Action Comics #29

Big deal! So Superman is inconvenienced for a few seconds before his super healing kicks in!

This morning, I began work on the greatest literary triumph that will ever triumph over all the literature: my memoirs! I think "memoir" is a fancy foreign word for memory but I should probably look up its meaning before using it on the cover! What if it means "boring shit nobody wants to read" since I know I've never been interested in reading a memoir! Although I do enjoy picking them up and going straight to the glossy middle pages where all the pictures of their childhood have been shoved. I do this partly because I like looking at the old photos and partly because I love running my fingers across the glossy pages. So sexy!

Anyway, I suppose I should give everybody an example of this future work of genius! And hopefully somebody out there reading this is an actual agent and not just another fan-fiction writer writing another story about Doctor Who fucking another incarnation of himself while Daleks dance around in bikinis saying, "Destroy All Assholes. With Penises."

Nobody steal that Fan-fiction plot idea! That's all mine, jerkos!

Okay, if you are a literary agent or interested in brilliant writing, here is the first paragraph from my memoir, Kittens, Raccoons, and Masturbation:

I grew up bored out of my mind in what couldn't even be said to be the most boring place in California: Santa Clara. Seriously! They had their own theme park! How was I always so Goddamned bored?! Although even with Great America, the place was boring enough that my first sexual experience had to take place in Manteca at the waterslide park in my grandparents' Recreational Vehicle as I giggled like the nerdiest motherfucker in the gaming store. I call it a "sexual experience" because I had an erection and she was hot for my friend Bob. It involved me quickly touching her crotch through her pants as she--probably, since I didn't dare look her in the face--rolled her eyes and yawned. I suppose my first sexual experience could be considered the Christmas Eve festivities of poking my finger into my cousin's vagina quickly and repeatedly, stopping to sniff my finger and scream "Eww!" at my other cousin lying on the floor beside me doing the same thing. But to his sister. Like two incompetent gynecologists that refused to acknowledge we had no idea what a gyne was and why it needed to be coligisted, we expressed our confusion through mad gales of laughter and fear that my uncle--his father!--might come investigate the source of our inane ruckus at any moment. This was not my first sexual experience because it wasn't sexual at all; it was just very young children playing the most fucked up game of doctor you could think of. Although my childhood doctor did later turn out to be a pedophile, so I guess I was playing the game as I learned it.

Wow! Should I include a Paypal button so people can pre-order this wondrous compilation of my cherished amoral memories?! Or should I just talk about Superman getting stabbed in the butt? Oh! Speaking of getting stabbed in the butt! That will be a chapter of my memoirs! It's not a story about me getting stabbed in the butt! It's just a story that I heard from a friend about the time he got stabbed in the butt. But that's one of my memories too, right? Hearing other people's memories! I can really pack this thing full of exciting tidbits if I include the times I heard other people's stories!

"Oh, the exciting stories I heard! What a life I lived!"

Um, anyway, on to Superman and his stupid dick face that got itself stabbed.

Superman super-assessing the situation.

The Fuzzy Wuzzies from Imperial Subterranea react to the sun in much the same way Superman does. They absorb the energy and become hulking, muscular monsters. Now that they look scary, it's okay to put them down. At least that's what Ghost Soldier is thinking since he's a soldier. He's also Native American so I think it's okay for him to kill other creatures because he infuses the murder with honor or something. Maybe because he's going to use every bit of the creatures as well. I'm just taking guesses based on the totality of the information I received about Native American culture from my Satanic Elementary School I attended in the seventies. I also think we still called Native Americans by some other name back then. Indians maybe. Although the text books of the time portrayed them as "jerks who refused to read the writing on the wall and give up their land gracefully, causing the white man to look like horribly violent racists as they just fought for what was rightfully theirs anyway! Hadn't those Indians read the chapter on Manifest Destiny?!"

How is Ghost Soldier going to use every piece of the Fuzzy Wuzzies after he Cuisanarted them?

Lana Lang has just learned that you can't judge a book by its cover. Especially when somebody has taken the dust jacket off of one book and put it on another book! Why would somebody do that? Unless the book is pornographic so you're trying to hide it from guests by putting a non-pornographic book's dust jacket on it. That's totally understandable! Because even though you can't judge a book by its cover, you can judge the owner of a book by that book's cover!

