Action Comics #11

Superman holding his complete Clark Kent costume in his left hand.

You know who I miss in this comic? Anguished Fat Man. I think he’d enjoy the first page of Action Comics #11.

Oh look! He’s back in the center of the action!

This Metalek wanna-be Gobot (yeah, he can’t even dream of being a Transformer. He just wants to be a Gobot) is defeated by Superman in the next page or two. I guess some guy fixing up his yard with a rented Bobcat suddenly had delusions of grandeur and pimped out the Bobcat to take over Metropolis. Too bad Metropolis already has an overlord, even if he is a goody two-shoes. I don’t understand why criminals don’t just move to another state where there are less Supermans, Batmans, Green Lanterns, and Flashes. I don’t think any super heroes are working out of Arizona. Hmm, but then you’d have to live in Arizona. Okay, okay. I see why they tempt fate by breaking laws in the livable states.

Afterword, the crowd laments being homeless. But Superman doesn’t have time for all of that negative Nellie bullshit! He just looks on the bright side and tells everybody that they’re housing was substandard anyway. And Metalek the Raging Bobcat just did them a favor. But at least Supes puts his muscles where his mouth is and helps them rebuild.

Extreme Kryptonian Home Makeovers.

Since I’ve finally been catching up on all of The New 52 books, I’ve started reading other people’s reviews to see what people think of the various titles and how opinions may match what I’ve been saying. I read one guy who hated The New 52 and was trashing what they’ve done to Superman and what a gigantic jerk they’ve made him out to be. I think the guy let his negative attitude cloud his judgment because Superman has not actually been a jerk in these early issues. I guess if you’re a ruthless businessman fucking over the middle class, yeah, he’s been a jerk. What I think the reviewer missed was that Superman is young and idealistic. He has yet to learn that even he can’t make the world perfect and, as Batman pointed out last issue, Superman needs to be careful not to become a one man authoritarian police force. He’s still learning how to go about changing things for the better. He needs to learn when Clark Kent’s talents are more important than Superman’s although I think he’s done a pretty good job mixing the two up until now. And this is the first time in my life I’ve really liked Superman. Instead of stories revolving around the knowledge that Superman is a good guy with heart that wants to help the helpless, he’s actively doing it. He’s not just beating up the bad muscles.

Oh! And this is a great example of all of that, including Batman’s warning!

The people were worried about being homeless, so Superman rebuilds their homes. But they aren’t owned by these people. He just built a better building for the property owners who are more than likely going to want higher rent on the refurbished apartments! Thus, the people are all probably going to still end up homeless! Supes is missing Batman’s bigger picture due to his idealism and youth.

Superman has taken up a new secret identity since Clark Kent supposedly died in the explosion outside his newspaper’s offices. He’s now posing as Johnny Clark the Fireman! Instead of glasses as a disguise, he’s now wearing a skully. Or skull cap. Or stocking cap. Or tuque. Or knit cap. Or beanie. Whatever! It’s the cap that Spock always wore when he needed to hide his ears! Like in the episode, “Assignment: Earth,” when the Enterprise visits 1968 Earth and to appear in one of those television pilots disguised as an episode of a pre-existing show.

The other firemen head down to Bibbo’s after, in case anyone cared if Bibbo still existed in The New 52. Anyone?

Later, Superman goes to see Batman about his secret identity problem.

Superman quickly learning that Batman knows everything.

As if Batman doesn’t have enough to do, he now needs to figure out how to bring Clark Kent back to life for Superman because Superman misses flirting with Lois Lane. And by flirting, I mean being brow beaten into constantly running her errands.

But even if Clark Kent had lived, he wouldn’t have had to put up with that for long!

Is that birth control or blush flying out of Lois’s purse?

Time for the Cliff’s Notes version of the rest of the book! These Metalek guys are alien invaders trying to kill the Future Child. Lois’s niece Susie is the Future Child who can read the minds of hamsters and draw weird Fibonacci shapes and turn her eyes into star maps. The reported sightings of Superman that didn’t involve Superman because they were too long ago were actually of “The Spaceman” who has come to save Suzie. He needs to keep her safe since The Multitude is coming to destroy Earth. They’re the invasion (or whatever!) that the Brainiac A.I. was warning Earth about and why the Brainiac A.I. had come to Earth to micronize Metropolis. Superman learns this about the Multitude from the Brainiac A.I.:

Everything that lives fears the multitude. Beautiful and numberless and without mercy. No one has ever seen them and survived. They leave in the wake of their passing the wreckage of worlds.

But Superman also learns that, somehow, Jor-el, Supes’ father, repelled the Multitude even though it was declared impossible. And that Krypton’s destruction wasn’t because the Multitude was successful but because of simple misfortune. Maybe. Something like that!

Anyway, all the threads of the previous ten issues are coming together nicely. And that Cliff’s Note section I just typed up should keep me informed on what’s going on when Issue #12 comes out. Or Issue #0? Whatever, DC!

The back-up story is called “Clothes Encounter” and I think it will explain why Superman sometimes wears his jeans and sometimes wears his Kryptonian Supersuit. Like sometimes maybe one suit is being cleaned just like I speculated!

Except it’s just a dumb story about every t-shirt shop in Metropolis selling “original” Superman t-shirts. Dumb.

Action Comics #11 Rating: No change. I would have given this a +1 but Batman still doesn’t deserve to drop from #1. But I should remember this for later so that I don’t move Wonder Woman or Aquaman up past Action Comics since Action Comics doesn’t deserve to drop from #2 right now either! Stupid ratings are stupid and complicated.

Action Comics #10

Genesis 10:8-9: “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.” So basically, Nimrod was such a mighty hunter before the Lord that people would gasp, “That’s Nimrod the might hunter before the Lord!”

