Superman Unchained #8

Eight issues in and I still don't fucking understand the title of this comic book.

What the fuck is happening on this cover? Is Superman doing the Ubangi Stomp on the moon while Wraith attempts a forward flip in the weightless environment having forgotten that it's also a vacuum so his blood is exploding out of his skin? And why is Wraith naked? What just happened here?! If I were Jim Lee, I would have signed Dan Jurgen's name to this cover. Jim Lee has the power to do that, right? Doesn't he run the art department at DC? He must be doing something other than drawing since it takes him two to three months to finish an issue of Superman Unchained. Perhaps it takes longer than I realize to scribble inside all of the faces he draws.

Another fun fact to be noted: Superman's eyes are, of course, glowing red. Seems to be standard DC policy whenever Superman appears on a cover. When the fuck did he become Cyclops with no control over his laser vision? Somebody needs to get this asshole some kryptonite shades before he burns the fuck out of everything.

I don't even remember what the fuck was happening last issue and I just reread my commentary on it last night. I think Superman had just humiliated General Sam Lane which completely made Lois ruin her underwear because that's how you convince a woman to marry you, right? You make her father look like a dickless asshole thus supplanting his position as number one male in his daughter's life. Right? Am I wrong on this?!

Wraith had just tried to murder Batman because Wraith is an agent of the United States of America government which means he thinks he's allowed to abuse his power and do whatever the fuck he wants. But Wonder Woman saved Batman's ass because, even though he's the Jeezly Crow Batman, sometimes he just doesn't have enough Bat-gadgets to defeat super powered monsters that could, if they wanted to end the comic book quickly, simply flip a beer cap at Batman's head and explode it like a ripe grapefruit.

Do ripe grapefruits explode like human heads when blasted by a super sonic bottle cap? I think Mythbusters has another myth to bust!

Does it matter that I just made up the myth due to ignorance and hyperactivity?

Oh! One last super unchained important fact that I almost forgot: Jimmy Olsen now has a Kryptonite Infused Masturbation Hand. Thank you, LexCorps!

Lex Luthor should open a farming division called LexCrops.

I feel like I'm unfocused. Am I rambling?

Oh fuck you, Superman. Does Clark Kent make enough money to pay for that?

This issue begins with Superman at a loss for how he's going to defeat Wraith because, once again, Superman is facing a villain far more powerful than the most powerful person in DC Comics. Every week in which a Superman comic book is published, Superman falls a little further down the ladder of DC's Top 500 Most Powerful People in the Omniverse (let me just insert an obligatory "Fuck you, Scott Lobdell" here). As Superman chases Wraith to next week in the Gobi Desert where Superman's punch apparently knocked him, he realizes he has no "damn idea" how to defeat Wraith. So instead of sitting down with Batman and asking for help, he hits Wraith with a cargo ship. How is that any more effective than just building up some speed and focusing a nice solid left hook to Wraith's sperm bag? I'm sure the cargo ship slows Superman down, what with air resistance and trying to balance the thing in flight, so that Superman loses any advantage he has from the added weight of the thing. Plus, Superman must not be thinking clearly because he has one plan that he just keeps going back to over and over and (get ready for a lot of overs) over and over and over and over and over and over again: throw the fucker in the Phantom Zone! And throw General Lane in there while you're at it, Superman. Just pretend you don't know what happened to him. You've managed to lie for years about your secret identity, I think you can manage to lie about Lane's disappearance as well.

Choose Your Own Caption: A. Diana also wouldn't limit herself to options that end with Wraith's heart still beating. B. Oh! Oh! Maybe Clark should unchain his warrior! That was not a penis reference. Not at all. And, frankly, the fact that I have to clarify that to my readers feels a little bit insulting. I am more than dick jokes! I hope. Maybe. Fuck, now I've forgotten what the C. option was going to be!

Wraith destroys the cargo ship with some horsedick (thanks, Goggles!) reasoning about being able to control electromagnetic energy because his body is charged with solar radiation. It's way above my eighth grade science class knowledge (taken in tenth grade, by the way). Or maybe it's just inexplicable in that way science is invariably inexplicable to people that can't stop looking in the mirror to make sure nothing is in their teeth and/or the overly religious.

