Superman #43

All of the Superman covers shouldn't match when one story takes place before the others. It sends the wrong message. That message being, "Ha ha! You stupid fucking idiots should have waited to read these in the trades so you could get the story in the right order! Jerks!"

This issue begins with Clark waking up in bed with Lois Lane. HEY-O! Except Lois has all of her clothes on (including her boots) and is lying on top of the covers and is facing away from him with her arms wrapped around her body in the universal body language of "I know he's going to poke me in the back with his penis and the instant that happens I'm out the fucking door." Although Lois did choose to sleep in bed with a naked Clark, so maybe she was hoping that might happen and she was just wearing all of her clothing so that if it didn't happen, she could point out how she totally didn't want anything to happen either or why else would she have been wearing her boots and why was the condom in her pocket and not on the bedside table ready to go? I mean, Jimmy could have been the one sleeping next to Clark, right?

Headcanon that Clark has a massive penis proven true. No need to also prove that Clark is uncircumcised because what mohel could have cut through that foreskin? If Superman wanted to convert to Judaism, he'd have to burn it off with his heat vision.

Lois feeds Clark a microwaveable dinner and then asks him all of the tough questions like "Would I suffer internal bleeding if we were to have sex?" and "Do you have to masturbate into your cape to prevent the semen from shooting shotgun like through the wall and accidentally killing a neighbor?" Although I might have to question her journalistic credentials when she asks him if he might someday go rogue. Does she forget the times he's been mind-controlled? Did she not hear about that time he was hopped up on Joker venom? What about when he was infected by the Doomsday virus? She wrote like ten shitty articles about that event alone! She also never even waits for him to answer her questions. Some reporter!

This conversation backs up the idea that Clark gives Lois the okay to print his identity to keep HORDR from using it against him. And then Superman finds out that the regular people of the DC Youniverse are just as stupid and fearful as the citizens of that universe where the X-men live.

Lois tells Clark she'll keep his secret and then admits that she almost fell in love with Clark. Clark's sudden boner spills the Lean Cuisine all over the floor. But since Lois is busy wiping her tears away, she misses it and then Clark distracts her by asking her to stab him with a fork. He's really into some weird shit.

Jimmy Olsen feels sick and throws up through his nose. Ugh. That's the worst. He also vomits a mechanical man! Afterward, he passes by Lois's open door as he and Condesa go to rest downstairs.

See? Welcome to Boner Town, Lois Lane!

Lois's fork sticks into Clark's arm because his powers still aren't back after his last use of the Solar Flare power. That's because some of his power was stolen when he used the flare last issue. That's why he's so powerless in the other titles right now. Although just how powerless he's become is based on how much power Greg Pak needs him to have at any specific moment during the story. It makes for really tense and dramatic moments since the reader has no idea if Clark will die every time he's punched by a shadow monster!

The little robot Jimmy puked up attaches itself to Lois's phone and becomes a super cute way to FaceTime your friends. HORDR appears on Lois's phone to let Clark know that he still has enough files to expose Superman's secret and that maybe Clark should just accept working with him already. So that will probably be reason enough for Superman to ask Lois to write the article so they can control the spin as much as possible. Which, obviously, doesn't wind up working how Clark thought it would.

Clark decides to meet up with HORDR as Lois investigates HORDR to find his weaknesses. I bet his weaknesses are acne and video games and high school bullies and a penchant for popping boners at the most inappropriate times. He also says "sort of" constantly which will eventually give him away.

Clark meets up with HORDR who takes him inside a mountain. Lois sneaks in behind by accessing it with her HORDR_MASK programmed by Condesa last issue. It's up to Lois to save the day! Probably. I mean, what can Clark really do without his super powers? Since The New 52 began, the only way he ever seems to be able to defeat anybody is by punching them as hard as he can. He hasn't had to rely on his smarts before. So now that he's shackled to a chair surrounded by a bunch of "Quarmers," beings who store energy like Superman Solar Flares, Superman doesn't have the skills to escape.

When Lois sees what they're doing to Clark, she puts out her story about his identity. Lois tells the world so that HORDR has no way to manipulate Clark. Also she knew she'd win a Pulitzer for this shit and no way Perry White can deny a hefty bump in her salary after this. No wait. She'll probably be fired since she releases the story into cyberspace as opposed to giving the Daily Planet the exclusive rights to it. No way Perry will forgive that mistake. Pretty much the entire internet's reaction is, "Hrm. I pretty much knew that already."

What has General Lane been doing? Just following Superman around waiting for an excuse to murder him?

Superman #43 Rating: No change. Well shit. I was with this issue right up until the end. I think it would have made for a better story to have Superman realize that he was putting more people in danger by being manipulated by an unknown madman than to have his identity exposed, therefore allowing Lois to expose his identity. I was hoping Superman would be smarter than his usual "I can handle everything myself" way of approaching problems. I was hoping that somehow this story wouldn't just become the story it obviously had to become considering the shitstorms happening in the other Superman titles. Tomasi actually did his best to explain why everybody is suddenly so worried about Superman having a secret identity, and I commend him for at least broaching the subject and trying to explain away the entire world's irrational reaction to Superman keeping a secret identity. It helps mitigate my anger toward DC's belief that everybody in their Youniverse without super powers is a fearful, xenophobic asshole who can't understand why a superhero like Superman might actually want to be a regular person most of the time. Especially when all it takes is one Barbara Walters special sitting down with Superman to find out about his life growing up on the Kent farm and realizing that he's really been a human for more of his life than he's been a super man from Krypton. What I'm asking for, DC, is more characters who approach situations with intelligence and understanding rather than fear and idiocy.