Maxim Zarov, codenamed “Nimrod” for obvious reasons (see above Bible quote), is on the hunt for Superman. He decided to begin tracking him from the beginning: the earliest known sightings of him. Doing his research, he noted that for 20 years (20 years? What the fuck?), the Superman sightings were centered around a couple of family farms in Kansas. Once he learned Clark Kent lived on one of them and then moved to Metropolis, he knew he had the scent of his game.

Good luck with that.

Farmer Fry who currently owns the Kent farm gives Clark a heads up that some stranger was asking about him. Clark is too distracted hunting down a serial killer to remember the warning.

Look how young and idealistic young Superman is! He’s going to change the world!

While Superman is catching this pervert, he’s wearing his Shirt and Jeans uniform. So I began to think that maybe this took place before the Brainiac Satellite story. But that’s not true because in the next scene, he’s wearing the uniform he received during that battle. He probably felt he should have it washed before wearing it. Little does he know, he should probably have irradiated it before wearing it since it tries to kill him five years later! Rather, the Nano-Bugs on it try to kill him.

I bet Jason Todd would like those Hamsters!

Supes is trying to give away the hamsters that belonged to the murdering perv from earlier. But it looks like he’d also like to tackle some really major world problems with his new Justice League buddies.

Timewise, it looks like this comic takes place after he’s secured the suit and emptied Brainiac’s satellite but before the Justice League begin using the satellite as their headquarters because Supers is using it as his Fortress of Solitude. It also happens after Darkseid’s invasion and before Supes meets with the Legion Members to stop the arms sale in Superman’s brain. I don’t know which Robin Batman is currently working with or if Diana is currently boinking Steve Trevor. This continuity stuff is hard to keep track of!

This is a very clever moment. Superman, the naive boy scout, casually mentions Batman’s secret identity. He doesn’t mean anything by it at all. He’s just pointing out they have the resources to help the world. But Batman can’t let it go. He has to regain the power by pointing out to Superman that he knows Supes’ secret identity as well! This is characterization done elegantly.

Afterward as Flash is speaking his mind, Green Lantern casually says to Batman in the background, “You’re a billionaire?” Batman replies, “No comment.” Hal Jordan is pretty shallow and narcissistic. In Justice League, Batman told Green Lantern his secret identity. But Hal Jordan never bothered to look into it, obviously. Batman would have known everything about Hal Jordan in just a few minutes if Hal had revealed his identity because Alfred would have heard the name through the communication set-up they probably have and done all the research in the Batcave! You know, because he has all of those billions of dollars at his disposal!

Batman’s rejoinder to Superman’s plea.

And back to Superman.

This dynamic between Superman and Batman is wonderful. They complement each other so well. And Superman really needs Batman to hold his idealism in check. Superman is young and believes he has a responsibility to do everything he can to change the world for the better. But as Batman points out, many of these problems are bigger than simply not enough food or evil people that can be stopped by a bulletproof chest and a pair of laser eyes. I like how Superman leaves feeling alone and misunderstood. And, of course, Batman gets the last word.

People call Superman a boy scout but it’s Batman who is always prepared.

All of this dialogue takes place across two pages. Barely a word is wasted. This is why, at some point in their lives, comic book fans stop following characters and begin following writers. I read mostly DC as a kid because I began reading comic books with Crisis on Infinite Earths. I didn’t read Marvel because no kid has the money to spend on two universes. But you pretend that Spiderman and the Fantastic Four and Thor all suck compared to DC’s heroes. By the time you can afford to buy any comics you want, you’re invested with the history of one universe and don’t usually bother with the other (one reason many people hate The New 52: they were invested in the DC Universe. Which still fucking exists, by the way. People need to stop crying about the Reboot and start bitching about the bad writers). But at some point, the history and characters aren’t enough. Patterns begin to emerge and you notice the same names over and over again on all of the best titles. So you read those titles. And then those writers move to Marvel. Well, guess what? You follow them over there and they blow you away with Marvel’s characters.

Grant Morrison is one of those names. I might sound like Grant’s grandmum extolling his every virtue, but this book is very well done. If it wasn’t, I’d say so but I’d be perplexed because I know how good he can be. If I hadn’t decided to read all of The New 52 and comment on it, you can be sure I’d be reading far less comics and they’d cross the spectrum of all the publishers. I’m currently reading Super Crooks and Hit Girl as well because Millar is worth reading. But I’m not blogging about those. I don’t even have enough time to blog about the New 52. *sigh*

Back to the comic, Clark and Lois and Jimmy are messing about in Clark’s apartment. Looks like Clark’s trying to foist the hamsters on one of them. Clark is checking out Lois’s scrapbook of Superman sightings while Jimmy checks out Clark’s Smallville Yearbook.

Clark continues to point out many of these are years before Superman’s “first” official sighting. So that’s why Nimrod mentions 20 plus years of Superman sightings.

Nimrod watches as Clark and his friends head to lunch. Clark notices him and seems a bit suspicious.

Meanwhile, some metahuman with a hoodie, cape, and mind control powers hitches a ride into Metropolis. He has a glowing jewel in his chest and he calls himself Adam. I don’t know who he is since I doubt he’s Stormwatch’s or Shazam’s Adam.

Lois continues to try and get Clark to come over to the Daily Planet while they head back from lunch. They notice a commotion in front of Clark’s paper (or old paper? Not sure of the timeline again!) where a man is pushing his way through the crowd. Clark thinks he recognizes him from a story he did and runs toward him to see if he can help. Always with the helping!

And the exploding. Always with that too.

Superman allows everyone to believe Clark Kent is dead. For the time being, I guess, since Clark is fine and dandy years later in Superman! But for now, it works to his advantage since Nimrod heads into Clark’s apartment to find out from the landlady that Kent is dead. Nimrod can’t believe it and thinks someone has killed Superman before him. Until, you know, Superman shows up. Nimrod pretty much takes care of himself at that point by exploding things off of Superman’s chest and into his own face.

