Superboy #29

Joke-El and the Legion of Super Knock-offs

The new Superboy, Joke-El, has teamed up with Saturn Cheese, Lode Boy, and Volt Lad to destroy the future and the past and all superheroes and the present as well because why not? Everything about this comic is so shitty it might as well destroy itself. Hopefully Harvest will come along and implode with the rest of this bullshit.

You know what? I don't even think I'm going to review this issue. I'm just going to review how nicely it burns.

Fuck. I'm my own worst enemy. I'm just too curious about how bad this issue is going to suck! I can't just set it ablaze without reading it! I already spent $2.24 cents on this thing! I might as well read it!

Remember last issue when Saturn Cheese thanked Joke-El when he kept her from murdering humans? And remember a few issues prior to that when Superboy refused to kill humans because he's supposed to be saving them from metas? Sure! You remember that! I remember that! But Marv Wolfman appears to have suffered brain damage somewhere along the way.

I hope I don't suddenly get inundated with messages about how Marv Wolfman actually has suffered from brain damage and that I'm an unfeeling bastard for mentioning it! That would be horrible! Because even though I am an unfeeling bastard, it's not because I'm making fun of Marv Wolfman's legitimate medical condition! If he has one, I simply didn't know about it! Although all the signs were there when he was writing Wonder Girl's husband, Terry Long.

Superboy plans on killing the Teen Titans. Before this scene (and the one from last issue where they killed a bunch of humans in the ECHO Armament Warehouse), I would have speculated that he would have to let Red Robin live because Tim Drake has no super powers. Also because Tim Drake must eventually become Harvest. But now, I guess he doesn't see a difference between a regular human and a metahuman. I also would have speculated anything a few issues ago but now I'm not interested in speculating on anything. Too much alternate dimensional timeline bullshit. Too many characters changing motivations. Too much stupid bullcrap. I'll just passively absorb the dumb from here on out.

No Raven, you idiot. It's the act of violence against essentially random targets that instills fear. Claiming responsibility for the act is for recruitment purposes of like-minded individuals.

I'm actually thankful for poorly written comic books like this one so that I can always revisit my "Know-It-All Asshole" character! And fuck everybody who just rolled their eyes and thought, "Character? I just figured that was your normal personality."

Some of you might be defending this comic for some unknown reason (brain damage as well? Possibly caused by reading this comic book?) so let me provide some evidence of the off-the-chart levels of sucking generated by this comic.

I think I just facepalmed simultaneously in multiple timelines.

I could just chalk this comment up to Wonder Girl not understanding alternate timelines and multiple dimensions and the effects of time travel within an enclosed system of linear time. I'm sure you're all following me after that sentence and if you aren't, hopefully you'll just have the common decency to pretend that you are so you don't look stupid. Let's walk through her nonsensical statement across a few scenarios, shall we?

1. Alternate Timeline: Let's assume the timeline we're currently in is the Main Timeline. If we posit that time travel is possible, we have to account for the possibilities of paradoxes. Paradoxes cannot exist for a timeline to maintain its integrity. We'll make that assumption because it's a reasonable assumption to make unless you're writing for Marvel. So if you travel back in time in Main Timeline, you do not arrive in the past of the Main Timeline. What happens is you create an alternate timeline. You have, in essence, jumped ship and can no longer return to the Main Timeline. For the people that didn't time travel, you essentially disappear from existence. You arrive in Second Timeline in the past, give your grandfather a blowjob, and return to the future (which, if you used Time Travel Technology instead of Stasis Technology, would now create Fourth Timeline. I didn't skip a Timeline! Keep reading!). Now the Second Timeline is probably very much like the Main Timeline except your Grandfather has a really fucking weird story to tell, especially after he sees what his grandson grows to look like. In Second Timeline, you probably still time travel because not much separates it from Main Timeline. But when you go back in time, you would create Third Timeline where you catch yourself blowing your grandfather and join in. In the Alternate Timeline Theory of Time Travel, Wonder Girl's statement makes no sense. They have to leave this future wrecked because that's what happened. If they go back to change it, they're really just changing an alternate timeline. This timeline remains in place for all the people they abandon to it. Timelines don't just disappear when the Protagonists decide to jump ship.

