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The infamous Doomsday Vs. Superman battle in the Death of Superman saga from DC is among the most famous of all comic books. I personally own most of the saga and always counted it among the legends. However, if there was a backstory to the villain I don't own it.
Where did Doomsday come from? What is he?
I'm looking for canon answers, from the ORIGINAL comics from the 90's. None of the new(er) animated movie stuff.
My answer pertains only to the modern age Doomsday. I haven't looked into his origins in the New 52 yet:
Doomsday is a bioengineered Kryptonian creature. This is pulled from the superman wiki... I've read the referenced comics before (Superman/Doomsday Hunter/Prey and The Death of Superman) and can confirm the info is correct: You can find Doomsday's bio here
Thousands of years into Krypton's obscure past, long before the humanoid Kryptonian race managed to gain dominance over the planet, Doomsday was originally an infant humanoid, probably a Kryptonian; he was known at this point simply as baby. An alien scientist known as Bertron saw the environment of his home world. During this time, Krypton was a violent and harsh world equivalent of hell, where only the absolute strongest lifeforms could afford to survive. Because of this, Bertron was influenced to create the perfect creature that could be suitable for the Kryptonian environment and decided to perform experiments on a baby. Due to the cruel nature of the experiments, the baby evolved into a killing monster, with a hatred of all life. (Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey)
Doomsday was able to escape from Krypton on a random supply ship, which came regularly to bring supplies to Bertron and his team. From there, he began to rampage across the universe. (Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey)
The final planet Doomsday invaded during this era was a highly advanced planet known as Catalan. All of their advanced technology was unable to stop him, until they created a superbeing made of pure energy, who they called The Radiant. This being was able to kill the seemingly unstoppable monster, and they wrapped him up in funerary clothes and tied him up as best they could, launching him into space. (Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey)
Drifting through endless space, the coffin came to land on Earth, where it remained buried for years, dormant. He spent thousands of years buried, wiggling his way out little by little until finally escaping and restarting his rampage (The Death of Superman)
Add On:
Hunter/Prey is where you'll get almost all of Doomsday's backstory. They also did a Doomsday: Year One that builds on it a little more but I haven't read it yet
Doomsday's backstory is revealed mostly in a follow-up to the original Death of Superman storyline, in a special 3-part series called *Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey". Specifically, issue 2 of that series reveals who Doomsday is and where he came from.
To summarize: he was a creature originally called "The Ultimate" that was the result of an "experiment in evolution" on prehistoric Krypton (long before the Kryptonians came there). An alien scientist sent a humanoid infant out on to Krypton (I don't think we find out where the scientist nor the infant originally came from), where he promptly died. The scientist then used his remains as the basis for a stronger version, and repeated that process until the child could survive on his own. Part of that process meant that the suffering and death of his predecessors was embedded into his DNA, producing the uncontrollable rage he suffered from.
Eventually, "The Ultimate" kills his creator and escapes from Krypton, flies around the galaxy being a murderous jerk, until he crash-lands on Earth and is buried deep underground for a long time. When he re-emerges, someone gives him the nickname Doomsday, and that leads into Death of Superman.
