Action Comics #970

Guilty! The end.

• Superman has rushed through a portal to another world in order to save Lex Luthor. Hopefully this other world has a yellow sun and not a red sun or he's fucked. Superman really needs to be a lot more careful when he travels away from Earth. Batman is probably better prepared to travel to other worlds than Superman. Hell, Aquaman is probably better prepared!

• Superman is still considering L'call's words that Luthor should be killed based on his future crimes. Is this some kind of Last Temptation of Kal-el thing going on? "Just do nothing, Superman!" whispered the devil who wasn't actually the devil but maybe a snake or a small bird or something. "All your troubles will be laid to rest if you simply ignore one man's death!" And Superman is all, "Take this cup away from me! For I don't want to taste its poison! Feel it burn me, I have changed! I'm not as sure as when I started!" Then George Carlin appears in a phone booth and says, "The clock in Metropolis is always ticking!"

• Superman attempts to break Lex out of jail on L'call's planet because fuck all these people who don't follow the laws of the United States of America, the most democratic and free country to ever...shit. I can't fucking say that anymore, can I? I mean, not that I ever said it anyway since it's disingenuous to say the United States is more democratic and free than multiple other countries around the world that have always done those things so much better. But poor Superman! How is he going to fight for truth, justice, and the American way when the American way no longer includes truth and justice?!

Superman's point is a lot like the conservatives' argument in favor of Trump. Except instead of "these premonitions of yours don't count," they're screaming, "Facts of what Trump is doing don't count and evidence of his inadequacy hardly counts! It doesn't matter that a small piece of my soul dies every time I have to defend something stupid he says because you lost, loser! Also any invasion in the Middle East isn't proof that he's fascist. That's just being sensible."

• I could also be less hyperbolic and more receptive to the idea that the way Superman is treating this problem is absolutely the way conservatives think they're treating Trump. To them, he hasn't done anything horrible yet! How can people be criticizing him so harshly?! They're all paranoid and crazy! Of course to think that way, they need to be ignoring an awful lot of evidence that Trump is tearing apart the government with almost certainly unconstitutional executive orders while doing everything he can to stifle the judicial branch of our government. Yes, I agree that he has yet to invade Mexico, you super-debater. Yes, I agree he hasn't committed genocide. Yes, I agree he hasn't gotten the trains to run on time. But if the lack of transparency and the blatant power grabs and his choices of cabinet positions of people who are either against the department or don't know a thing about it don't cause you any kind of intellectual concern, you might want to begin expressing to the rest of us what you really find compelling about Trump. I mean, unless those reasons make you look like a terrible person.

• L'call decides that Superman needs to see what happened to his planet and why he must kill Lex Luthor who had nothing to do with the death of his planet. Guilty!

• L'call is all, "See? See how terrible Hitler was? I mean Darkseid! And he's dead now but Donald Trump...I mean Lex Luthor will be the next Hitler! I mean Darkseid!" And Superman is all, "I don't see it. You can't impeach him. I mean kill him." And Dan Jurgens is all, "This is a good analogy, no?!"

Oh! I stand corrected. The Daily Planet is investigating Geneticron's disappearance!

• Back on L'call's home planet, the trial is underway. No wait! It's over already. Everybody said guilty. Even Superman. I guess Lex has to die.

The Ranking!
No change. This comic took twenty pages to tell the same story I told in three words in the caption for the cover!