To stop Ghost Soldier, Superman has to freeze everything in a thirty foot radius (I'm guesstimating!). He tells Ghost Soldier (and all the poor little creatures in the area) that he's sorry. But then he finishes by telling Ghost Soldier that he blames Ghost Soldier for this. I knew it! I mean, I've been talking about this Super Hero Delusion more in the context of Batman but here Superman says it straight out! When Batman severely injures somebody, when somebody inevitably dies later in the hospital due to complications of getting their leg and jaw broken, Batman would never feel responsible for killing that person! Of course he would blame the criminal! Just like Superman does here! Batman doesn't kill not because nobody every accidentally dies from the beatings he gives them. No, Batman and Superman don't kill because they aren't responsible for a criminal's own actions. The criminal must take responsibility for their choices and if those choices lead to getting blood poisoning from a severe wound inflicted by Superman or Batman, that death is on the criminal! These guys are the masters of philosophical and ethical loopholes!

Ghost Soldier is frozen in Superman's spit. I guess, technically, he's frozen in the water vapor from the high humidity of the tropical rain forest. But you know at least ten percent is Superman spittle!

Superman and Lana remember, together but separate in that whole Batman Loves Superman Narration Box way, a time when some Smallvillian Smallvillain killed a dog and Clark Kent went full tilt cry crazy. Now he's about to do the same thing looking at all the dead Fuzzy Wuzzies and frozen butterflies. He's figured out where Ghost Soldier's commanders are headquartered and he's off to teach them a deadly lesson. Not deadly because he's going to kill them! Deadly because he's going to give them cancer with his X-ray Vision so that they die painfully many years later and their deaths can never be traced back to him. Besides, they brought it on themselves!

Before Superman can leave, Ukur the Beast Lord returns for Baka and Ghost Soldier's commanders send dozens of fighters to bomb the shit out of the area. So Superman figures it's safer to send Baka back with Ukur. So he slaps him and says, "I never loved you! Go! GO YOU STUPID MONSTER! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOUR STUPID FACE!"

Or he chooses a less cliche, more mature way of letting somebody or something you love go.

Superman might have to pull the old "I never liked you!" trick with Lana though since she doesn't evacuate the scene when Superman tells her she needs to evacuate the scene. Apparently if you speak to Lana in an urgent way with a raised voice, she doesn't hear urgency at all, only disrespect. So she decides to hang out and show Superman that he can't boss her around! I hope she feels secure in her strength and individuality as she's blown to bits by the incoming bombers.

Apparently the bombers are lucky enough to be unmanned drones because Superman flips the fuck out and destroys them all. I'm not saying he would have done the same thing had they been piloted by men! But that would have complicated the matter and a few panels would have been wasted showing pilots ejecting to safety like a shitty G.I. Joe versus Cobra battle.

Lana survives but her Orb of Power doesn't. That's okay since it needed the sacrifice of Fuzzy Wuzzies to power it and they were suddenly all out of Fuzzy Wuzzies. Which reminds Superman that he has Ghost Soldier's commanders to destroy! They wind up working in that place Lobdell has been hinting at called "The Tower." Unless Lobdell's place was called The Building. Or The Structure. Anyway, I suppose that's why Lobdell only hinted at it instead of saying anything about it. Because it's Greg Pak's story. Greg must have told him he can hint about it to make it seem exciting or something. Also waiting at The Tower: some jerkoff named Harrow. Apparently Harrow is a tough motherfucker because the ghostly leader of The Tower says so. Also, Harrow is one of those words that sounds like a stupid fucking name for a super villain but is entirely understandable as to why it was chosen. Because it means to cause distress and it's also a big implement with scary teeth!

Action Comics #29 Rating: +2 Ranking. Superman seemed pretty Supermanly this issue, so it was pretty good. If you think after all the bullshit I rambled on about in the beginning of this commentary means you'll get an insightful, thoughtful wrap-up explaining why this was or wasn't a good comic book, you've apparently never read all the way through one of my commentaries before!