This country is fucked. Can I say that? Am I allowed to say that? Before work last night, I caught a bit of a PBS show on vaccinations or measles or something. Who can tell really? They should explain it better to people they know are desperately trying to catch up on their Twitter feeds and reading all the sexist comments left for Laura Silverman after she makes a hilarious joke that has nothing to do with the fact that she has a vagina. Anyway, they were interviewing some normal people (if you can call the ignorant group of new mothers they were interviewing "normal") whose defense against not vaccinating their children was "you just can't find the truth anywhere because everybody has a bias" (quotation marks used only to show that I have a vaguely passing memory of the actual quote and not to indicate the exact quote). Yes, yes. Everybody does have a bias. That's so true. It's just, some people's bias is for the fucking truth, you stupid asshand.

What was I saying? Oh yeah! Wraith might be telling me some scientific facts that I should really know for sure whether they are nonsense or not. But since I don't know either way, I'm just going to believe that they're faulty and full of bias and just comic book bullshit instead of thinking, "Hmm. I wonder if I should learn more than the chemical symbol for Oxygen (which everybody knows is a picture of an ox. Although I always forget what the other eleven chemicals of the universe are and what the name of the one with the chemical symbol of monkey is)."

This seems like a really violent excerpt from a lost Dr. Seuss book: "Oh The Things I Could Have Shown You." Now, I know you all instantly pictured in your mind your own genitals. But come on. This is Dr. Seuss! He was never unsubtle or blatant about the sexual situations in his books. He always fancied them up by making the weird pervert into a funny cat wearing a human piece of clothing that decided some kids left home alone needed to see his Thing #1 and Thing #2.

From the Gobi Desert (where the fight had been previously taking place if I hadn't mentioned it. Which, now that I mention it and my brain decides to actually think something up on its own, buggers the question: how far did Superman have to fly with that stupid cargo ship? Is there some kind of Asian nomadic tribe I have never heard about that uses sand vessels to deliver cargo about the Gobi?), Wraith punches Superman to Annapurna which means nothing to me because I'm American and I don't even know what the word "geography" means.

"Oh my god! Where are we? Where the fuck is Annapurna?!"

Carman Sandiego should have hid in Annapurna. Those fucking kids would have never found her.

Oh! I bet this fight winds up on the moon! Ha! See how quickly I figured that out? I'm not called a "Grandmaster Comic Book Reader" (exclusively by myself) for nothing!

What did I say earlier?! Left hook to the sperm bag! Grandmaster!

Superman flies Wraith to the moon so that Wraith can't breathe and then dies. Or just blacks out. I wonder if he'll jerk him off as he does it?

Hey, young kids that shouldn't be fucking reading this because I say things like "fuck" and "cunt" and "assbaggage" way too much: don't try any of that blacking out stuff at home! There are safer ways to get high or to feel intense orgasms and they don't involve the possibility of asphyxiation! Although they do involve quite a bit of butt stuff but just get over all that cultural bullshit that makes you feel shame or guilt because you want to stick something up your ass. Oh! But do remember to make sure the thing you're sticking up there has a long handle and/or a nearly unbreakable string-like attachment! Unless, of course, you're sticking the things up your butt for the "getting high" deal and not the "intense orgasms" thing. Then you should just stick the stuff up there and let it do its thing. But don't let that stuff be alcohol because then you might as well just let your friend push up against your chest until you black out. What I'm trying to say, kids, is be safe and be smart! The more you know!

Superman smashes Wraith into the moon without worry about the moon moving out of its orbit and causing incredible amounts of damage down on Earth from the sudden shift in gravitational pull. And don't think that might not be a possibility since Superman shoves Wraith into the moon hard enough to make a huge crater and to begin burrowing a hole deep into the center of the moon. I think. I might be misinterpreting the art because there are just so many damn scribbles on everything.

Apparently I was correct because Superman and Wraith come out the ass side of the moon because, and once again you get your choice of sentences here, A. comic books or B. fuck you.

