Action Comics #20

Is Superman going to give birth to this thing from his altered DNA? If so, out of what orifice?!

Last issue, Lex Luthor came up with a plan so smart that it didn't make any sense to me. That's how I know Lex Luthor is a super genius! Because I can't understand anything he fucking does! He injected some DNA rewriting virus into Superman via a kryptonite-tipped hypodermic needle bullet! This virus began changing Superman into a Lizard Man. Now, that might be a fairly decent Polymorph result if you were a low level fighter. But if you're Superman who has like 100 Hit Dice, turning into a Lizard Man is the pits. And not the cherry pits either! More like the fiery pits of Apokolips.

The comic book continues to remind the reader that all of the action within it happened one year ago because, in the present day, Lex Luthor is "imprisoned" in a vacation home Superman "tricked" him into building for himself. That was Scott Lobdell's story and it makes Superman look really naive and stupid. Superman believes he challenged Luthor's arrogance and had Lex Luthor design a prison that even Lex Luthor himself could not escape from. And then Superman put him in it. But Lex Luthor is the smartest person on Earth Prime! So Lex would not be fooled by this stupid plan and would thus have built a prison that was more a nice, safe place to scheme which he could get out of at any time. And as we've seen in Supergirl, he's doing just that without his physical body even leaving the nice comfortable safe climate of his free, government funded safehouse. Superman just ends up looking like a real idiot having fallen for this nonsense.

We begin with a lesson:

Capitalism in three easy panels. If somebody is better than you at something within the confines of the generally accepted laws and mores of the current cultural paradigm, cheat. It's called "thinking outside of the box" rather than "breaking the law" or "oppressing the less powerful" or "manipulating the masses" or "creating perpetual poverty" or "changing and creating law to bolster your business and actions while making it harder for competition to eat away at your profits".

Superman wakes up in The Block, Dr. Veritas's laboratory in the center of the Earth. Remember, she's an Omniologist! She recovered Superman's unconscious body after he was put down by his Virus. He's worried that she might see his embarrassing lizard hand but she assures him that his "super-immune system" threw off the virus. Or infection. Or whatever. And by "threw off", I suppose she means "gave birth to it out of his pee hole."

Superman and Dr. Veritas enjoy a bit of post-viral conversation.

Why so shocked, Supes? Is the penis not so super?

So Superman could feel the rage and hate of his hand? I imagine my hand would have some pretty harsh words to say to me after all the sexual abuse it's suffered. But what I particularly like about this conversation is how the inanity of Scott Lobdell's creation of Dr. Truth, the Everything Scientist living in the middle of the Earth, is continued in the panel that explains how she met Superman! It's more of that "just make up a crazy phrase to build history" that Lobdell himself just loves the every fucking love out of. "The Stream of Eternal Maelstroms"! I can't wait to never, ever hear about that again! No, seriously, please tell that story! I just have a feeling it won't ever come up again.

In a closed lab, Dr. Veritas has kept Superman's hand. Because of Superman's "super-immune system," it crawled off of his body and died. I guess Superman just grew a new hand. Or this was just the skin that kind of sloughed off.

We interrupt this commentary to say I just watched a chicken lay an egg. Now back to the commentary.

Dr. Veritas is hoping that Superman can use his super powers to examine the hand since it has super cells just like Superman. Science!

This is what happens when you science things! Fucking science is dangerous! Mythology and superstition for the win!

The hand quickly grows into a gigantic monstrosity with huge, sharp teeth. This is a far more effective warning against masturbation than hairy palms and blindness. Dr. Veritas teleports it and Superman into a chamber that mimics the light of a red sun. This takes away Superman's power as well as the creature's power. When the creature seems nice and weak, Superman has Dr. Veritas cut the lights and then Superman uses the last of his Yellow Sun reserves to turn the creature to ice with his Cold Breath and then shatter it with his fists. I think Superman needs to spend some time on a beach vacation now.

Dr. Veritas teleports what's left of the Hybrid Virus into a galaxy with a red sun because she obviously has technology that can do anything no matter how stupid it sounds. And then they hear that people in Metropolis have also begun to turn into Lizard People because Earthlings have no immunity to Viruses created by Lex Luthor. And apparently the Virus's battle against Superman's super-immune system caused it to evolve super rapidly and instantly go from needing to be injected to harm the victim to airborne in minutes!

Superman arrives in Metropolis to save the day! And by "save the day," I mean he drops all of the infected people into the sewers. But the infected people have a super surprise for him!

Ha ha! The people in the sewers have become one big poop octopus!

And then Lex Luthor's plan which is a plan Lex Luthor really loves and should probably give up on already is that he's going to come swooping down out of the sky in his green and purple Lex Luthor Battle Armor and save Metropolis from Superman! The only part of the plan I'm unsure of is how he convinces everybody that the virus was Superman's fault. I guess he just speaks some lies to the press and the press does what the press does: spreads the lies as truth instead of doing their own investigation. The media is the worst. Natural Born Killers nailed it.

The back-up story involves Jor-el on Krypton discovering the Atlantis of Krypton, a place called Xan. Within the waters surrounding Xan, Jor-el and his team discover the bubble transforming creatures called Teklons. They're kind of the Sleestak of the Kryptonian Ocean depths. And they're supposed to have been extinct.

Jor-el misses some big science meeting where his soon to be wife Lara is hanging out with other people that aren't Kryptonian but have made a pact with them to protect the science council. Wait. Lara isn't Kryptonian? When did this happen? Oh wait. I get it! Scott Lobdell is writing this back-up story. That's all the explanation I need.

During the meeting, Lara's captain kills somebody or something and yells, "For Krypton!" Oh, I get it! Lara is just mentioning that they "swear allegiance to Krypton" in the military sense! I think as soon as I see Scott Lobdell's name in print, I lose 120 IQ points. Leaving me with, you know, -34.

I guess the Science National Guard has decided they need to save Krypton from Kryptonians for Kryptonians. Or something. Anyway, death and mayhem and betrayal and treason equal excitementations!

Action Comics #20 Rating: -2 Ranking. I'm not excited to read more about the Atlantis of Krypton or the bubble creatures or the Betrayal at Science Council Hall. I also dislike the Hybrid creature and Lex Luthor's tired plot of trying to prove to the people that they need to be saved from Superman. I hope Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen have their oxygen tanks because this comic is about to sink like a fucking stone.