Later, in the hospital, Nimrod realizes his own arrogance in knowing that everything leaves a trail but forgetting that that includes himself as well. This time, the prey got the better of him. But the Little Man (Mxyzptlk?) has an offer for Nimrod.

Or Satan!

The back-up story takes place after the events in Action Comics #11! Does DC think I have access to a time machine? Is this meant to fuck with people who can’t do things out of order? What if there are spoilers! Okay. Deep breath. I think I can manage!

Clark’s friends and co-workers are telling tales about their recently deceased friend (remember? He blew up! I just mentioned that like thirty seconds ago!). Jimmy mentions how accident prone Clark was but those accidents always managed to save someone else from getting hurt! What a lucky guy!

Then Lois says some emotional stuff about what a good person he was and how he made everyone around him better. And then they all leave the bar and wish Clark had been there to hear all the great praise. Lois thinks it would have surprised him because he was so humble. But *gasp* Superman was listening the whole time! And it touched him so much maybe he’ll save Clark Kent in Issue #12! Also, Superman was wearing his t-shirt and jeans costume. Maybe he saves the Jim Lee Supersuit for Justice League during these early years.

Action Comics #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. I really enjoy comics like this where the big threat really isn’t a big threat at all. But the reader gets a glimpse into various aspects of Superman’s life here and they’re all very well done. I know this is comics so the readers expect the big fisticuff issues but it’s issues like these where the reader gets close to the main character so that the reader can care what happens during those big fisticuffs. Supergirl needs a few of these issues. She’s already had plenty of getting her ass handed to her.

The back-up story was fairly standard cliche crap but it was written by Sholly Fisch. I don’t really expect much out of the back-up stories even though they’re costing me an extra dollar.

Action Comics #9

What is Earth 23 like? I’m excited to find out!

Let me start by saying I think the Little Man might be Mr. Mxyztplk of the New 52. I mentioned it in different non-Action Comics commentary, so I thought I would put it out here while I’m thinking about it. Also, the last story finished the big initial storyline and this one takes place on an alternate Earth, so I probably don’t need a recap.

Can’t a man hate black Superman for reasons other than his skin color? Like his annoying need to stop criminals? Stop snitchin’, bitch!

Superman of Earth 23 handily defeats Lex Luthor on page one. Lex Luthor nearly has a stroke trying to convince Superman that he hates Superman because of everything about him and it’s not about his race. Poor, misunderstood Lex Luthor. He doesn’t hate Superman because he’s black. He hates Superman because he’s from Krypton! That’s a totally different kind of racism. Get it right!

Superman investigates Lex’s lair to see what he was up to and finds a giant cube which serves as a gateway between dimensions. This sounds like another object that is going to completely screw up DC Continuity!

“All right, Mister Morrison! Pull over and show me your writer’s license. Do you have Didio’s permission to fuck up continuity?”

While investigating the giant cube, some dimensional travelers step out of it.

These are alternate versions of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Clark Kent. Well, they were alternate versions of Jimmy and Clark.

Lois and her now burned up freedom fighters are dimension hopping looking for help to stop some great evil from their Earth. Superman 23 believes that he can help them. Or her since the others have fried to a crisp. Or nearly. Clark is still clinging to life.

What happened? How did they come to Earth 23? The three friends developed a machine which could amplify their thoughts and create real objects. The power of their machine was not great enough for these objects to last though. And they wanted to create a Superman to solve all of the world’s problems. So they needed funding. They went to Overcorp.

It’s Mxyztplk! Is he in every world?

What they created was the ultimate product. The symbol ended up on everything. Everybody wanted to be associated with Superman. Everything became branded with its symbol. So Lois and Clark and Jimmy ran. They used their machine to jump from one reality to another. But the Superman of their Earth pursued them.

Is this why Tiny Titans was cancelled? This Superman destroyed their world?

Before Superman 23 destroys Superman Brand X, Superman 23 gets a call from his assistant about an intense situation in Libya. See, Superman 23 is also the president of the United States. But he can’t deal with politics while he’s saving the world! So he sends in his Brainiac double to keep peace on the world stage.

He doesn’t actually look like that. Although there are probably people like David Icke of Earth 23 who catch glimpses of him like this and report it and they’re called crazy and conspiracy theorists. But look! It’s real! And only they know the truth!

Superman 23 and Superman Brand X blather and dance until Superman Brand X gets the upper hand and knocks Superman 23 across the room. That’s when Luthor steps in with his “I told you so’s”.

In Swamp Thing #9, I posted a Young Ones pic. And now Lex Luthor uses the phrase, “Fascist Bully Boy,” which I learned from The Young Ones.

With Luthor’s help, Superman overpowers the Superman Brand. He traps it in-between wavelengths in Luthor’s Transmatter Array (the thing it came out of in the first place). The fight is over. But since it’s been trapped between wavelengths in some machine that allows people to go from one Earth to another, I imagine this Superman Brand X will wind up on Earth 1 sometime in the future. And Superman 1 won’t have any idea what it is or how to defeat it. I imaging that’s the main reason this story was told. It’s the origin for a future Superman enemy.

The back-up story is a nice story about Superman 23 and his role as America’s president. As Superman, he disables Qurac’s Firestorm programs while discussing the situation with Qurac’s president on his Bluetooth. After the mission is complete and the phone call is ended, Wonder Woman 23 has a few philosophical issues with Superman 23 being president.

For all you racists out there, you can still like Batman on Earth 23. He was white.