Before Wraith can asphyxiate and die, he farts Kryptonite which causes Superman to fall back to Earth and land in the ocean where it's Wraith's turn to asphyxiate (and maybe jerk off) Superman! Where the fuck is Wonder Woman? Superman can use some fucking help!

Oh shit! I just thought something I don't think I've ever thought in the entire history of my reading comic books ever: "This looks like a job for Aquaman!"

Superman is drowning now at the bottom of the ocean but he comes up with an idea! Dig deeper and come out 420 miles beneath the surface of the Earth where there is plenty of oxygen!

Is Scott Snyder really still writing this comic book? Did he ask Scott Lobdell for help on this script?

Apparently, and I'm once again relying on my (what did I lie about earlier? Was it eighth grade? Yeah! That was it!) eighth grade science education to help guide me through the heavy science in this comic book, being buried miles beneath the surface of the Earth causes a person's electromagnetic powers to go all wonky. In Superman terms?

When does Superman ever fucking engage in fair fights? Fucking hypocrite piece of shit. He really has adopted the American way of life.

I hate everybody in the history of everything that has ever complained about a fair fight because what they're ultimately complaining about is that they're losing due to some advantage of their competitor that, if things were reversed, they would take advantage of themselves and use to mop the floor with the competition. Fuck that fair fight shit. Whenever my high school friend Larry Trantham would be bested at something, he'd say, "Oh yeah? Let's see you on a bike!" Hmm. Does that help prove my argument somehow? Maybe you had to know Larry to get the connection. Or maybe I shouldn't be quoting him as some paragon of wisdom. Where were we?

Also, how is it a fair fight when Superman is wearing that ring that Batman had which was made of polyurebriuim or some shit that was Wraith's kryptonite? Am I misremembering that issue where that happened which I read...hmm, how long ago was that?...twenty years ago? Superman beats the poopsnot out of Wraith while preaching to him how as a nerdy farm boy, Clark had to learn how to fight but Wraith never had to face up to bullies because he was a bully and he was always fighting down while Clark was constantly fighting up! That makes Clark stronger than Wraith! Also the ring. I think the ring helped.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wouldn't that kill Superman if he were force fed a Kryptonite ring?! Superman has gone off the chain!

Superman leaves Wraith to rot beneath the surface of the Earth because, I guess, that's better than using The Phantom Zone to solve all of his problems. This is different somehow. Although is it really much different from killing? Is putting people in The Phantom Zone really much different from killing? Sure, Superman can run around telling people he's never killed but he can't run around saying he's never imprisoned anybody for life without due legal process, can he?

I suppose Wraith is only really trapped in the center of the Earth until he poops. That's probably a fair sentence.

Superman heads back to the surface of the Earth to tell General Lane to shut up. Then he and Lois listen to the Earth Stone's newest album, "There's A Tiny Voice Beside The Sun." And then Jim shows up in the arctic with his Kryptonite Infused Masturbation Hand! This is about to get super unchained sexy!

Oh yeah! Inject it in your ass for an unchained high and an unchained orgasm!

Darn. So Jimmy didn't get a super masturbation attachment. Just a dumb drug to turn Superman into a suicide bomber so he can destroy the invading alien army of Wraiths coming to attack Earth. Why are they attacking Earth? Oh, because humans are so special that they're the only ones that were capable of deciphering the super unchained equation brought to Earth by Wraith. Wraith's people were too stupid to figure it out so they sent it to Earth. And now that Earth has turned it into lots and lots of technology, they've come to claim their load of fabulous prizes and parting gifts.

Superman Unchained #8 Rating: -3 Ranking. This being DC's Easter where everything is reborn, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea is going to make a few resurrection changes as well. One of those is abandoning any pretense that this site is in any way some kind of intellectual comic book review site. This paragraph that usually follows the ranking and tries to sum up my feelings for how the comic book was written and whether the art was "good to look at" is gone. Done. Anything I need to say, I'll say within the confines of my commentary. This part of the commentary always felt like that last closing paragraph you added to your high school essays that was all bullshit and the teacher probably never read anyway. I might slowly phase it out during this month's weeklies but it'll be gone come October. I'll still rank the comic but I'm not going to be explaining my shitty, biased, unscientific and emotionally-based rankings anymore!