Superboy #25

You beware the Eradicator!

I wish I were eight years old and writing these commentaries. They'd be so much more entertaining. I wonder where I can hire an eight year old to take over? Anybody have a son or daughter that you wouldn't mind exposing DC Comics to? Also, they'd have to work with me so they'd have to have an extensive knowledge of curse words and know a bunch of synonyms for poop.

The last issue of Superboy, Superboy and Krypto were imprisoned by Psycho Pirate. Superboy had lost his powers. I don't know if Krypto had. But forget that story. That story doesn't exist anymore. That story will probably never continue. I can see no possible future event that will cause that story to continue since Superboy wound up flip-flopping through time until he was spit out in the Action Comics Annual to be a part of Krypton Returns! And that is the story that this issue follows. Not the Psycho Pirate story! Remember, you're supposed to forget that story!

For a company that seems to try to keep tight reigns on continuity, DC, deep down, doesn't actually give any fucks.

So, returning to the shittiest Superman story ever created (Return to Krypton Returns Again), Superboy was last left with the task of getting Past Supergirl into a rocket headed toward Earth before Krypton explodes. The difficulty is that she'll probably punch him in the face before every conversation. But she's young and boy crazy, so he should be able to lure her into a dark, confined space fairly easily.

I don't know if Scott Lobdell or Justin Jordan is responsible for the Narration Boxes but I'm taking them at face value: whoever wrote it really isn't clear on any of this story.

Kara and Kon are immediately set upon by The Eradickator, a deus ex plot device to keep Supergirl from going to Earth. Which will keep H'el from being stabbed by Kryptonite which will make it so he never comes back in time to Krypton's past which would ruin all of his plans completely. Wait. What? I think that's the opposite of what he wants. I guess H'el figured out a way to set up the time stream so that he is successful with his initial H'el on Earth plan while setting up all the other events that will make Krypton return in the correct and proper format for his supreme transcendence.

I don't know what I'm talking about. But I already gave up trying to make sense of Ann Nocenti's Katana. Can I allow myself to give up trying to make sense of anything Scott Lobdell interferes with as well?

So, The Eradickator. He appears and gives us his amazingly awesome origin as part of his introduction:

Really? Is that who you are? Because you just look like a great big flaming green cock with arms and legs.

The Eradickator is awfully proactive for being the living embodiment of entropy. I would expect to find him sitting on a couch covered in cheese puff powder and empty Mountain Dew cans. If he's the entropy across the entire universe, why is Krypton so special to him? He's playing favorites, isn't he? Shouldn't he love all of his gradually decaying planets equally?

He really is quite veiny, isn't he?

Superboy engages with The Eradickator while remembering the past events and comic books that led up to this. He conveniently forgets what was happening at the end of Superboy #24 though because that doesn't fit in with any of the other various titles he's appeared in (and, I think, he's guest starred in all of The New 52!).

While Superboy tries to get his giant dick under control, Supergirl has appeared in the past to wipe out the Clone Rebellion. From her initial observation, she declares that the clones are even more savage than historical records had indicated. So that means they must have served tea and biscuits to unwanted intruders because these Clones don't immediately kill her. In fact, they tell her several times the interesting ways that she's going to die and yet still don't try to kill her. I don't think they actually want to engage in violence. Perhaps their language has evolved to use only the phrases they've heard snarled at them by the authorities of Krypton? So when they say, "Have guts. See them on ground. Kneel and die," what they really mean is, "Welcome to our humble abode. Please, have a seat." And when they say, "I cut pretty throat now," they actually mean, "Would you care for a cool beverage?"

A fight erupts between Supergirl and the Clones because she's an ungrateful guest although it's not really any more aggressive than a handshake. Perhaps this is the way Clones size each other up and earn each other's respect. Instead of testing out the firmness of the other person's handshake in a judgmental display of passive superiority, they punch each other in the jaw and see who knocks out the most teeth. All of this fighting leads Kara to remember the days when she trained under Superman's mother, for some reason. I guess she learned an important lesson in manners that day.

This must be the lesson that taught Supergirl to punch people in the face when she first meets them. Which is why she remembered it now that she's punching her new friends, The Clone Army, in their faces!

Meanwhile in another place and time, Superman is busy beating the shit out of his mother because he has to. Oracle said so!

He also calls her an ass.

After Superman is laid out by his mother's kick, he tells her he's a friend. Then the Superman Sigil appears on his chest and she decides not to kick him in the face anymore. She says he'll get to meet Jor-el later so they can figure out what is going on. Then Superman will get to say, "Surprise! Baby's back! And I'm here to make sure you die!"

Back to Superboy fighting The Eradicator, Superboy is concerned that his power reserves are running out under the Red Sun (just as they've all been because they have to remind the readers that they'll eventually lose their powers so there is more tension. Although if it takes such a long time for them to lose their powers under the red sun simply because their reserve of yellow sun energy is running out, why is Superman always so adversely affected by Red Sun energy like when battling the, ugh, Sunturians? Shouldn't it just be a non-issue? I'm confused. Is Red Sunlight harmful to Kryptonians or is it simply the absence of Yellow Sunlight that is the problem?). But do Superboy's powers actually derive from the Yellow Sun? I thought he was different somehow since his powers are so different. Shouldn't he maintain his tactile telekinesis since that was developed in the lab somehow or derived from Alternate Future Lois Lane's latent abilities? I think The New 52 has some 'splaining to do.

Well, Superboy explains some of it. But the fact still remains: Why the fuck was he even concerned about the Red Sun in the first place?!

Superboy "eradicat"s The Eradicator (because that was what he was thinking too! That he would eradicat!) and taps into Argo City, realizing that the city itself is going to detach from the planet soon. Maybe. That might be what he realized. I'm guessing at that.

Back to Supergirl's dinner party, it's been a feral success! But there's a latecomer to the party and he's brought a gift!

I still hate the stupid fucking backwards "S" on his chest. Get your own gimmick, assH'el.

Superboy #25 Rating: No change. I have nothing more to say about Krypton Returns so let me say this instead: I woke up with my epitaph ringing in my head. This shall be on my tombstone, if I can afford one after I die a pauper:

I am here. You are there. So many others inbetween. In all the infinite vastness of time and space, how highly improbable that we should ever have met. It seems beyond all bounds of decency that we should fight, against the very will of the universe that we should treat each other poorly, truly the antithesis of reason that we should make each other miserable. We should laugh and we should embrace and we should grow more familiar with each other's oddities and differences and the rare and brief moments where we seem to have been created one for the other. And yet we were not which only makes our brief liaison in the unending bounds of time and space even more unlikely. We owe it to chance and improbability and random, stupid luck to be kind to each other.