Doomed #5

Wouldn't that be great if this kid did turn into Doomsday and killed Superman again? And it was all written by Scott Lobdell?!

Remember when The New 52 was too new and fresh to have any serious errors in its past? The only thing readers could roll their eyes and scoff at was how nobody at DC Comics knew the difference between The Arctic and Antarctica! Now DC Comics has collected so much baggage (full of turds, of course) over the last four years that it's practically crying out for the next big company-wide reboot: Eternal Crisis on Infinite Multiverses! Or--and this might be a better idea because it only involves one step to fix everything--DC could fire Scott Lobdell! Okay, that wouldn't actually fix everything. Greg Pak is still over there ruining the Superman part of the franchise (although if I want to feel charitable to Greg Pak, I suppose I could blame Eddie Berganza for that failure since every book he edits is a big enough turd to clog a Las Vegas hotel toilet). And Cullen Bunn spends most of his time taping dingleberries to pieces of paper and handing them in as his Lobo scripts. And let's not forget Tony S. Daniel although you probably wish I would have let you forget Tony S. Daniel. Sorry! Looking at the ten worst comic books that DC publishes, they're written by those four guys! Oh, and Will Pfeifer. I think I was kind of letting him off the hook because he's just making "snow" angels in the filth that Lobdell left behind.

This issue begins with Superman Narration Boxing while he's about to be smooched by Doomsday. It's a totally Lobdelled first page in that it's a boring image with lots of Narration Boxes. Most writers try to start off their comic books by catching the reader's attention and making them interested in turning the page to find out more. Lobdell would rather make the first page as boring as possible so that the reader can eagerly look forward to more interesting pages as they work their way to the final page where they realize the interesting pages are in different comic books.

I'd ask who thought it was a good idea to let Scott Lobdell write Superman again but I already know it was that jerk Eddie Berganza. One time at a comedy open mic night, one of the "comedians" spent his entire time on stage wishing that I would get cancer, so I know how funny it is to wish cancer on someone (even if the guy stole his entire "I hope you get cancer" two minute act from Howard Stern who did that bit for like ten years). I mean, I would never wish a horrible disease on anybody no matter how good the act is. But I think I can wish that Eddie Berganza would win the lottery and choose to retire from comics! Now I just need to find a Wiki-dictionary where I can change the definition of "lottery" to "the act of getting hit by a bus."

Can't comic book editors return a script to a writer and say, "No. This is bad. Do it over"? I'm going to ask Gail Simone!

Superman is explaining Doomsday to Mary Jayne. Except Superman doesn't know what he's talking about for some reason. I'm not sure what that reason is. I mean, he's Superman. He should be at least somewhat intelligent! But instead he's all, "If Doomsday is killed, somebody else becomes Doomsday because that's a thing now! I totally know because I was in this event called 'Doomed' which was different than the comic book we're in now. But since I was Doomsday, you just have to believe that I know what I'm talking about! And I'm here because I broke into STAR Labs because I can't use my Fortress of Solitude which is in either the Arctic or the Antarctic and I probably haven't stolen all of Batman's Batcomputers yet, I guess. So I needed STAR Labs' computers for something inconsequential and I just happened to walk around the right corner and find you researching Doomsday! Now I'm here to help!" And Mary Jayne is all, "Please don't kill me!" That's a typical reaction to Superman in all of the poorly written DC Comics because suddenly nobody trusts him because they just realized he's an alien after knowing he's an alien for years.

Mary Jayne spills Peter Parker's secret to Superman and Superman leaps over to talk with Peter. Hopefully Roman doesn't decide to turn into the Gladiator or whatever and beat on Superman because Superman is an alien.

While Clark and Peter hug, Roman gets a cramp that will turn him into Alpha Centurion or whatever. It had to happen because somebody has to start a violent misunderstanding.

Of course he is, Clark. He's a teen character written by Scott Lobdell. That means he's better than adults at all the stuff.

Peter decides he can't trust Superman because...well, do I have to keep explaining how awful writers don't know how to write Superman? So everybody just mistrusts him which completely subverts the whole reason for him. He's supposed to be a beacon of hope. Instead, he's become a monster to fear. I suppose Peter can blame his Doomsday Virus on being such a mistrustful jerk but he was just scanned by Superman and he's fine! So it's really just the same thing that makes everybody else in the world an asshole: fear. Which, remember, is stupid because only stupid morons fear Superman and I'm sick of reading stories where people fear Superman. Boo! Hiss!

After Doomed-Man punches Superman, he flees. But Superman catches up to him and says, "You have one chance! Let me help you!" And this time, Peter is all, "Okay! I totally trust you!"

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FUCKING BULLSHIT GODDAMN PIECE OF FUCKING FUCK FUCKER FUCK! If somebody gave me a time machine to go back in time to kill Baby Hitler, I would instead use it to go back in time and murder Tom DeFalco. Sorry, Tom. I suppose I could kill Baby Scott but he's not the real villain in his own story. He was just a guy who couldn't write who had the tenacity to keep trying and the sociopathic ability to spot a weak editor that would actually allow him into the business. Seriously, if you ever want to take the time to hear how Scott Lobdell got his big break in comic books, click on the first linked footnote in his Wikipedia page. Basically he got into comic books because Tom DeFalco was too fucking lazy to do his job.

I hope I don't get arrested for Thought Time Crimes now!

Anyway, Peter has to turn into Doomed-Man and punch Superman (even though he trusts Superman three seconds later) because Alpha Centurion has to come upon Superman hanging out with Doomed-Man. Now Alpha Centurion has a good reason to misunderstand everything and commit violence against Superman!

See?! Who doesn't know Superman is from Krypton! And they've known forever! But they're just now afraid of him for being an alien! I wonder if all this time the idiotic populace of the DC You just thought Krypton was a nation in Russia?

I wonder why Alpha Centurion speaks like a modern person who's trying to sound like an Elizabethan thug? Were most of those guys Romans?

Alpha Centurion beats the crap out of Doomed-Man for a bit. Doomed-Man equates Centurion's hitting power to that of a mountain if it had fists. So he's pretty strong if he can knock Little Doomsday around. But not stronger than Lost-His-Powers Superman because Superman grabs them both by the fists and stops them from fighting. Once again, Superman's current power level is determined by what he needs to accomplish in the plot.

Actually they weren't tearing up the city. They were just destroying a single ship. A ship which you, Superman, first threw Doomed-Man into anyway. So it was already broken before they began fighting.

And then a fifty foot tall monster erupts out of the ground so that the heroes can finally work together.

Doomed #5 Rating: -2 Ranking. Wasn't this some kind of Marvel formula in one of the earlier decades? Two heroes have a misunderstanding that erupts into violence. They battle for a bit saying things like "No time to explain!" and "J. Jonah Jameson's editorial said you were an asshole!" before they both realize they're actually hunting the same villain. Then they team up to defeat the villain and they become good friends until the next time a writer is feeling lazy and needs an easy conflict for his story. Maybe that's just a normal plot contrivance and I shouldn't blame it completely on Marvel. If it was a Marvel idea, DC stole it like they steal everything Marvel does, according to Marvel Fangenders. This story was so formulaic that it was almost competently written! How could Scott Lobdell fuck up a story that he's written about five hundred times already?! But being Lobdell, he screwed it up anyway. I mean, since when do Roman's speak like Elizabethans?! Aside from Spartacus, of course.