Convergence: The Adventures of Superman #2

Okay but seriously, this issue is going to be called "Gorilla Warfare," right?!

I spent all day setting up a new laptop. Most of that involved networking it with my old laptop and transferring my iTunes library. The other major hurdle was digging up the installation disks of all the ancient programs I use in making my fantastic web presence known. I still use Microsoft Frontpage 2000 but mostly because it's like an HTML Notepad. It doesn't force a lot of stupid code into every new document you open and you can just barebones program the ass-fucking fuck out your page in much the same way that that cowboy webpaged up that other cowboy in that movie I never saw that was about quitting smoking. I also use Corel Photo-paint because I've been working on Dwarflover, a web comic, off and on for the last fifteen years. Since it's a collage comic, all of my regularly featured characters and their multiple body parts for ease of making action packed panels exist as Corel Photo-paint files. Plus I use so few features on these old programs that it's easier to tear my house apart to find the installation disks than to learn an updated program. Although I hate updated programs because I'm always getting buried in all the bells and whistles. When people say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, they're right even if they're right in the wrong way. Old dogs don't learn new tricks because fuck you and your stupid tricks. I'm enjoying not acting like a fool and jumping through your Goddamned hoops just fine, assholes.

So now I'm going to open this comic book and read "Gorilla Warfare!" by Marv "Can't Imagine Why I Haven't Retired Yet" Wolfman!

You know what? That's not fair to Marv. I think it's about time I come clean and tell everybody why I seem so biased toward Marv's writing in The New 52. It's because I am. That motherfucker lied right to my face at an Elfquest panel at Comicon fifteen years ago and said that the Elfquest movie was in motion and would be in theaters in just a few years! How dare you destroy all of my young hopes and dreams?! You, Marv Wolfman, are the reason my wonder died of starvation and my innocence was flushed down the toilet! I'm not surprised all of your comic book plots involve rape of some kind seeing as what you did to my tender, young, optimistic past self!

This issue also doesn't have a title. That's weird enough for me to rest my Sherlock Holmesian case and say Marv did name it "Gorilla Warfare" but the editors thought better of it and just left the story without a title.

But before we can get to the gorillas, Superman and Supergirl need to defeat all of the Phantom Zone criminals who don't understand that Jor-el saved their fucking lives. How about trying this next time you get the chance to escape the Zone, guys? Shake Superman's hand. Thank him profusely. Walk out of the Phantom Zone. Put on a pair of glasses. Get a job at the Daily Planet.

Is there a particular reason Kryptonians in the Phantom Zone are so strong? Was this in the era where anybody from Kryptonian was a super-person the instant they left Krypton's suck-ass heavy gravity and horrible chemical pollutants and debilitating bovine growth hormone?

Meanwhile in New York, Kamandi watches an army of talking gorillas battle an uppity talking humanoid rhino. Those guys are always sticking their noses into other animal's business! Don't hate me for that joke! Also don't point out that a Rhino's horn isn't a nose or anything like a nose because it's actually hair coated in semen.

Lucius manages to reopen the portal to the Phantom Zone and Supergirl and Superman escape after some minor drama.

This new laptop is so beautiful and powerful that I really should be using it to play games and not writing about comic books. I'm practically ignoring its sexy sleek design for something that costs five hundred times less than it! Or something. I'm not a mathematician! At least not anymore. Taking Calculus in high school as college prep and then having to take it yet again my first year of college as a math prerequisite for the computer engineering degree I abandoned for literature helped me realize that I never really cared how much water a dam could hold. Derivate this, assholes!

Lucius is the exact opposite of me! He knows so many math equations that his brain doesn't have room for trite and boring cliches.

The fire that Lucius is trying to describe is a city full of apes armed with automatic rifles. That looks like a job for Superman! Or The Flash.

Superman meets Kamandi who acts like a total fanboy. Superman is all, "I know, I know. Pretty fucking amazing, aren't I?" Supergirl meets General Symian and the reaction is a little bit worse. She punches an ape in the face and doesn't seem to have any qualms about it. I guess once an animal starts speaking, it becomes fair game for abuse from humans. But just think if the city were invaded by talking humanoid kittens and baby goats? Who would come to the rescue then?! Some asshole that loves punching cute things, I guess! Batman?

