Read Here First
In Metropolis, Lois Lane tries to sell editor Perry White on a story exposing Lex Luthor’s phony charity scam. Perry will have none of it and tells Lois to let it go, then urges Clark Kent to be careful on his foreign correspondent assignment–and to try to remember to write the occasional story. Clark bids Lois and Jimmy Olsen goodbye.
Later, at his Fortress of Solitude, Superman agonizes over the fact that even with all his amazing powers he cannot come up with a cure for cancer, lamenting that he wants to be more than Earth’s resident strongman. Lois asks Superman why he insists on bringing her to the Fortress so they can be alone, then accuses him of hiding his greatest secret from her–his true identity, which she claims she all but knows for certain already. Superman claims that he’s doing so to keep her protected, but she insists he’s doing it because he’s afraid to commit.
Elsewhere, outside of Metropolis, scientists working for Luthor unocover an alien spaceship. They accidentally open the ship, releasing a monster who kills them all and begins a destructive and murderous rampage towards the city. At the Fortress, Superman’s robot alerts him to the trouble, identifying the monster as a genetically engineered Doomsday weapon designed to destroy anything in its path. Superman flies Lois to Metropolis, then engages the monster in a terrific battle. The battle rages across the city until Superman flies Doomsday up into the stratosphere and brings the monster hurling down again, smashing a crater into the city of Metropolis. Doomsday is defeated, but Superman falls lifeless to the ground and dies in Lois’s arms.
Lois, Perry, and Jimmy are among the thousands at Superman’s funeral. Lois sees an elderly woman whom she recognizes from a photo on Clark’s desk as his mother. Even Luthor arrives to apparently pay his respects. Later, when Perry urges Lois to take some time off, she journeys to Smallville and visits Martha Kent, saying that she (Lois) and Martha’s son (as Superman) had been intimate for several months, and that Martha was the only other person who could understand how Lois felt in the aftermath of Superman’s death. Martha invites Lois in for a cup of coffee.
Rating
The film’s generous amount of violence and adult language garnered a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. Most of the more visceral deaths take place just off-camera (for example, Doomsday snapping the neck of an Armed Forces soldier), however the fight sequences are very intense–during the Doomsday/Superman fight, Superman vomits a puddle of blood onto the ground, perhaps the most visual use of blood in the entire film.[citation needed] The language in the film is mature for a comic animation, with numerous characters uttering “damn” and “ass” repeatedly.
When shown in syndicated television on Toonami, it received many cuts of blood, violence, language, and adult themes. Parts of the brutal fight for Superman and Doomsday were cut out entirely, as well as the off screen portions (in fact, no actual punches between the human combatants were shown, nor were Doomsday’s blows whenever they struck Superman). It received a TV-PG DSV rating for its Toonami rating and a parental advisory warning. This is inconsistent with other animated programs they have shown on the movie blocks, notably the Hellboy animated movies.