Action Comics #9 Rating: No change. I enjoyed both stories in this comic although I may have liked the backup story by Sholly Fisch a little bit more. Both stories dealt with the idea of a great power overstepping its bounds and going from a protector to a fascist. It’s what Luthor has always seen in Superman and feared. And it’s the question Wonder Woman is pondering at the end of the backup story. What is it about Superman that keeps him from crossing that line? And if he ever does cross it, will he know it? Will he make excuses for his abuse of power? Or will his Justice League friends keep him balanced?

Action Comics #8

Seeing as how Brainiac’s ship was Superman’s original Fortress of Solitude, I’m pretty sure I know who is going to win.

There’s a lot going on at the beginning of this comic. Lex Luthor doesn’t want Superman to save them because he believes the end of the world is now imminent and the only way to survive is to stay preserved in the bottle. The human head of the Brainiac creature is yelling at Lois through the glass to convince her that he is the reason Metropolis is being saved. Superman is just trying to beat the crap out of it. Lois and Jimmy Olsen are taking notes to turn this into a great story. And Glenmorgan is freaking out about the Little Man.

I knew there was something weird about that little man!

Oh! I just realized that the human part of the Collector of Worlds is that guy who loved Lois and wore the experimental Steel armor! The Metal-Zero crap! No wonder he was talking to Lois and trying to get her to believe it was his idea to save Metropolis! So he’s been incorporated into the Brainiac Unit to create the Human Centuarpede look it has! Although now that I’ve figured it out, Superman has ripped the human part out of the rest of it. And the Collector has been infected with EMOTION by the human and the metal-zero! Now Superman can make it cry!

See? Even the Centuar part of the creature knows it’s a Centipede!

Lois Lane’s military ex finally decides he doesn’t want to be Brainiac’s puppet so he begins to fight it alongside Superman. After tackling it, he tells Superman to save them if he can! Perhaps being pulled off of the Centuarpede caused him to get a piece of his mind back.

Superman finally threatens to destroy Brainiac’s collection and it stops Brainiac short since he’s spent millennia saving these bits of destroyed worlds. Brainiac doesn’t understand why Superman doesn’t want salvation. It looks like Brainiac knows the Terminauts are coming because they have a Master List of 333 worlds to be destroyed. And Earth is next on the list. So it looks like Brainiac and the Terminauts are definitely separate entities.

Brainiac doesn’t believe Superman will harm it and Superman probably won’t. But he flicks his tiny baby rocket at Brainiac like it’s a bullet so that it can interface with Brainiac and Superman can take control. Superman collapses after this but crawls into a patch of sunlight shining through the window of the Brainiac Satellite and begins to recuperate. And once his Baby Rocket interfaces with the Collector, Superman gives it a voice command to reinstate and magnify Metropolis. It is put back on Earth.

Once everything in Metropolis calms down a bit and people begin to forget (or at least go on pretending nothing cosmically catastrophic just happened to them. You know, the way we all do every single day but only certain people labeled schizophrenic seem to remember clearly), Clark Kent ends up talking with his boss at the Daily Star. He’s proud of Clark for bringing Glenmorgan down although Kent is sorry that Glenmorgan lost his mind while in the bottle. Of course, Clark doesn’t know anything about the Little Man that was the cause of it all! But Kent’s boss decides Clark has bigger things in store for him than being a reporter on a tiny paper like the Daily Star.

Isn’t a Star bigger than a Planet?! Let me check the internet. Hum de dum. It is!

Clark Kent has also been getting huge leads via a mystery man named “Icarus”. Kent asks him if he’s Superman, to which the other person says, “Superman? Just call me Icarus.” It is, of course, Lex Luthor. I’m sure he was glad to help put Glenmorgan down so he could come up and fill the vacuum. I like that Clark asks his lead if he’s Superman. Nice obfuscation, Kent!

John Corben (that’s the name of the guy that was part of the Human Centuarpede and is Lois Lane’s ex) is being held in sedation by the military. The Metal-Zero armor has fused to his central nervous system. He’s alive but nobody knows how. Lane’s father wants to make sure he gets nothing but the best of care. Who knows what horrible villain he’ll come back as! Probably the next iteration of Brainiac.

Finally, Clark’s landlady has a talk with Clark about his secret identity as Superman. She found his costume when the police were searching his place for Glenmorgan and she kept it safe so they wouldn’t find it. Of course Clark wants to make sure his secret is safe with her.

This is just a good all around page.

Superman receives a Giant Key to Metropolis and tells the reporters a little bit about himself. It’s actually stuff even he has just learned. He’s from Krypton. He actually looks like a human. The t-shirt and jeans look is over now that he’s recovered this formal and indestructible suit that’s also from Krypton. And he explains that he’s there to stand up for people that can’t stand up for themselves. He’s there to stay.

After that, he flies off to the Smallville Cemetery to speak with his parents. At first I thought they fixed the spelling of Cemetery over the entrance gate:

See? Fixed!

But then:

What?! I guess it must be a separate entrance! Or seperete? Zing!

And the story finishes up with Superman back on Brainiac’s satellite and speaking with it in Kryptonese. So I guess Superman is taking care of all the little worlds now. And they’ll all be transferred to his Fortress of Solitude in time.

The issue finishes up with a two page prologue. Pshaw! Stupid Grant Morrison! You can’t finish with a prologue! You’re such a stupid head! I mean, sure it’s a prologue to a future storyline! Or maybe it’s the prologue at the end of the book for the story that appeared in issues #5 and #6! Now that’s a mind fuck!

Oh man! I forgot that I was going to explain the Nimrod the Hunter thing in Issue #6 when one of the Legionnaires mentioned that Nimrod the Hunter shot the Tesseract into Superman’s brain! But now I don’t have to because Morrison did it for me. Although I still haven’t explained how Bugs Bunny turned the term ‘Nimrod’ into an insult! Because he was just using ‘Nimrod’ sarcastically when he was calling Elmer Fudd a Nimrod since Nimrod was supposedly a great hunter, Biblically speaking. As this Nimrod points out. And Fudd sucked so Bugs used it mockingly. But people just picked up on the idea that it was an insult. “What’s up, Nimod?”