The apes blow up a building (probably a famous one that New Yorkers jerk off over constantly while they point out how stupid people from Chicago sound) so that they can get away while Superman acts like Superman and rescues people in trouble. He knows that he can deal with the damn, actually quite hygienic ape after the humans are safe. Plus he's met his new friend Kamandi who knows a lot about where General Symian likes to hang out, like the pond at Central Park or the dark theater just off of Times Square with the glory holes that look just like gaping ape sphincters. Probably because they are.

That first ape was talking real sexy before General Symian had to get all kill crazy.

General Symian captures Superman and chains him to a nuclear missile because he's obviously been reading too many of Kamandi's "ancient texts." Just murder him, you stupid ape! Oh wait. He's Superman. How do you murder Superman? I guess you could try strapping him to a...oh! I get it now! Keep up the good work, General! You are using Kryptonite for those chains, right? Otherwise...well, you know.

Guess what happens?! The otherwise! Superman easily breaks out of the chains and then flies the nuclear missile up into the sky while Supergirl rescues Kamandi. Supergirl's other job is to punch more monkeys.

That sounds like it would make a fun board game. Is this an acceptable trademark of Punch More Monkeys? I will sue your ass if you steal my idea for a game!

Supergirl just throws one punch to defeat the monkeys which is anti-climactic. That's how most of my loads and loads of Canadian and Summer Camp ex-girlfriends described me! Anti-climactic!

Kamandi is all, "Well, I guess you won and I'm going to stop existing soon. I'm going to go spend the last few seconds of everything with my friends." And Superman is all, "Great! Nice to meet you! Take care!" Then the earthquake hits and the story claims to be continued in Convergence #6. Which I guess it kind of was. Sort of.

Convergence: The Adventures of Superman #2 Rating: This issue wasn't bad. I was hoping for a really touching moment between Kal and Kara since Kara knows she's going to be dead soon (or at least truly believes it). Instead she just hides her feelings about it and tells Superman that she's just really worried about him. Could you worry any more about something with next to no chance of it happening?! He's Superman! Unless Lex Luthor straps on a kryptonite condom and buggers Superman in the K-hole (we would also have accepted the euphemism, "Fortress of Solitude"), he pretty much can't die. Anyway, this issue rates Six and a Half Headbands out of Ten.

Divergence: Martian Manhunter
"J'onn J'onzz always said he was the last of his kind. He lied. When Mars launches a full-scale invasion of Earth, the Manhunter will have to decide where his loyalties lie."

Please! We all know where J'onn's loyalties lie! Can Martians make Oreos? No? Well then! Kill the fuck out of those bastards!

NASA has lost contact with a man-and-womanned mission to the moon so the woman in charge, Helen Demoff, called in Martian Manhunter to check it out. She's all, "We need to study him because he's an alien that doesn't look human so can we really trust him? I mean, he's green! Plus, did you check out the Abs-Window on that uniform? GOOSH!" She also makes sure to explain his powers since most people that aren't huge DC Comics fans have just read the title of this Sneak Peek and went, "Who? What the fuck is a J'onn J'onzz?"

J'onn mentions, just before finding three dead astronauts torn apart by a white martian, that he experiences past memories constantly due to his psychic connection to everything. So he basically hallucinates as he walks around the surface of the moon. He also mentions how if the humans knew how harrowing his every day experience was due to being so closely tied to the trauma of his past, they would fear him even more than they already do. And then the white martian shows up and it says J'onn's name and I think it calls itself Epiphany and then it heads to Earth to cause trouble.

J'onn reports back to NASA and is all, "Yeah, um, the screen door on the lunar lander failed. Repeat. Screen door failed. All dead. No martian murderers up here. Also I'm pretty sure I wasn't hallucinating and that I didn't accidentally kill the astronauts although who can really say being that my experience of reality is kind of fucked up." And Helen Demoff is all, "Um, thanks for your help!" And Helen's assistant mutters under his breath, "Should have called Superman."

I think Martian Manhunter's series is going to be the Memento of comic books this year. Look to be confused by it when it hits the stands next month!