Superman #36

These Lego covers have made my comic book collection completely worthless! You know, even more worthless than it was before.

The last few issues, Superman and Ulysses have been running through parks holding hands, making daisy chains to put in Ulysses magnificent hair and to cover Superman's growing bald spot, hiding in the bushes comparing penises, rolling around on the grass giggling about girls, and all those other things two young boys in the throes of friendship never actually do.

Throes might not be the right word here! Although isn't making friends as difficult and painful as birthing a child? It must be or else why have I not made a new friend in nearly fifteen years? Maybe that's not entirely true. I think the actual hard part of friendship is maintaining a relationship that you enjoy long enough to think of it as a friendship. That takes so much effort! You have to get dressed and showered to leave the house. You have to endure weather and strangers. You have to experience other points of view which might call into question beliefs you've held and cherished for many, many years! It's a horrifying and life-altering process that I'd simply rather just avoid. Just like I'd rather avoid childbirth! And death! And all manner of things that might pull me out of my comfort zone like a bomber crippled by flak! That's actually a pretty clever simile since flak can mean both antiaircraft fire and strong criticism!

If any agents are reading this, I've got plenty more wayses with words just like that! I'm working on a novel called "Too Clever By Far." I was thinking of subtitling it "The Story of the Person Carrying This Book" to really sell a lot of oversized editions that can be read by strangers from far away. Maybe it can even come with a fake pair of glasses in a secret compartment in the back of the book! And that compartment will pad the book to make it look much thicker than it really is, thus making the person reading it look that much smarter!

So basically, Ulysses doesn't like hard work.

Ulysses comes from a planet that has no violent conflict at all. Perhaps it never had but it's probably more likely that the populace of the planet decided to stop poking each other with sporks all by themselves many, many centuries before Ulysses arrived. Either way, that paved the way to make Ulysses' work much easier once he arrived on his adopted planet. But now he moves and he finds he can't get any peace and quiet to pursue his grand work because his roommates are wild, drunken louts that thrive on conflict. Well, Ulysses, you know what I have to say about that? Go fuck yourself! Run away! Get the fuck out of here! You're nothing! You want to be a savior then you have to put in the hard fucking work, you asshat! You didn't see Jesus taking the easy way out and only bringing his message to the Sadducees and Pharisees where he would have been able to dine on the best flesh and drink the most expensive blood! No! He palled around with dirty ass guys that probably smelled like two week old dingleberries! He brought his message to the poor and the leprous and the sexy, sexy sex workers (who also probably smelled like two week old dingleberries). You want to be a savior? You save the people that need saving! You don't just decide that saving them would be too difficult. Jerko.

Has anybody checked to see if Ulysses has a recipe book with a section for serving "humans"?

Ulysses is making a huge mistake here. Just accepting the first six million people to arrive at the landing site? Shouldn't he be doing background checks? He's probably going to wind up with six million criminals running from the law or running to a world that doesn't know how to fight back! And if he is gathering people for his homeworld to eat, shouldn't he refuse to bring skinny, malnourished cattle aboard his Meals on Wheels spaceships?

Superman decides to confront Ulysses. The conversation goes something like this:

Superman: "You're wrong!"
Ulysses: "You are!"

There's no time to pack! Six million people without possessions will beat you to the ship! And he'd better not kick off two people to make room for his parents because that seems like something that might spark violence!

To settle disputes about who can get into Ulysses Space Ark, Ulysses brought along two alien bouncers from his home world. But they don't bounce violently! They just gently shove people away by placing their huge, muscular tentacles against the tiny human bodies and shove them politely away with loads and loads of kindness.

Ulysses tells his parents that they can't come on the trip with him because who wants their parents living on the same world as they are? Back off, mom and dad! Can't a guy live his own life on his own terms without you guys butting in constantly with your judgments and your nitpicking and your petty reminders of how awful I was while growing up?! Um. Anyway, I think he doesn't want to bring them along because it would be weird to eat your own parents.

I don't really think his people are going to eat them. Obviously Geoff Johns would play on the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" because it's such a cultural touchstone for nerds, but he's not going to blatantly steal the entire plot! Which is why I think the humans will wind up being pets and/or sex slaves.

Now I've got Porno For Pyros stuck in my head.

Ulysses begins punching Superman which, and correct me if I'm wrong, disqualifies him for making the trip back to his home world.

That was a joke! Obviously the residents of The Great World want non-violent people to journey to their homes so they won't put up any fight when they're outfitted with sparkly collars with cute little name tags (with phone numbers in case they get lost!) and/or sexy lingerie. But they need a violent piece of shit like Ulysses to maintain control of their six million new residents.

Ulysses defeats Superman and lets him in on a little secret: he's done this kind of thing before on other worlds. Maybe people are fuel for running his home planet?! Planets also always need people to pick fruit and work the drive-thru of fast food restaurants, so maybe that's what he needs all the Earthlings for. I suppose we'll find out next issue when Superman takes a trip to the Fourth Dimension! Read that last bit out loud while speaking into a microphone that provides echo effects.

Superman #36 Rating: It's about time this comic book was worth reading. Thank you, Geoff Johns, for finally realizing that you can't just put any crappy, piece of shit writer on one of DC's flagship titles. Although I think we should all engage in a letter writing campaign to demand DC Comics apologizes for letting a hack like Scott Lobdell write their most important character for so long. Was nobody at DC Comics reading what Scott Lobdell was passing off as entertainment? Seriously, Geoff Johns. You owe your fans a long-winded, forced, insincere public apology! Immediately, sir!