Saturday, March 25, 2017

Action Comics #976


I accept neither of these as the real Superman. Where the fuck is the spit curl?

If this cover says what I think it's saying, it's kind of a spoiler for the end of the story, right? Preboot Superman is Superman Blue, the Superman who thinks his way out of situations. New 52 Superman is Superman Red, the Superman who prefers punching first and then punching later too. And if they are Superman Red and Superman Blue then they're just two halves of the same Superman. That means the ending of this story will be the merging of the two Supermen which will result in Superman being the better Superman who can also claim to be Batman's friend. And while you are all standing and applauding the use of Red and Blue Superman in a novel way to explain some pretty fucked up Superman history, please try to ignore the Blue and Red Lois behind the curtain. It probably makes sense somehow. I bet after Superman split himself in two with his kryptonite-powered Dopplegänger creator invention (which he totally didn't invent because he wanted to fuck himself), Lois wandered in to totally not dust it because that would be sexist and thought, "Hmm. I wonder what it would be like to fuck myself?"

So that's probably the end of the story! I guess there's some details I'm missing and, hopefully, some flashbacks to Lois fucking herself (and Superman too! It's not that I don't want to see that as well. I just want to see Lois on Lois action a little bit more).

The story continues with New 52 Superman and Lois being freed from Hell by Jon. He doesn't realize they're not his parents though because he's yet to see Superman punch a helpless normie criminal in the face while Lois writers a terrible article on how heroic Superman is rather than how violent and debauched. Preboot Superman and Lois fell off the side of the building and are presumably dead. Unless what's really happened is that Superman and Lois have just finally forgotten everything the way Mr. Mxyzptlk wanted them to forget because they already merged with Red Superman and Red Lois aka the New 52 idiots.


Look at this bully! He even pushes himself around.

As Superman and Mxy argue, Jon notices a couple of blue spheres floating around now. It looks like the red versions of Superman and Lois just kicked the blue versions out of their homes. So now they just need to merge and they'll have beaten Mr. Mxyzptlk. Plus Dan Jurgens doesn't need to think of a way to trick Mxy into saying his name backwards because Mxy has a signed contract that says he'll agree to go home if Superman makes it to the end of the board game. And anyway, Mxy wants to go home before Dr. Oz takes notice of him.

I probably could have left this review with my interpretation of the cover because the details really don't matter! Mxy bails because he's afraid of Dr. Oz while Superman and Lois embrace their blue (Preboot) and red (New 52) halves to fix DC continuity. I probably should have put fix in quotes because every time DC tries to fix something wrong with their continuity, they just make it worse. It would be so much easier to just embrace my fix: denial! Just fucking pretend everything works and stop worrying about the discussions on rabid fangender forums about the minutest continuity problems!

It looks like DC might just be taking my approach but with this story as a kind of Pilate washing his hands of it all moment. Here's what Dr. Oz says: "This changes everything. A new, existence-wide, single reality, rebuilt from two. A timeline and history both familiar and new with lives realigned. Consistent with the memories and experiences of all. Everything solidified. Locked in so it all fits." There you have it! Exactly what I was hoping Rebirth would be (although it took long enough for DC to get around to it. And, in fact, I don't think DC intended this fix, exactly, from the beginning. They probably read my blog and were all, "That Tess is right! Let's just create a universe where it all works simply because we say it does! But we need a story to get us there! Oh! I know! How about instead of just a Red and Blue Superman, we have a Red and Blue DC Continuity! Merge them and then all stories are true!" Then Greg Rucka was all, "But what about what I'm doing in Wonder Woman! You're going to ruin my story with your shortcut!" And DC was all, "Oh, go to hell, you pretentious twat."

Dr. Oz marvels at Superman's ability to rewrite reality without the go ahead of his editors. Then Dr. Oz thinks, "Speaking of editors, I wonder what Big Blue will think about this! And I don't mean Superman!" Then there's a shot of Mars. Stunner!

The Ranking!
+1! I have to give this a plus one, at least, because it's done the only thing I really wanted out of Rebirth. It's simply allowed for all stories (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, New 52, Rebirth) to be as true as the reader wants them to be. Don't like a story? Forget about it! It doesn't need to exist! Love a story that was wiped from existence by some reboot or another? It's part of continuity if you want it to be! All you have to do is ignore the ravenous fangenders who will obstinately bring up moments that contradict the moment you love! This issue is a loudly shouted "FUCK OFF!" to those dicks!

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