Review on Doomsday: What are they doing?

I have to say that making a Doomsday that can't make an even threat with a same set Superman, seems to be a trend.

Back in DC75th they made a very powerful 259 point Doomsday with a severely underpowered Superman in the same set. This figure had two main failings. First, his movement for someone who can leap like the Hulk (high enough to attack airplanes and far enough to go from county to county) his opening movement was pitiful as a 6. Anyone who can jump that far should have an opener of at least an 8. I could understand a max of 10 and going down from there for game balance too. Thanks to that sad movement Doomsday was and is a sitting duck for ranged psychic blast attacks. His trait was cool, but honestly a bit too much. You pick someone on your opponents team and Doomsday does penetrating damage to that person for the whole game (if he can catch them). It became kind of redundant on half his dial thanks to having exploit weakness. Everything else pretty much rocked on him.

Now, in the upcoming Superman set, we have a new Doomsday. The sculpt shows him with one arm tied behind his back as if he just got out of his buried prison. When posted on Facebook, the responses were very mixed. It was a love/hate combination and I could see why. Check out this pic:

So, first of all there's his trait. He uses battle fury (so he can't be carried) and can't be placed by telekinesis. I really wouldn't care about that if it weren't for the rest of his power issues. Like his movement that gives him charge. So long as he's using charge he can ignore hindering terrain and other characters for the move. You know what he doesn't get? That's right, leap/climb. They try to make up for this with his damage power, but it's only any good at the last three clicks of his dial where his defense is crud. Let's not forget that power is only any good if there's only one figure left on your opponents team.

Let's take a look at his opening damage, shall we? It's a 2. Huh? A casual swat from this monster only does a two? You have to wait and use close combat expert to get his real damage. I'm sorry, but yuck! Quake is okay, with the angle they are using (him having an arm tied up and all) but that didn't reduce his damage dealing by that much. Check this out:

Note what Guy looks like and how he says he didn't even have time to fight back. That's how it was for pretty much the whole JLA except Maxima. Even she took a pounding. That brings us to his opening attack value. It's a pitiful 9. For plenty of lesser figures out there a 9 is fine. But this brute stomped a whole team of supers in less than five minutes. It's listed in the book as "moments" or "seconds" and he only has an attack opener of 9? Never mind the fact he did all that with one hand tied behind his back.

DC75th had his reactive adaptation power on board. In this new one they try to use that in form of his stats getting nastier as he goes, except his defense. But if you look at how his power worked, you would see the dial misses the mark. If anything, his defense should go UP as his resistance gets stronger. In all the stories, when he's hurt by something, next time he's practically immune to it. So he should have started with invulnerable and moved up to impervious. If you're going to use combat reflexes, make the opening damage a 3 and have it move up.

As for a trait that would be more useful, try this: All characters must roll breakaway from Doomsday regardless of traits, team abilities, or powers. Anyone with the Superman Team ability, name of Superman, or the Kryptonian keyword is -1 to break away roll.

That makes his slow movement more acceptable. After all, he wants to kill Kryptonians and especially Superman, remember?

Sorry guys, while most of the Superman set looks exciting, this Doomsday is dismal. It's not even Doomsday, it's Mediocre Threat Day at best.