Superman Unchained #9

Oh yeah! Wraparound cover! Party time! Excellent!

Once again, Superman is depicted with his eyes on fire! I guess that's a symbol of how unchained he is. Although it looks more like he's "vchained" this issue, whatever that is. Also, his eyes tend to be on fire in any book he's in, whether he's unchained or not. I'm going to do something right now that I'm particularly loath to do: dig through my New 52 comic book boxes! Let's see how often Superman has been depicted with his eyes on fire on the covers of the comic books he's appeared in. Be aware that a statistical error of "my comic book store sometimes gives me variants" probably makes all of my data invalid.

On the cover of the Justice League, Superman appears twenty times out of the first thirty six issues (counting the zero issue). Only four of those covers show him using his heat vision. On one cover, his eyes are yellow because he's half-Cheetah-man. On some of the covers where he isn't using his heat vision, he's a skeleton or an image on a poster. I think that's a pretty good ratio of showing Superman about to fuck shit up.

Action Comics didn't have many instances with Superman blasting his heat vision because he generally just looked scared and confused on most of the covers, especially during Grant Morrison's run. Andy Diggle comes along and we get three out of four covers with Superman unchained, spraying hot liquid looks all over the place! Then Lobdell took over and I had a seizure and may have lost count. But I think the instances of Superman's heat vision were rare. During the Doomed run, instances of Superman's eyes flying off the handle skyrocket which might be why I feel like his eyes are always on fire now. Even with the run of burning eyeballs at the end, just nine of thirty-nine Action Comics covers have Superman prepared to let loose the eye fire. That's about a quarter of the time while Justice League had the ratio about a fifth of the time.

Superman had eleven eye blasts (kind of?) out of thirty-seven appearances, counting Hector Hammond with glowing eyes wearing a Superman suit. That's a little less than one-third of the time which is the most egregious example. Superman Unchained only had two or three, depending on what the original cover of Issue #1 looked like. I have the Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez cover for that issue.

Tallying my data, it looks to me like I'm making more of a big deal about it than it really is! Wow! Who would have guessed I was flying off the handle with no substantial evidence to back up my rants?! Stupid fucking data. Can't take my side just once?

One thing I did learn but didn't think to count the instances (and it's a good thing I didn't so I can make it seem worse than it really is!) is that Superman appears with his eyes closed an unchained amount of times! Sometimes he's getting his ass kicked. Sometimes he's kissing Wonder Woman. Sometimes he's throwing a punch like a wussy baby with his eyes clamped tight. It's ridiculous! I suppose I could have counted those covers as instances of his glowing red eyes since maybe they were glowing under the lids, right?

On to the comic book, kids! Last issue, Lex Luthor had just challenged Superman to save the world with his new Pure Sun (If You Don't Count The Kryptonite and the Heroin) Serum which will turn Superman into an atom bomb capable of destroying an invading alien fleet. The downside? Superman will die! Will Superman choose to save the world Lex's way? Or will he run back to Wraith, apologize for shoving a cock ring down his throat, and challenge Wraith to save he world by injecting this cool new drug he just happened to have on hand! Wraith survived that kind of thing once before! And besides, it's time for atonement! Or blood! One of those! Maybe both!

Oh, was this flashback taking place in this comic book? This feels more like a Superman Loves Batman memory.

How is little Clark Kent going to get out of this one?! How many fans are going to look at this scene and simply think, "Little Clark was so cute?" Fucking Jason Todd fans can suck it! They can go visit Ronnie Raymond's mother and eat a big old plate of dog dick!

Oh, um, never mind that. That was something else that's been on my mind lately. You see, I posted a panel with a scripting error and I made a joke about the scripting error. The panel was reblogged a few dozen times because it had Jason Todd in it and a bunch of the people reblogging it were trying to rationalize the scene, or they just wound up squeebling over Jason Todd. Is Squeebling the thing the kids do now when something gives them so many feels they shit themselves? Somebody should go add that to Urban Dictionary right now!

Clark shouts and knocks Mr. Colder against the wall where he probably doesn't die or else we've got a great big new boner in Clark's closet! I mean skeleton! I meant skeleton in his closet! "And on that day, cute little adorable Clark Kent swore he would never kill again. Except aliens. And robots."

Look at that! They're in the Arctic now even though General Lane attacked Superman in his Antarctic Fortress of Solitude!

Since DC has screwed up the location of the Fortress of Solitude too many times to count (I can't count past five), I'm simply going to believe that Superman has two Fortresses of Solitude. He had to build a second one after Batman learned about his first one and figured out how to hide in the gigantic key so he could sneak in when Superman unlocked the place.