Man, that was a long caption! The Little Man is apparently hiring this hunter, Nimrod, to shoot that tesseract into Superman’s head! So this prologue is for a story that’s already happened. Nice. Although it’s probably a prologue for more story than just the tesseract. That Little Man is just completely up to no good!

Action Comics #8 Rating: No change. This comic is just fantastic. But I’m not going to put it up over Batman as the #1 comic. Not on its own, anyway! This story arc is good enough to put Action Comics at the #1 spot. But only if Batman’s story arc declines in quality! So it’s up to Scott Snyder and Batman to put forth the effort to maintain the #1 spot. And who knows? Maybe Wonder Woman or Aquaman will sneak up on them both! Although I don’t have any great hopes for DC Presents: Challengers of the Unknown!

Action Comics #7

Pee in the jar! Pee in the jar!

The alien spaceship with the Terminauts or the Collectors or the Bottlers or whatever they want to call themselves (you know? the guys from three issues ago?) are quickly leaving Earth with a new collector’s variant Bottle of Metropolis. Superman dons an oxygen mask and gets ready to run into outer space. Yes. Run. Because he can’t fly, remember?!

He’s running fast enough to break the Panel Barrier. That’s got to be fast enough to jump into space!

Superman launches himself off the back of a flatbed tow truck which doesn’t collapse at all from the incredible pressures he’s generating by jumping fast enough to achieve orbit! It does bounce a bit because there has to be some believability in comic books! Although, I’d rather read totally outrageous stuff like this or totally incomprehensible bullshit like Mr. Terrific spews forth rather than always trying to convince the readers that what they’re reading somehow makes sense in scientific terms. I’m an rationalist and an atheist but that doesn’t mean I need my comic books to explain every thing to me nor do I care if the characters in the comic books are Gods or sons of Gods! It’s all the same to be! It’s fun fiction.

If that contradicts something I said earlier, just realize that I was probably talking about a comic book I really hated if I panned it for not being realistic! Like when Grifter makes an explosion using flour and a flame. I mean, seriously! That was just stupid! This is a man running into Goddamned space! Totally different!

And besides, Superman doesn’t get enough momentum from just that! That would be ridiculous! So he gets a little added push from a Galaxy Broadcasting satellite.

He may not have needed the added momentum. He probably just wanted to send one of their satellites crashing to Earth because they are pricks.

Superman catches on to the side of the ship and is immediately fried by the ship’s tentacles. He’s taken inside because isn’t that what you would do if a Mox Sapphire suddenly jumped onto the outside of your car? Who’s going to throw away a perfectly good collector’s item! After the ship brings him in, it tries to preserve him. Possibly in Hostess Twinkie Cake.

Superman is the new cream filling!

The Caking doesn’t take effect because the dumb Collectornauts forgot that they had to compensate for Superman’s Super Yellow Sun Powers. Supes escapes and smashes his way deeper into the ship following the sounds of Big Talk Metropolis Radio!

Back in Mini-Metropolis, Lois runs into Lex Luthor and blames the shit out of him. He mutters something about ‘Dwarf Star Lensing’ and ‘Professor Raymond Palmer’ before realizing, by utilizing his binoculars, that they’ve been miniaturized. And then some spider nanite robot things start crawling all over the streets of Metropolis.

Of course, she was right to blame the shit out of this asshole.

The little man from the first issue and, I believe, the man trying to sell the Kryptonite Engine is tending bar in the hotel which Lex, Jimmy, and Lois duck into. It’s Glenmorgan’s hotel and he’s there as well. The little man seems to use some kind of hypno-power on Glenmorgan. I’m sure he’ll be more of a major player than just the guy selling kryptonite at some point.

Superman finally finds the jar with Metropolis in it. The Collector’s robots are still chasing him and trying to preserve him. Supes asks who has done this and the Collector spits out a bunch of names that he’s been called across time and space. On Krypton, they called him Brainiac! So I was right way back when! And then on Earth, they were internet! So the Collector disguises itself as the information system for civilized planets, learns everything it can about the planet, and then collects specimens when the planet dies. Or maybe it kills the planet and then collects specimens. I’m not so clear about that part.

If Supes is a Level 8 Cuckoo, does that mean he threw Ma and Pa Kent’s real kid out of the nest? Also, are these Dungeons and Dragon’s levels? Level 8 is pretty good!

Brainiac decides to run an experiment on Superman now that he knows where he’s from. Brainiac turns off the life support for the bottles of Kandor and Metropolis and tells Superman he has 15 minutes to save one of them. Which will he choose?

Really, Brainiac? You’re such a dumb shit sometimes. He’s going to choose to save both and kick your ass at the same time! Duh!

Earlier, Superman saw some clothing that looked familiar. Once Brainiac starts talking too much (big surprise, eh?), he mentions that the clothing Supes people wore was indestructible. So Superman breaks open the jar with the clothes and dons the suit. It was all white but then it changes into the costume everybody recognizes! Well, everybody recognizes now that Jim Lee got his rabid hands all over it.

I wonder why it makes the ‘S’? Does the material read the DNA of the person wearing it and apply the appropriate family crest?

And after he dons this costume, the Collector of Worlds shows himself.

Uh-oh! A Level 15 Human Centuarpede! Can a Level 8 Cuckoo take him?!

The back-up story features Steel so it’s, you know, boring. I need a good writer to make this guy interesting to me!

No way! Who the fuck needs physics in the real world?! I’m just going to jump over the house now and drive my car up a fucking tree.