2. Multiple Dimensions: Multiple dimensions is a lot like Alternate Timelines except timelines don't simply come into existence due to time travel. Multiple Dimension Theory posits that every possible choice creates a timeline. Every possible scenario ever creates a new timeline. Meaning an infinity of timelines since one timeline exists where you masturbated upon waking this morning. Another timeline exists where you masturbated upon waking this morning just as your mother in the next room began masturbating as well. Another timeline exists where you listen to your mother begin to masturbate which causes you to begin masturbating but the weirdness and the guilt keep you from finishing and you go to breakfast embarrassed and slightly disgusted as you watch your mom butter your toast. So if a timeline exists for every possible choice for every possible person and every possible combination of every single person's choices then what the fuck does it matter if you leave this future wrecked? A timeline is always going to exist where you leave it wrecked. Although, you might as well try to fix it too since that timeline already exists as well!

3. Enclosed Linear System of Time: I'm probably not being very clear by the way I've titled this system but imagine that only one time line exists. So whatever happens in this timeline, happens. As an immortal being outside the system, you could sit down and watch it and everything would work out perfectly like the most intricately structured Rube Goldberg machine. Paradoxes never happen because they're already taken into account as the system progresses. If you time traveled back in time to kill your own grandfather, you are always there to kill your grandfather. The system never has a trial run through where your grandfather is not killed. So how do you manage to still live in this enclosed system? Easy. You didn't kill your actual grandfather. Somebody lied to somebody somewhere down the line and you wound up killing the wrong man. But that's how it happened, how it always happened, how it only ever happens just the one time always. Get it? In his case, they already wrecked this future, so it's wrecked. It always gets wrecked. It never doesn't get wrecked. So why bother about the now a total shithole future, Wonder Girl?

4. Paradoxes Run Rampant Theory: Now let's say paradoxes don't matter. Just for fun! Then by all means, fix the future! But who cares because it's all a gigantic fucking mess anyway with people shitting all over the playground and stepping in their own shit before they even shit! It's crazy town!

That was a lot to say on one panel on the fourth page of the comic book. This commentary might take a long time to finish if I keep this up.

Smartest guy in the DC Universe? My ass! Does that make sense? I think I'm still confused as to how my grandfather's semen wound up all over my chin.

Superboy arrives to say to the Teen Titans, "Go home! Return to your own time! The Legion of Super Knock-offs and I have everything under control! Wink, wink! I mean, no winking! We really do have it under control! Just not the kind of control you're thinking of! Wait. Did I say that out loud? Oh, my chromosomes are so sore! I'm not thinking straight! But seriously, go home. We're good here. I'll kill you later. Catch up! Catch up to you later! OW MY DNA HURTS!"

Superboy convinces the Titans to leave because their time in the DC Universe is short. I guess they'll be leaving Kid Flash and Solstice behind because the law says so and Red Robin must adhere to the letter of the law! Hopefully they've now left this comic book so Superboy can finally have a comic book all to himself!

Yay?

Saturn Cheese goes back to talking like a pansy pacifist so Superboy has to explain to her how killing the guards prevented the guards from killing more people. So it's like they brought people back to life instead of actually killing anybody! He also mentions the real Legion of Super-heroes and how they actually will exist in 1000 years. Or currently. Or something. Whatever! It's time travel! It's going to get messy! Especially when the writer doesn't give any fucks about presenting it in a consistent manner!

Superboy has a plan to destroy the metas and free the humans to become Earth's heroes. Too bad Earth is on the other side of the galaxy. Perhaps he meant New Future Earth? Or perhaps he plans on traveling back in time with the Legion of Super Knock-offs at his side. Or perhaps he's about to speak with Harvest and give me serious gas pains.

Whew. It was just his giant floating disembodied head.

Superboy is planning a plan even more plannier than Harvest's plan! And it's currently going swimmingly as he convinces the Legion of Super Knock-offs that they must kill the humans who have their fellow Legion members imprisoned. Saturn Cheese really does flip flop back and forth between murderer and pacifist every few pages in this thing! Although I think she's finally settled on murderer by the end of this issue.

Superboy heads back in time, leaving the Legion of Super Knock-offs to eventually get their own monthly title or at least appear occasionally in the Future's End weekly. Hopefully they don't get into too much trouble since Superboy is planning to use them as his time traveling army to defeat Harvest. And then Joke-El finally returns to 2014 to suck in the regular DC Timeline.

Superboy #29 Rating: No change. It's still awful!