Superman Unchained #2

In this issue, Superman stops an American Flag from touching the ground. He's a true hero!

Last issue was called "The Leap" and this issue is called "The Fall". I guess they're referencing time! Leap years and autumn! But I don't understand how they fit together. This will probably end up being a time travel story where Superman goes back in time to become Fat Man which means there are now two actual Supermen running about Earth Prime! That's just the kind of time travel nonsense story I'd expect from a 90s style story! I bet Jim Lee is really drawing and plotting this story and Scott Snyder's name is on the cover just to make people think this book is full of high quality writing!

It begins in The Maw where Lex Luthor is being incarcerated but still allowed to work on Metropolis infrastructure projects. He's currently working on a tall golden tower that will absorb sunlight and power the city as well as create some kind of Solar Fuel he's invented. And since this is Lex Luthor's invention, it will probably also drain Superman's energy reserve.

Superman is currently in Dubai treating his Narration Boxes like a Choose Your Own Adventure story. That doesn't mean he's giving the reader options; it means he's speaking in the second person singular. Although it could be the second person plural since it's the exact same fucking thing. But these Narration Boxes are Superman speaking to himself and not Superman speaking to the dozens of readers that picked up this comic book. Superman is trying to keep the Burj Khalifa from collapsing as a giant yellow mechanoid tries to beat the shit out of him with a flail.

Superman had eight seconds left to stop the building from collapsing before beginning these Narration Boxes. I'm pretty sure everybody is dead now, long-winded motherfucker.

I know most of you nerds are currently thinking, "Superman thinks faster than the speed of light-sound-thought. DUH!"

Anyway,  Superman is now desperate to save as many people as he can so he thinks, "Blow the building back. The glass will shatter. People will die." Which means Superman would be responsible for killing a few people in order to save many, many more. What would Batman think of that decision? Batman would never choose to kill people through his own actions! He'd prefer to let the building fall since you can't pin deaths on him through his inactions! Batman lives in a world of ethical and philosophical semantics so that he can sleep at night. Superman lives in a world where he always does the best he can and he doesn't need to sleep at all so he just surfs porn all night.

Superman comes up with a better plan which leaves the building leaning against a tower of ice. He's not responsible for anybody dying due to inertia. That's all the fault of Ascension who brought the construction bot to life and caused the building to begin falling in the first place. All that energy had nothing to do with Superman! After he stops the building, he begins to thank somebody "up there." Who the fuck is he talking about? Is Batman helping him from The Watchtower? Or is it now The Watchtower II? Maybe he's thanking his dead parents "up there" floating in orbit around Krypton's red sun!

After Superman destroys Apollodoptorus, he gets a message from Bruce. Not a phone call or anything. Bruce just shouts out, "WHASSUP, SUPES?" and Clark hears him and goes to find out what Bruce has to tell him.

Yay! Superman is battling Luddites! Except they're using modern technology to make their digital masks! Fucking posers.

Clark touches base with Lois to find out where her father has been working on his secret military projects. She can only lead him to a post office but that's a place to start. Meanwhile Lois is off to Nova Scotia to meet the person (or thing!) that was hauled out of a fishing net asking to see her. My memory isn't that great but wasn't the base that the satellite was going to hit in or around Nova Scotia? It was the abandoned place I said Superman should investigate since Fat Man, working for the government, obviously didn't want the place destroyed. And now Lois is on her way to figure out the mystery before Clark does.

Superman encounters General Lane who isn't very helpful. He's downright hostile.

And he's full of 90s Comic Over-the-Top Nonsensical Weapons and Grim Facial Wrinkle Lines!

Let's just pretend these bullets can actually exist in some kind of anti-black hole casing and that they make some kind of anti-Superman but not anti-world sense and we'll move on, shall we?

Superman reaches for his wallet and the tanks beginning shooting the shit out of him with their bullets that suck the power out of his body. I bet these bullets are related to whatever Lex Luthor is planning for his Metropolis Super Solar Superman Trap! As Superman is getting pummeled and in terrible pain, Fat Man explodes out of the ground to save his Nemesis! Save him so that he can kill him, that is! But that's the kind of fight that probably needs a lot more pages than this comic book has left, so it'll take place next issue.

In the meantime, Lois's flight to meet up with the man hauled up from the ocean depths is about to end.

It's always nice when the flight ends sooner than you expected.

And back in Metropolis, I fucking warned everyone about this! Lex Luthor's model for the Solar Tree turns out to be an armored escape mech! When will everybody inside the comic book reality learn you can't trust Lex Luthor with anything more than silly putty! And even that might be too much! He breaks out (while knocked out from gas since he preprogrammed his machine to escape once he lost consciousness) and ends the main story. There is, of course, a slight epilogue where Batman talks to himself about being the only one to stop Superman when the time comes. This scene is overlaid by panels of Lois's Water Man waking up and opening his tackle box to pull out a glowing blue crystal. Maybe. It could be normal green kryptonite and the coloring is just for mood. Maybe it's not even Kryptonite! It could just be a misshapen chocolate Easter bunny.

Superman Unchained #2 Rating: No change. This comic book is ranked right about where it should be. I'm just really happy to have a Superman comic book I can read that doesn't induce a stroke.