Steel said that last caption when he did one of those things that really annoys me. Instead of just saving a barge that was rushing into a whirlpool in the river where the island that turned into Tiny Metropolis was, he explains how he can only save it by pushing it to the side and vector sums and calculations and derivatives and geometric rules. Just push the fucking barge to safety and stop proving how Goddamned smart you are! We get you’re smart! You invented the Steel armor! Now just save the fucking boat and don’t tell us people don’t think they need physics in the real world ruled by physics!

At the end of the story, Steel realizes that it takes millions of heroes to help out in a crisis of this magnitude and not just one super hero. OH EMM GEE! I feel the tears welling up right now!

Action Comics #7 Rating: Same Ranking for the same reasons as before! This comic is really good (well, the main story) but it’s $4 and Batman is only $3 because it doesn’t have a crappy backup story every month! So Action Comics can’t climb past Batman on purely economical reasons!

Action Comics #6

What makes Kryptonite so poisonous to Kryptonians?

I don’t know who this little guy thinks he is and neither do the Anti-Superman Army.

The Anti-Superman army have stolen the Kryptonite power source of Superman’s baby rocket and taken it to this little man. Now the little man is asking the Anti-Superman Army what they’ll give him for it! You know, even though they just stole it. Perhaps it was his idea and he had all of the intel to make the plan work. Or perhaps he’s the only one who knows what to do with the Engine to make all of the different colors of Kryptonite. Whatever the case, he’s going to give them all one sliver of Kryptonite to do with as they please but they must all do one thing for him. Probably something nasty and perverse.

Superman and the Legion of Super-heroes have just come back in time to a point just past the Terminaut story arc which will be ending in another issue or two. They are actually on the Terminaut’s spaceship and Superman remarks that it was his original “Fortress of Solitude”, a place he could come to be alone. The Legion need to figure out how to keep the Rocket’s Brainiac AI from dying now that it’s lost its power source. If it dies, the Collector’s Virus that took over all of the military robots and stuff a few issues ago will be released back into Earth’s computer systems and destroy everything.

See? Superman already has it all figured out! It all works out. No need to worry.

The Legion of Super-hero members never answer Superman’s question. They just change the subject. That’s probably because everything about the way they time travel is ridiculous and breaks every law in the books and causes tons of paradoxes and…. Hey! What about that whole Flashpoint barrier thing? Are we pretending it hasn’t happened yet? Somehow? Whatever. I give up trying to understand DC’s concept of time.

On board the satellite is a man named Erik Drekken that can evolve and devolve at will. For some reason, he knows where the Anti-Superman Army went with the kryptonite. Superman beats him up a little bit and when he asks him where the Army went, Erik doesn’t answer. But since Saturn Girl is there and can read his mind, she gets the answer as soon as Superman makes him think about it.

So Superman has the kryptonite inside his head right now?!

The pellet inside Superman’s brain is pressing up against some important stuff and causing him to have flashbacks. He remembers the day he first met the Legion when they were all just children. And he remembers a conversation he had with Pa about the ‘S’ on his cape and how he’ll never know what it stood for. So Pa suggests that he make it stand for something good when he begins to use his powers to help people. I guess being farm folk, that’s the obvious choice. As opposed to robbing banks and shit.

Being a telepath and sensing your future or past self doesn’t cause any problems? That probably means anybody can go back in time and make out with themselves, right?! I mean, you know, if you were, um, weird or something!

Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl hop into their Time Bubble and blast into Superman’s brain where the big Kryptonite Auction is being held. Now Superman just has to wait and probably not shake his head around too much.

Inside Supes head, the little man conducting the auction realizes that the three people dressed in full robes must be imposters! So he has his secretary turn the air around and inside them into knives, killing them. But they were actually three of the Anti-Superman Army with a forced telepathic disguise on them. Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad were disguised (again, by Saturn Girl’s telepathy) as the Anti-Superman Army. Once the little man’s secretary has put down some of the Army, Saturn Girl drops their disguises and Cosmic Boy takes control by threatening everyone saying that he has control over all the iron in their blood.

Oh yeah? Well what if one of them is anemic!? Or is an alien without iron in the blood! Like Mr. Spock who has Copper in his blood! Oh, I guess that’s still a metal that Cosmic Boy could manipulate.

The threat must just be a bluff because their enemies just keep doing what they want to do and Cosmic Boy doesn’t do anything. I think it’s because he has to be ready to secure the kryptonite! But even then, he basically fails! The little man’s secretary turns the lead box into glass again to flood Superman’s brain with Kryptonite.

That’s going to cause a killer migraine. Forget I said that.

The Legion only save a piece of the Kryptonite as it flies outside the tesseract space they’re in and into Superman’s brain. Superman is now dying. But he realizes what he must do! He crawls over to his rocket ship (with that devolving guy jumping all over him as a jelly thing and trying to stop him) and shoves his hand under the rocket’s hood. The engine sucks up all the Kryptonite from his body and regains its power! Everyone is saved! And the Legion reappear and say, “We knew you would do that!” which is probably why they avoided answering his questions earlier.

And what about Superman learning to fly? Well, he doesn’t. Not really. He just gets to fly around with a Legion Flight Ring on the first day that he met these three Legionnaires when he was a young boy.

The back-up story is a cute little story about Clark leaving the family farm to friends and heading to the big city. It doesn’t say which big city he’s going to though! And that’s that!

Action Comics #6 Rating: Remains unchanged. Look. It’s already Ranked #2! And unless Action Comics does something really spectacular, it isn’t going to pass up Batman. Not any time soon, anyway. Although Batman can really pull a couple of disappointing issues and unforced error its way out of the top! Still, Action Comics is still better than 50 of the other titles! Although it’s probably about on par with Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

Action Comics #5

Origin Story!

Here’s what I know about Superman’s origin story. Krypton is nearing the end of its cosmic life and, for some reason, only Jor-El knows. Here in the 52 Universe, nobody else will believe him. Perhaps that’s how it was last time as well. He sticks baby Kal-El into a rocket, covers him with a red blanket, and shoots him off towards Earth.

