Superman: American Alien #2

I always suspected Clark Kent was hiding a murder rap in his sealed juvenile files.

I'm pretty sure if I had grown up with super strength, I would have killed at least a half dozen people. All completely by accident of course! One dead while playing goalie during a game of street hockey. One dead from spinning him on a merry-go-round at the park. One dead from a line drive during phys ed. Neighbor killed by super semen exiting my penis like rocket propelled buckshot. It'd take a lot of trial and error to gauge how much strength to put into every activity. How many amputees were running around Smallville after high-fiving Clark down at the bowling alley?

The last issue was called "Dove" even though it didn't have anything to do with peace and had everything to do with unwanted erections. What do doves have to do with erections? Am the story of Noah and the flood supposed to turn me on? Oh! I bet it was called "Dove" because Superman learned how to fly. Well, this issue is called "Hawk" because Superman is going to learn how to fly again! Or catch field mice and unleashed chihuahuas.

Clark fuck pretty one day.

Clark is seventeen here so it's improbable that his parents have yet to have the sex talk with him. They're definitely the kind of parents who would have a sex talk instead of just letting him piece the whole mystery together through various bits of information picked up at recess in elementary school the way most of us learned about sex. But what would their sex talk even be about?! He's an alien! He almost certainly can't impregnate a human female so that's not a worry. And even if he could, a human condom isn't going to be any kind of barrier to his kryptonian sperm. With his invulnerability, would he even be able to orgasm from touch? I imagine being young and just seeing another person's hand on his cock could be enough to orgasm. And if that was, how dangerous would his ejaculation be? Will he wind up blowing half of Lana's face off? Or are these questions we're not supposed to ask as comic fans even though they're really the only fucking questions any of us truly care about.

I really do hope the sex talk is coming up! I need answers!

Clark gets a ride home from his pal Pete and he already begins bragging about the sex he's probably going to have with Lana. I bet Pete gets an erection just thinking about it.

While some people get murdered by angry alternative youth, Clark, Pete, and Kenny discuss Clark's alien perversions.

Damn, Clark. Does the whole school know your secret?

Forget about how bodies look smashed underneath their ill-fitting clothes! Think about how many times Clark vomited in school calibrating his x-ray vision to just look through the clothes! How many times did he have to accidentally see guts and bones and gristle and all of that disgusting stuff filling our meat bags before he stopped caring about seeing Lana's boobies without consent! How scared was he of vaginas when he thought they looked like the fourth transparent overlay in a see-through anatomy book on the female body.

The police ruin the teenagers' good time because the sheriff needs teenagers at the murder scene. I guess the Smallville police believe Scooby Doo was a documentary on detective work? Get those meddling kids on the job! They'll crack the case!

The Sheriff seems to know that Clark has some special powers that nobody really talks about because everybody in Smallville simply pretends that they don't know about the Kents' alien son. When Kent refuses to participate in the investigation by giving the Sheriff any clues via his Alien Clue Detecting Powers, the Sheriff gets pissed off and sends the kids home. But Pete doesn't quit as quickly as Smallville law does.

Be a hawk already, asshole!

Clark flies off and finds the kid, Owen, holding his own family hostage. He walks into the house and immediately gets shot in the face. This is probably the guy Clark is going to murder and nobody will cry about it because the asshole already Corgi and that's the only kind of dog I like! Stupid bastard!

Clark punches the kid through a wall and then the big biker guy with the shotgun (Gang Member #2 of 3?) comes out to shoot Clark's clothes a few more times. I mean, I guess he shoots Clark as well but since that doesn't matter, he's really just ruining Clark's wardrobe. Clark gets a little bit pissed off this time.

See?! Amputees! I knew Clark would make amputees! And since they're a farming community, it's not like anybody will notice a few more!

I bet burning off a man's arms with heat vision in a farming community won't expose Clark's identity. Whenever anybody asks this guy what happens, he'll answer, "An alien freaking burned them off with laser eyes!" Then the first person will just nod and say, "Got your shirt caught in an auger, eh?"

Pete shows up to hit the third gang member in the face with a shovel and end the hostage situation. The only thing left is for Clark to go to jail until he turns eighteen! Or be proclaimed a hero because it's not like he did anything except save a family. Who's going to begrudge him for using a little violence against a bunch of violent assholes? Certainly nobody living in a rural area like Smallville.

The Sheriff tells Clark to help the police next time instead of taking matters into his own hands and then probably high fives him off-panel for burning the arms off that one guy. He sends Clark home where he knows the real punishment is waiting. Ma says the wrong thing and has to backpedal so that Clark gets away with attempted murder. Lucky! Clark puts three people in the hospital and everybody celebrates the day he arrived from space! I punch my sister in the arm five dozen times at once for changing the channel while the video for "Hello" by Lionel Richie is on and I'm a monster! It's not fair! You don't call peasants rising up to overthrow a fascist dictator monsters! I was just taking back what was mine! I was renegotiating the sibling contract! I wasn't going to be the punching bag loser anymore! I would be on top! I would rule fairly! I would get to watch Lionel Richie's "Hello" in peace whenever I wanted!

Superman: American Alien #2 Rating: No change. The last page is an eight panel story about Doomsday pouting while floating in space because he can't kill anything. Poor baby! Then he finds some kind of Superman satellite and hitches a ride on it so he can punch Booster Gold in the face. As for the rest of the comic book, how am I supposed to feel about a story where Superman burns the arms off of some guy? I think it's a reasonable vision of Superman as a teenager. Between the old goofy Superboy stories and Superman as a responsible adult who understands the consequences of most of his actions lies a dark, dirty area of Superman's life that simply has to be full of tragedy, misdirected anger, and horrible accidental violence. I can't see any way past Superman's teen years being they hyperbolic version of everybody else's teen years. It's got to be hard and miserable and dark and messed up. Sure there will be bright spots! And there were also be loads of times when Clark simply gets lucky to not have killed somebody. This tale captures a bit of that by telling a story that also shows a bit of why Clark begins to embrace his role as a hero. I think the story I would have liked would have less to do with Clark's future would not have involved an actual crime and just involved mistakes being made by a teenager with super powers. But that's not the story I got, so I can't argue against this one because it wasn't what I would have done. I enjoyed it although Clark really was an ugly teenager in this thing.