Wonder Woman calls Superman to talk about her feelings but he's all, "Not now, Wonder Woman! I have to save the planet!" As opposed to, you know, "No matter what happens, know that I'll always love you." And then he would have hung up the ear phone and Wonder Woman would have fallen to her knees screaming, "NOOOOO!" Mostly because his cock was super unchained. Wonder Woman's clitoris is invulnerable, so it needs super unchained body parts rubbing on it to feel anything. Now she's going to have to begin dating Barry Allen.

Superman has a tender moment with Lois Lane before flying off to kill himself after which Lois, Jimmy, and General Lane are mauled by polar bears.

What do you think Lex has saved to read on the day he finally defeated Superman? I bet it's some Young Adult series. Probably Indulgent. Is that the name of the third book of the Divergent series?

Back in Clark's flashback, he begins trying to resuscitate old man Colder. Maybe this is when he learns to fly around the Earth really, really fast so that he travels back in time! Or this is where he learns with great power comes great thrill in killing whomever you want.

Back in Metropolis inside Perry White's secret editor-in-chief's super computer room, an obituary flashes up on the screen for a Ben Rios, 1918-2014. I don't know who that is but he was fucking old! Also I thought I should acknowledge it since Jim Lee or the Letterer or an editor or Scott Snyder or some guy down at the print shop felt this was the best place to honor good old Ben. Take care in the afterlife, Ben! And by afterlife, you know I mean not existing! So I'm kind of talking to myself!

While Superman flies into space to blow himself to bits and the rest of the world begins shutting down electronically due to the Earth Stone, Lex Luthor tells Lois Lane how he knew everything he knew and how he came to the conclusion that Superman should blow up like a frog with a firecracker up its ass. He explains, slowly, enunciating as clearly as possible since he was talking to a journalist, what he learned about Superman.

NO! It can't be! You mean Superman...learns from experience?!

This is why I can't stand people like C.S. Lewis and Ayn Rand. People who ignore the strength of changing ones beliefs and ideals based on real world experience. People who believe every decision they make in their lives should be based on a foundation of unchanging, rigid beliefs. They, as Lex Luthor puts it, stand for something. Doesn't fucking matter what that something is! It's just important that they stand for it and they don't ever back down from what they, at some time in their life, decided to believe was the right thing to do, or the right way to act. But I say, "Fuck foundational philosophies! All they help you do is build limited buildings with no imagination or room for spontaneity or change. Plus their basements probably leak like Charles Dickens. Is that a saying? Did he pee himself a lot?" You can all quote me on that, if you want. That's why I put it in the helpful quotation marks.

Superman flies into the fleet and decides not to take Lex Luthor's Wonder Drug. That seems about right since Superman stands for not killing anybody. That's one of those foundational beliefs I think probably get him and Batman in a lot of trouble. They should allow for a little bit of experiential leeway on that one! Once Batman sees The Joker kills dozens of people every time he returns, you've got to start thinking, "Hey? Is my basement leaking like Charles Dickens?" Superman can't take the drug to kill himself. Not because he doesn't want to die saving the world but because he doesn't want to kill anybody while he saves the world. What a puss!

Although once he destroys one ship (probably killing the aliens inside! See? I told you he kills aliens! Jerko!), he gets blasted by every other ship in the fleet. He's about to die so he finally tries to shoot up with Lex Luthor's Grand Old Timey Cure-All! But he can't do it! He pretends to try and then lets the needle go and thinks, "Oh darn! Did anybody see that? It just slipped out of my hand! Whoops! I tried to save the world. Oh well! Shucks! Darn!" But that's when Wraith shows up for that blood/atonement thing I mentioned earlier!

"Wraith...Wraith...it must be...inserted...into your anus. *snicker*"

Wraith plugs Lex Luthor's Super Serum and then shoves Superman back to Earth. In the DC Universe, Earth and the Sun are quite close to each other and it only takes a few seconds for ships or Kryptonians to travel from one to the other. As Wraith blows up the entire fleet, Lex Luthor comes as close as he's ever going to come to saying that he admires Superman. But he makes sure to preface it with "I still think Superman is a fucking dick."

You know, we don't get enough sass from Perry White in The New 52. Let's enjoy this one for a bit, shall we?

The issue ends with some sentimental stuff between Clark and Lois that the readers with emotions probably might enjoy but which I just scanned wondering, "Where are the 0s and 1s? Beep beep beep." And then Superman Unchained is over! Yay! I love when a title ends! I just wish so many new titles weren't constantly beginning! Jesus Christ, DC! Give me a fucking break, will ya?!

Superman Unchained #9 Rating: +4 Ranking. This issue made up for all the silliness in the last issue. Sure, it was predictable! But I did enjoy Luthor's speechifying. And Wraith's atonement was nicely understated in the silence of space. Great finish to a series that had way more hits than misses and may possible have been the second best Superman story of The New 52 after Grant Morrison's Action Comics run. But I will give this story the best story that's also coherent!