Kal-El, being a baby, doesn’t know how to fly the rocket to an interesting place on Earth and crashes instead into Kansas. Ma and Pa Kent find the rocket with the baby in it. They bring it home and…what? Tell everybody that a long lost cousin’s high school daughter left it in a dumpster at prom and they decided to take care of it? I have no idea what their cover story was for suddenly having an infant in their lives! I’m sure they just went around saying they adopted him.

The dumb bumpkins never even question what might go into taking care of an alien baby? Did they just start forcing Earthling formula down its throat and hope for the best? Or did they think the rocket was an experimental Russian space craft since everyone in the 50s knew Russians used monkeys, babies, and dogs to test fly their crafts.

I’m pretty sure his binkie was later used as his cape. I’m not sure about his normal suit or where Superman got the ‘S’ logo. I mention these things because from the cover of Issue #5, you can see Kal-El already has the logo on the blanket covering him. And I’m guessing since his cape is indestructible, it must already be cape shaped since it would also be unalterable as well (I wanted to type ‘inalterible as well’ to go with indestructible but I opted to go with accuracy over playfulness so that people don’t think I’m an absolute moron. Just a person with high moronic tendencies).

I had the feeling that Ma and Pa Kent from the old DCU kept Kal-El’s rocket in the barn as well. Really, though, I’m just pretty vague on all the stuff surrounding Superman’s nativity. I’m sure a lot of it was retconned (retroactive continuity’ed) over the years as well to somehow include a dog, a horse, a cat, and a cousin inside the rocket with him. Unless they come from somewhere else. Like the Phantom Zone.

Oh! Oh! Maybe that’s the ghost dog that the crazy person sees around Superman in Issue #3! Krypto in the Phantom Zone! Not Krypto dead like I first thought! Although I’m probably wrong and it’s possible that the corpse/stuffed animal Luthor found in the rocket was Krypto. We shall see.

Does every woman in Superman’s life have a name that begins with ‘L’?

The first page explains the cape. It’s Jor-El’s father’s cape. It doesn’t yet explain the S logo. His father must have been Sam-El. Krypto also has the S logo around his neck. So that’s either Jor-El’s father’s dog or Jor-El’s father.

The family plan right now is to escape into the Phantom Zone.

The Phantom Zone. I think everyone who grew up with the Christopher Reeve Superman Movies knows the Phantom Zone is where the Kryptonian criminals were kept. I don’t know if it had any other uses. If not, escaping into the Phantom Zone seems pretty dangerous. I guess just knowing its called the Phantom Zone makes it seem pretty dangerous!

Color me corrected: Kryptonian’s Super-criminals

And here they are!

Somehow, General Zod is able to reach his hand outside of the Phantom Zone portal! But Krypto jumps to the rescue!

I had not yet read this when I came up with my Krypto theory.

So the Krypto is in the Phantom Zone theory is almost instantly confirmed. I wonder how many of the various Kryptonian artifacts and creatures that ended up with Superman in the old universe came from the Phantom Zone? Seems like a convenient way to bring back anything needed from a destroyed planet. Although the Bottle City of Kandor has already been explained in the previous storyline.

The only hope the Els have left is the experimental rocket meant to be piloted by a Kryptonian Megamonkey. It has enough room for a baby and can be piloted by its Brainiac A.I.

Now, I don’t know where Brainiac came from in the old Universe but this is a nice touch for future storylines.

And then Superbaby is rocketed off into space! Go Superbaby! Go Superbaby! Go Superbaby go! Baby Kal-El crashes into Earth whose gravity is 1/5 that of Krypton’s. So that explains his ability to leap over a speeding locomotive.

And then Ma and Pa Kent find and kidnap him. Martha has apparently just lost their baby, so that’s probably how they explain little Supes. She’s probably been too embarrassed to tell her gossipy neighbors about the miscarriage because they’ll be friendly and console her and offer her tea but afterwards you know it’s all they’ll be able to talk about all over Smallville.

It’s always the Russians!

That plan Pa is talking about is, of course, to offer a deformed calf that was recently born on a farm nearby to the military and say they found it nearby and they think it’s a spaceman.

The military will believe anything!

The rocket’s journey ends at some unknown point in the future before it somehow becomes the Fortress of Solitude. I know nearly nothing about the Legion of Superheroes. Except they have Legion flight rings, a whole bunch of stupidly named members, and deal with a time-traveling Superboy. More time travel happens here as the Anti-Superman Army travel back to steal the Kryptonite engine of the rocket. This Kryptonite is apparently all of the kryptonite in the universe, every color and isotope and what have you. The Anti-Superman Army (again, who I know nothing about since they must be Legion adversaries) seem to each be composed of one color of Kryptonite. Or they get their powers from one color. Something like that.

Oh look! Superman is going to fly! I bet he gets a Legion flight ring like Booster Gold!

So they steal the engine before Superman, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy can put a stop to them. I only know their names due to Heroclix. And I could be wrong about the one being Cosmic Boy.

Oh, I also forgot last issue to mention the back-up stories of the last few issues!

Issue #3 didn’t actually have a back-up story. It had 8 pages of what were essentially ads for the other Superman titles. Oh, glad to pay an extra dollar for that!

Issue #4 had a Steel back-up story that was better than ads but not by much.

Issue #5 had a Ma and Pa Kent back-up story where a pastor helps them through their troubled baby making times by telling them Bible stories. This was on par with the Superman ads.

Action Comics #4

Since I’m trying to get through about 250 comics, I guess I’d better start making some shorter entries when I can. And Action Comics #4 provides that opportunity!

Action Comics #4 is a big long confusing fight scene. It’s not as confusing as Savage Hawkman’s fight scenes. Not even close. But the action just doesn’t flow very well from panel to panel.

