Since Superman Returns and Man of Steel in 2006 and 13, respectively, it has not been an easy thing to get a new version of Superman off of the ground. Everyone has a competing vision and, ironically, one of the character’s greatest villains has appeared more often than Superman and we saw him for the first time in live-action on Smallville.
As of this story’s filing, the above post on Reddit is burning up with comments about the character who was the first to famously bring Superman down for the count in the pages of comics from 1992-93. As the post notes, he made his first live-action debut on the WB/CW television series Smallville which ran from 2001-11. In comments, many fans say this is the worst look for the character while one argues this was the best the production could do with their budget in 2009 and with tricks, it does turn out to be fine.
Indeed, if you do look at clips from the era, it does at least look like a serviceable effects piece for Tom Welling’s Clark Kent to go up against. Elsewhere in the comments, different users echo this discourse by saying this Doomsday was better than the show’s version of Darkseid they put out toward the end of its run and, for one, none do the character justice and instead are reminiscent of sub-par animation work.
Of course, the most recent version pops up on the Superman & Lois television show now heading into its fourth and final season and here is a composite with another famous Superman villain. While he is definitely more realized than the earlier Smallville example, people are still not won over and feel given his simplicity, it should not be so hard to bring him to life with great makeup and a physically good body.
Where the character will pop up next beyond the presumably final season of Superman & Lois remains to be seen. He will certainly likely not look like he did on Smallville in the future and, if anyone is going to come back from this project, it will be some of the flesh-and-blood actors as other heroic characters.