Superman #12

More Hentai! Look at those tentacles fuck that portal!

Last issue, Superman has his super ass handed to him by a Predator. Now Superman doesn't have anything to be ashamed of since a lot of people have been beat up by Predators. He might feel a little bit embarrassed that it's 2012 and he's in a Versus Predator comic book. It's interesting that the Predator hasn't made a cover though. Perhaps Dark Horse does retain the rights to Predator which is why he hasn't appeared on the cover. What Dark Horses' lawyers don't know can't hurt DC!

It's possible that the Predator from last issue is the Gobot version. It's the cheap knock off that unfeeling bastard parents bought you at K-mart because it looked close enough to them.

My Mother: "Look at all of these transforming robots! They're all so expensive."
My Mother: "Oh, look at this little one. It must be a baby Transformer. And it's much cheaper! I'll get him this guy."
Me after opening the Gobot: "Oh look. A Gobot. Thanks mom. Now I have a car that looks like a robot which can turn into a robot that still looks like a car."
My Mother: "You're welcome!"
Me: "Razzafrazzin argle bargle mutter mutter mutter."

Life in Metropolis continues as normal while Clark has mysteriously disappeared overnight.

How did Jimmy manage to hide his erection wearing simply a towel? How do I know he had one? He's talking to a woman while wearing only a towel!

Now how does this work? Lois ran off to cover the Russia story and returned home a few hours later. Why is that? Was the part where Superman suddenly showed up at the scene of the catastrophe not worth covering? Or did Lois just find out she couldn't get any information out of any of the dead Russians on the scene? The living ones were all busy yelling at Superman to give interviews. It just seems odd that the catastrophe at the Russian site would set all of their cell phones to ringing but Superman making an appearance wouldn't keep at least Lois on the story all night.

My actual guess is that Lois's early night home is related to my first thought on the subject: why did they all have to rush off to report on some event in Russian? I'm sure Lois arrived at The Daily Planet and found no other information was available. She probably made a bunch of calls to Russian contacts for a few hours, came up with nothing, and went home.

Clark never came home though because he was busy getting the scoop on the Russian Facility's catastrophe!

Why is it milking Superman's crotch?

Okay, so the thing has a tail. That means it's a Predator Gobot. But you're not fooling anybody, Dan Jurgens! Everything in several miles around where it arrived was dead. It's fast, deadly, and can turn invisible (I'm making an assumption about that since Superman couldn't see it when he scanned the town even though he saw every dead human and their pets). It's also loaded with weapons and has a Predator mask complete with dreads. Although looking at it in the above panel, I think it might be half Predator, half Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Superman watches as Leonardo da Predator uses the equipment inside the nuclear reactor to open a gateway. Superman jumps to a conclusion he might not have jumped to if he only knew the title of this story is "Home."

Maybe it didn't like being rudely ripped out of its dimension, Superman? Maybe it's just scared and frightened and fighting for its own survival until it can get home? You're just as paranoid as the Russians who wanted to keep you out of their business.

Superman breaks free and instead of attacking Predatoratello, he waits until the creature notices he's escaped. It's at that moment that he launches his mediocre surprise attack!

Meanwhile, the Russians are enacting Plan B-Z (basically, the only plan they have when Plan A flips them off, yells, "I hate you both!", and stomps out of the house in its big, angry, rebellious boots): Nuke the area!

Back to the action part of the comic as opposed to the men wondering how they can bury their fuck-up underneath piles of lies and roentgens, Michaelpredatorelo has been speaking actual gibberish in his "Old Portugese [sic]" language. I bet the editors finally cracked down on the letterer making (Gobot) Predator quote fucking Sheldon and Disney Fairy Godmothers. Superman's translator doesn't seem to work on DC's fake language, so he just says the usual shit as he pummels the alien: "I wasn't really trying before!" and "I underestimated you!" and "I'm just as fast and powerful as you are! Nyah!" Superman might be right about all of those things. But it appears Supes isn't quite as observant.

Watch out! Those Great Old Ones will sneak right up on you!

Speaking of Great Old Ones, Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" came up on my Nano at work tonight. I never realized how Lovecraftian that song sounds. It especially sounds like it's narrated by Randolph Carter on one of his dream journeys and the creatures and people he encounters.

Superman blasts the tentacles back into the void with his heat vision and then knocks the helmet off of the creature.

Well now this is just getting confusing! Now it just looks like Killer Croc. Or Spidey's foe from Marvel, Doctor Lizard.

It turns out the helmet lets the crocman breathe. Superman only discovers this through observation and detective work. No, no! Just kidding! He knocks a translator out of the alien's hand believing it's a weapon and then notices the creature is having a hard time breathing so he fiddles with the device and turns on the translator. The creature asks for Superman's help and even though the creature just murdered every cat in town, Superman gives the creature back its breathing apparatus.

Now that Superman can speak with it, he stops punching it in the face. And he quickly learns that he was acting like a complete xenophobe.

Most of DC's heroes are filled with fear and resort to violence before assessing any given situation.

The alien tries to explain to Superman that it was just defending itself and it doesn't owe anybody any explanation for killing the people it has killed. It was kidnapped from its home dimension and some people were hurt. But Superman still believes justice must be served.

Fucking Superman. Either treat it like a wild animal and kill it or realize it was seriously fucked by Russia and help it get home. Then blame the Russians for all of the chaos.

Whatever the choice, it might all be for naught since the Russian Nuke is begin dropped in a matter of seconds.

When the nuclear missile hits, Superman gets away just in time since he heard it coming. And the alien escapes into the portal leading to its home world. I take it nuclear radiation can harm Superman. Or he at least fears that it can. Maybe he's afraid it'll mutate him and then how will Clark Kent explain the tentacles coming out of his ass.

Superman flies back to Metropolis and spends some time thinking about the similarities between himself and the alien. Like how they're both aliens. And how they both ended up on Earth. And I think that's it. But Superman realizes how lucky he is that he fits in so well on Earth. So he decides to take advantage of his human looks and his physique powered by the sun to bang Lois's sister. But first he needs to impress her with a little bungee jumping.

Finding out Clark is willing to Bungee Jump has given Lois a mild stroke in the grammar part of the brain.

I make those kinds of errors that Jurgens (or the letterer!) made in Lois's speech bubble all of the time. Especially doing this commentary stream-of-conscious style as I'm reading the comic in real time. I don't go back to punch up the writing or fix any errors when I'm done although I probably should! I do edit the pieces and fix any errors a month later when I read my commentary before reading the next issue! I'm sure Jurgens first had the sentence read, "Weren't you voted least likely to Bungee Jump?" And then he felt he needed to clarify who was doing the voting, so he added the senior class part and forgot to change the verb. I've probably done that two or three times in this post alone!

Then the issue ends with Clark Kent bungee jumping. Or flying while he's pretending to bungee jump. I guess flight is an on/off power since he can walk around just fine. Unless he's always just kind of resistant to Earth's gravity. Or can he only fly because he owns a Legion Flight Ring? I think that might be the case since he was only leaping in Action Comics. And then he learned to fly in the story where he first met Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, and Damsel Girl. Whatever the case, I'm sure he survives.

Superman #12 Rating: No change. My prediction is that Superman will drop a rank or two because Lobdell is writing Superman #0! I can't wait for that shit fiesta!