What happens? Superman fights some stuff. Superman goes up against Fake Steel Metal Zero John Corben Colony Monster Alien thing and comes to a stalemate. Sort of. Maybe Superman would have won. But John Henry Irons, the Real Deal Steel, comes flying in in his version of the Steel suit that I guess he was keeping for himself. He beats the Fake Steel. The Colony collect Metropolis in a jar. And the Military asks Superman for his help in recovering Metropolis. Okay, the commander of the military who is also Lois Lane’s dad asks Superman for help.

So Superman has about an hour to save Metropolis or the Bottled City of Kandor is going to have a little neighbor jar.

But all that won’t happen until Issue #7. Apparently there will be a two issue story about Superman and his rocket coming to Earth. Or something.

Here’s a picture:

Oh yeah, Lex Luthor also runs around the whole comic trying to hide and whining about how he had a deal. Seems fitting since I’m sure Lex Luthor has gone back on a few deals himself. Probably. Maybe I’m being judgmental.

Maybe I’ll spend more time on Issue #5! Boy, I’m in trouble if I get burnt out on Superman! I’ve still got 5 issues of Superman, 5 issues of Superboy, and 5 issues of Supergirl to get through!

Action Comics #3

And just like that, the regular Joes turn on Superman!

That ‘Go Back Home’ sign is a real slap in Superman’s face!

I bet Brainiac is behind this mess! Or maybe Superman said the local newscasters weren’t necessarily total morons and this is the backlash.

Seriously though. Just about all news outlets suck. But local news and their newscasters are just about the worst! How do you think they feel when time after time they’re made fun of in other forms of media. They’re jokes! Especially Wayne Garcia of Fox News Portland! I’m just putting that out there so if he ever Google’s his name (you know he does!), he’ll see this and a tear will slowly roll down his cheek. And they go on and on about being the first to deliver the news to you! And that they’re shooting it live! Meanwhile, what live means, is they send a reporter to the place where the news happened hours ago and the reporter finds a twig or a paper bag or his laptop to use as a prop because somebody must have told them that it’s more engaging when they’re showing an object as they speak.

It’s actually too bad that Krypton didn’t have a First, Live, Local news reporter on the scene during its last day in existence! Maybe more people would have taken it seriously. Because Issue #3 begins with a flashback to Krypton’s last hour on Earth! Or something.

Here we see Kandor being bottled.

For some reason, only Jor-El, Superman’s dad, knows that Krypton is about to fall apart. Well, he’s the only person on Krypton who knows it! Some aliens named the Terminauts are here to collect data about the Kryptonian civilization so it isn’t lost for all time. Judging by their name, they must be the Archive.org of the universe. And they’ve come to take samples!

But that’s all we get to see before Clark Kent wakes up. I guess his little baby super brain remembered all of this stuff so he could have nice dream memories about the destruction of his home.

Superman isn’t the only one being hassled by the authorities. Clark Kent is making waves publishing articles exposing the corruption in Metropolis. So the cops come into his apartment and rifle through his belongings and ignore his civil liberties because in Metropolis, just like every other city in America, the police seem dedicated to protect big business before protecting the common man. Too bad Superman isn’t Batman or else he would have just kicked that cop’s ass!

Meanwhile, Glen Glenmorgan, the guy Superman roughed up in Issue #1 and the guy who owns the Daily Planet and the television stations and the Metropolis P.D., has gone on the attack to prove that Superman is an alien menace.

It amazes me that people in the real world would really feel sorry for some corrupt bastard big business man being roughed up a bit by an alien looking for justice! Who are these people who will defend anything anybody does as long as it makes the person extremely wealthy? Do they defend it because they dream they can one day be super rich as well?

I think that’s also the reason people win frivolous lawsuits. It’s because the dull eyed slack jawed people we get as jury members are rubbing one out in the jury box dreaming that this can someday be them! Free money! Sort of. If I don’t really think about where it’s coming from.

So is Glen Glenmorgan’s plan going to work? Are the people of Metropolis going to turn on Superman because a big corporate liar says he’s scary and mean?

According to the cover, they are! But then if we believe the covers of comic books, Wonder Woman would have slain Poseidon with Aquaman’s trident this month and Captain Atom would be riding around on a Luck Dragon trying to save Fantastica.

Results from Google Image Search for Fantastica. That last one is, of course, Miss Kitty Fantastica. I know, nerds. But I searched for FantasticA not FantasticO. Take it up with the person who named the cat.

This time the cover IS correct. The people of Metropolis turn on Superman. I hate this trope but, sadly, this is how people react. Give them something to fear and they’ll run with it. It’s amazing how many people can quote FDR’s ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ and yet how few people actually understand it. Or perhaps it’s simply fear always trumps rationality. Although FDR basically calls for people to blindly follow government just after that. So, you know, fuck him!

In the face of majority opinion against Superalien, Clark Kent throws in the towel. You might have said throws in the cape but not me! I ignore blatant and obvious changes to common turns of phrase! Just don’t scan the rest of my blog to prove me otherwise because you might not like what you find! Or I might not.

This is what you get when you read the stream-of-consciousness blog of somebody reading a comic book real time! Oh, I almost forgot the picture that goes with Clark throwing in the cape! Crap!

And then all hell breaks loose! I bet Superman is going to be needed!

Apparently that wasn’t Braniac at the end of Issue #2. It is the Collector of Worlds. He’s the guy with the Terminauts who helped destroy Krypton. Or helped archive Krypton before Krypton was destroyed. It’s kind of hard say. They could be Terminauts because they terminate. Or they’re Terminauts because they appear when a world has reached termination. But whoever they are, they know Luthor!

Looks like the Collector of Worlds is looking for a Rare Hologram Missing Superman for its collection. Find out next issue if Luthor will trade him for it!