Superman #35

I believe this makes 35 Superman comic covers in a row where his eyes are glowing.

Look, guys! It's Laura Martin of Planetary fame coloring outside of all of the lines like a maniac! I mean, like a rebel individual with aspirations to be a precious snowflake! Hi Laura! HI!

So Superman's pacifist-raised, long-haired analogy has made the ultimate super-boo-boo! He went and killed an innocent because he let himself get out of control. Or maybe he just thought he was deactivating a robot. But then Superman would never have made that mistake! Mostly because Batman would never let him hear the end of it. Maybe if Ulysses had first met Batman before going into battle, he would have been too afraid to do anything wrong, thus earning the wrath of The Batman. But that didn't happen. Not at all! What really happened was Ulysses killed a person and now Superman is wondering if Batman can do more for Ulysses than simply forge a Social Security Card and Birth Certificate. Can Batman quietly dispose of bodies? Is that against his dumb code of ethics?

Ulysses and the dead guy aren't the only ones having a bad day. Meanwhile at the Daily Planet:

Poor, poor Friesen. Wait, who? I hope he becomes Clark Kent's mundane office nemesis! Superman has plenty! Shouldn't Clark have at least one?

Down in the sewers, Superman lectures Ulysses about using lethal force. I think he also lies to Ulysses and tells him the man Ulysses thought he killed had already been killed by one of The Machinationist's Mind Ticks. Of course Superman has to cover up the murder! He doesn't want to be an accessory to manslaughter. I suppose with a good lawyer like Matt Murdock, Ulysses could get off on self-defense. I would hope that the law would consider my actions if I killed an innocent man coming at me with a hatchet even if the innocent man had been hypnotized to kill me with a hatchet and wasn't really in control of his actions. On the other hand, the jury would have to see it as self-defense because every juror has heard that you can't be hypnotized to do something you normally wouldn't do. Therefore, the man probably really wanted to kill me with a hatchet!

After the lecture, Ulysses and Superman rush off to almost but not quite kill the Machinationist!

During the beating, the mysterious man with the staff watches on closed circuit television. He knows Superman's secret identity is Clark Kent! He may or may not have bet money on the outcome. It's all very mysterious and inconsequential to the main plot. At least for now.

The battle with the Machinationist is over in just a page or two, as it should be. Superman's battles against villains should never run too many pages because no threat should threaten Superman. The main troubles Superman should be dealing with are ethical choices and moral equivocations and sexually transmitted diseases from the Phantom Zone glory hole in the Fortress of Solitude.

I sense a Darth Vader in the works.

The guy behind the closed circuit television might be Mr. Oz because that totally makes sense, right? The Machinationist mentions him by name before blowing himherself up. After that, Ulysses takes a little look around, decides Earth sucks, and offers to bring six million people back with him to the peaceful world he came from in the Fourth Dimension.

Superman #35 Rating: +2 Ranking. I appreciate that the threat Superman is dealing with is not a big space alien with lots of muscles, nor a magic being that can ignore his vulnerability, or a psychic monstrosity that can control him and turn him into the threat everybody fears. I like that the real antagonist is a friend that may never do anything harmful to Earth at all. But he may cause the place harm by trying his best to help. And so the question is: how will Superman deal with it?