Superman #37

The Fourth Dimension looks awful.

While Superman is busy visiting the Fourth Dimension, I'm going to read a bit of Richard F. Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. I'm sure Superman has no need of my fucked up, arrogant, self-righteous point of view. Those are some of his best qualities.

It's probably been well over a year since I set this book down, and many years since I first started it. It's been about two decades since I received it as a gift from my girlfriend at the time! It's inscribed by her "Of my soul" and dated August 13th, 1995. I guess I wasn't as "of her soul" as I seemed to be twenty years ago.

I'm currently on page 678 which is only the 86th night! Holy fuck! Scheherazade had better start shortening up her fucking tales or this book is going to go on forever! The current story being told is "King Omar bin al-Nu'uman and his Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan" and it's been going on for fucking ever. Or seemingly forever! Scheherazade actually began telling the story on the 45th night. I'll tell you this though: I don't know how she's survived telling this story for forty nights because it's really not that exciting. Sure, there have been some stories within the stories that featured magic fish and djinn and garden sex parties. But in-between the good stuff, it's been fucking Bored-to-Tearsville. That's why I set it down for so long! If I were the prince, Scheherazade would have died on the 87th morning. Unless the main reason the king is keeping her around is because of the sex.

It's difficult to get through this book because I have to keep taking masturbation breaks. It's hard not to with lusty, provocative passages like this:

One of the damsels pleased him: so he went unto her and knew her that night, and she conceived by him forthright.

Whew! I apologize for such graphic imagery but this is a nearly historical document so censoring the language would be bordering on criminal. Anyway, this should be about Superman and not about a bunch of ancient Muslim sex romps, so let's see how the Kryptonian is getting on in the next dimension.

I bet from the other side of this contraption, you can only see Superman's bare ass.

Superman should have known better than to help another seemingly good guy. Didn't he learn his lesson helping Wonderstar who turned out to be Magog? Didn't he learn anything from Batman whose number one rule is to "Trust no one"? I think that was Batman. Anyway, it might as well have been Batman. And remember how Martian Manhunter betrayed the entire Justice League? Yeah, I don't really remember that either since the story was never told. Or maybe it was told but then Martian Manhunter erased everybody's memory of it before he joined Stormwatch.

It's funny, isn't it? How super heroes will readily trust somebody that turns out to be a villain yet they never trust the actual heroes and wind up beating the shit out of each other only to realize they're both on the same side. I think superheroes should begin doubting their instincts and just doing the opposite of whatever they think they should do.

Klerik comes by to punch Ulysses in the jaw because Ulysses is a horrible son.

Oh my God! Did I say son?! Yes, you did say son, me! What a surprise twist revelation! Klerik and Ulysses were working together to fool the people of Earth into believing the lie of a beautiful world! Now they're all choosing to become sex slaves! And Superman can merely watch from his Anus Presenting Machine!

And then the ship travels to the Fourth Dimension for the big surprise reveal that everybody guessed! Even I guessed it when I wasn't pretending the humans were going to be sex slaves and/or pets!

The Great World uses the same kind of fuel as Willy Wonka's chocolate factory!

Superman points out to Ulysses that this whole scheme is reminiscent of a certain fascist German dictator. And Ulysses is all, "But if we don't use six million Earthlings for fuel, the people of the Great World will die! So if you stop me, then you're the genocider!" And Superman is all, "Unh-unh! No way!" And Ulysses is all, "Ha! Got you in a logic trap!" And Superman is all, "There's always a way!" And Ulysses is all, "Nuh-uh!" And Superman is all, "We'll take everybody back to Earth!" And Ulysses is all, "Ew! Gross! Earth sucks!"

If you hadn't noticed by now, I was not on the high school debate team.

Oh, so it's okay to kill six million people you don't know but not two that you do know?

One of my favorite moments on this previous season of Finding Your Roots was when Henry Louis Gates asked David Sedaris, "Can you imagine actually killing another human being?" And David Sedaris says, "Not a stranger."

I have a solution to the Great World's problem! Can Mob Rule create six million duplicates?!

Ulysses frees Superman and they begin the rescue operation. Ulysses teleports all of the Earthlings back to Earth. Later, they'll figure out how to get the Great Worlders to agree to being refugees on Earth until another planet can be found for them. But in the middle of the rescue operation, Klerik attempts to murder his adopted son! And then the ship crashes into the planet's surface and sets off a chain reaction that will end the Great World! Superman grabs Ulysses and they fly off world before the explosion can consume them as well.

Oh well. You can stop trying to contact Mob Rule. It looks like the problem was solved. Not an ideal solution but at least Earth won't have to prepare beds for millions of alien house guests.

So now millions of people died but Superman can rest easy knowing that he saved the millions of faceless nobodies that mattered! Aliens schmaliens! Who cares?

Oh yeah. I guess Ulysses cares.

Superman #37 Rating: No change. What an ethical dilemma this issue presented, right? Superman basically had to choose which millions of people had to die. He made the right choice, of course. Humans always come first. I mean, the victims of a genocidal plot by alien genociders always come first! After they're saved, then you can think about saving the horrible people that have been murdering citizens of other dimensions simply to keep their lives going. The whole philosophical argument about who to save kind of breaks down when one group of people are murdering the other group of people to remain alive. You can't trade a life for a life! I mean, you can. Like, if an ant were to trade his life to save my life, I'd surely be appreciative of that. And even if I forced the ant to trade his life to save my life, that ant's got to be pretty proud of himself for having saved one of God's children, right? That's like instant Sainthood! Can ants be Saints? I bet probably. And anyway, millions of people kill millions of ants every day for no reason, right? So if an ant's life could be put to good use (like saving me!), it would have to give up its life or else be derided for making a terrible philosophical choice. You can even replace "ant" with any lower form of life like a cow or a kitten or a snake or one of the dumber dolphins or maybe even a medical transcriptionist. I'm pretty sure I'm way more important than any of those things!