DC Universe superheroes, supervillains, horror hosts and supporting characters who have made appearances in The Sandman is legion. 

It’s practically Brave and the Bold.

Stuart Immonen’s take on the origin of Doomsday, in the style of Winsor McCay, from Superman: Secret Files and Origins #1 (1998)

One additional advantage to this theory is that it provides a way-y-yy better origin for Doomsday than any previously concocted for him. 

Here’s Doomsday’s whole corny actual origin (established 1994): An ancient Kryptonian scientist with the Muppety-ass name of “Bortron” keeps throwing a baby into a mosh pit until the baby gets big and mean enough to have something to say about the matter, emphatically. From there, he becomes increasingly emphatic across space until he gets to Earth, the end. 

Flat, wan material, however you look at it.

By contrast, there’s poetry to Superman – “the world’s symbol of goodness” – dying at the hands of the incarnation of Destruction, a juggernaut of pure Nihilism, having stopped its endless rampage at the cost of his life. Grant Morrison would pay for that framing.

The big question may simply be this: Can Superman go toe-to-toe with an Endless? The theory doesn't require Superman to defeat a member of the Endless, but relies on Superman's likelihood of coming out even in a scrap with Sandman’s kin.

Like many comic book characters (including Superman) the Endless are portrayed as the ne plus ultra of power and cunning — except when they’re not. 

Just as Superman has his weaknesses (kryptonite, magic, red sun radiation), the Endless have things like big jewelry, magic helmets, and bags of mystical sand – get on the right side of any of these things, and you’re in clover. 

Even Dream, who is sometimes portrayed as powerful enough to clasp the universe between thumb and forefinger like a salmon egg, walks into some real Wile E.Coyote-ass traps sometimes (if Wile E.Coyote were Aleister Crowley, etc).

Which way, Western Superman? (Superman meets Destiny, Superman No. 352)

Now, the Endless are abstract beings in addition to being material beings, so some battles must take place on the battlefields of metaphor – where Superman is already doing very well, thank you! 

Simply by using his tremendous powers selflessly, instead of for personal gain and riches, Superman already proven that he can take on Desire and walk away beaming. And as for Despair – folks, I’m led to understand that’s not an ‘S’ on his chest, apparently it stands for “HOPE!” Now he’s laffin’!

In terms of more-than-mortal, semi-abstract foes of the past, Superman has so far wrestled the King Angel of the Bull Host of the Army of Heaven (JLA #7, Jul 1997), The Voice of The Presence (implicitly God, DC Comics Presents #29, Jan 1981), a vampire super-god (Mandrakk the Monitor, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1-2, Oct 2008 - Mar 2009), a fifth-dimensional imp-god who’s got a fat goose egg on the board after eight decades in the game (every 90 days since Superman #30, Sep 1944), Dr. Manhattan (Doomsday Clock, Nov 2017-Dec 2019), and Darkseid, God of All Evil, whom Superman has knocked on his ass a whole bunch of times. 

And that’s just to name a few! After matches like these, even an Endless looks to be in the same weight class - enough for a draw, anyway!

The Endless are distinguished, in part, by stylized dialogue -- and so is Doomsday!

So far, this theory proposes that Destruction and Doomsday are different aspects of the same incarnation. But what if Doomsday was always the real Endless sibling, and "Destruction" was the fabrication all along?

There’s a question of whether Brief Lives introduces us to the “real” Destruction at all. To begin with, if there are two less reliable narrators in a story than the personifications of Dreams and Delirium, then whoever's in charge is keeping it to themselves. 

Readers might have only been shown Dream’s and Delirium’s idealization of their missing brother, while the real Destruction was off somewhere else, kicking Superman’s teeth in.

Even if the quest of Brief Lives is depicted as it happened, the Destruction to whom the reader is introduced is a dabbler in art, music and food - not blowing shit up. 

Could it be that this Destruction has (like his sister Delirium who had once been known as Delight) evolved into something other than Destruction? Dilettantism, maybe? Distraction? And if he’s no longer Destruction – then who is? (hint: it’s Doomsday)

Destruction creates a void by vanishing, and Doomsday popped up to fill it. Regardless of what actual continuity has to say on the matter — like continuity even matters any more, let’s be honest — the best possible canon for both The Death of Superman and Brief Lives is that Doomsday is Destruction, kin of The Endless, and that’s what counts.

Lastly, here’s the kicker: A conceit of The Sandman for some damn reason was that every sibling’s name began with D: Dream, Destruction, and Delirium (née Delight), Death, Desire, Despair and Destiny.

Doomsday’s name – and brace yourself here – starts with a D.

Case closed!

“♬…Krakka Krakka Krakka Krakka DOOM MOW MOW KARAKKA DOOM MOW MOW! ♬”