The Coming of the Supermen #4

Adams covers for this series are just various pictures of Superman being hurt.

The Review!
The dialogue in this comic book is terrible when it's good, and incomprehensible when it's bad. Characters speak in strange, staccato fragments. They respond to each other in ways that don't quite make sense to me. Sure, I'm able to get the gist of their conversations but they're more awkward than the conversation I had with the woman on the train to Seattle. She heard me describing to my friend Upright the next chapter of Dwarf Lover that involves Wonderland's Alice and revolves around identity. So as I passed her, she said, "What was that you were talking about? I love Alice in Wonderland!" I looked at her, paused, and walked away. Hmm. I guess it wasn't a conversation after all. Maybe the dialogue in this comic book is more realistic than I realized. Anyway, the dialogue isn't the worst part. This comic book feels like Neal Adams lost control of it somewhere around the second issue. It seems like Kalibak would have done well to not piss off Superman. Without Kalibak stealing Rafi, Superman would barely even bother with what was going down on Nibiru. I mean New Krypton. He would have kicked Steppenwolf off Earth and maybe signed some autographs for the mystery Supermen. I feel like Rafi must still be important to the story in some kind of Islam versus Christianity subtext that really hasn't been present since the first issue. Hopefully it'll come back next issue because it was the most interesting part of this story! Possibly because I made it up!

The Commentary!
Last issue ended with Orion entering the plot to make things more confusing. I suppose the only thing I need to know right now is that Kalibak kidnapped the kid that Superman kidnapped and now Superman wants him back. The battle is taking place on the shield that surrounds New Krypton which lies on the opposite side of the sun, in the same orbit, as Earth. This takes place in a timeline where Superman was allowed to keep his red underwear. I believe that means it doesn't matter to regular continuity because nobody was willing to ask Neal Adams to understand what the fuck was going on with The New 52.

Is it possible we're seeing Neal Adams have a stroke in real time as he scripted this?

I hope Neal Adams doesn't have a stroke any time soon just to make me feel bad for writing that! I'm glad I never had anything but nice things to say about Darwyn Cooke!

Orion awkwardly tells Superman about a rocket carrying a red sun mote headed toward Earth's yellow sun which will fuck everything up for Kryptonians everywhere in the Sol System. And by "telling Superman," he really just kind of drops a hint or two so that Superman has to repeat a key word from Orion's dialogue so Orion will continue to say a little bit more from which Superman must again repeat a key word so Orion says a bit more. It's like having a conversation with an NPC in Ultima IV. Orion could have just said, "Well, Supes, I know you want to rescue your boy but there's this red sun mote thing made by Lex and given to Darkseid which just got shot toward your sun. So choose, buddy! Sun or son, amirite?!"

Superman watches the rocket take off from New Krypton and follows after it. But he's not fast enough to stop it before the mote enters the sun because, as we all know, traveling from the Earth to the Sun in comic books takes about ten seconds. Now Superman is fucked because he's floating in space with the yellow sun turning orange. Or something.

After saying all that desperately hopeless bullshit, one doesn't usually say, "Things could be worse," do they?

Meanwhile, Rafi and his dog Isa (Remember! That means Jesus!) are having milk and cookies inside of Granny Goodness's Home For Awkward Teenagers. Granny Goodness offers them kindly and then screams at Rafi about how he's going to be her greatest project and how they're going to eat the dog later. Transubstantiation!

The mote did cause an orange spot on the sun just like I guessed, even if I was joking. I mean, I was totally being scientific about it! So Superman is now at half-power for the rest of the comic book. That'll make things more challenging! Although if, at full power, he wasn't able to catch a rocket before it got to the sun even after he left the planet just a few seconds behind the rocket, I don't know if he can defeat Kalibak and Darkseid at half power!

Meanwhile, Luthor and Darkseid act like Abbott and Costello.

Imagine this version of Darkseid in Geoff Johns' Justice League!

Lois is running around on Apokolips searching for her scoop while Superman sits in his underwear getting de-red-sunned. Or something. I don't know. This comic book is terrible!