Action Comics #684 (December 1992)

I didn't realize Doomsday had so much forehead.

Apparently, the driving force behind every one of Superman's villains is anger at the loss of their hair. Although Doomsday seems less intent on simply killing Superman so I can't think of him as a Superman villain just yet. My bet is that Doomsday purchased some hair loss prevention supplement from Lex Luthor, found it didn't work and actually exacerbated the hair loss, and he's on his way to file a complaint with Lex Corps. And being that I still don't know why Doomsday suddenly crawled out of the Earth and killed Superman even thirty-two years after the fact, maybe I've nailed it? Don't tell me in the comments! I want to eventually be surprised when I see the porn parody of Doomsday's origin.

At the end of the last issue, Superman decided he needed to handle Doomsday all by himself. I chose to read this cynically and interpreted it as Superman viewing all the other heroes as anchors dragging him down and preventing him from being his best. But we know Superman would never think that way. It's why I can't write Superman because I can't think earnestly or compassionately or unselfishly or non-sexually. Obviously Superman's just trying to protect all of his friends.

See, if I were writing Superman's dialogue, he would have made The Guardian cry with his rejoinder rather than assuring him none of this was his responsibility.

How would my Superman have made The Guardian cry? I don't know. He probably would have said something like, "Fuck! I saw your blue and gold coming and I thought, 'Exactly what we need! A magic-user of Doctor Fate's caliber!' But instead I get some street-level, low power, Captain-America wannabe whom Doomsday could have defeated with his flaccid cock. Your more useless than Maxima with her concussion!" Then Superman would have flown off while muttering something about the Newsboy Legion and The Guardian being a member of NAMBLA.

Speaking of NAMBLA, I just finished re-reading The Stand¹ after more than 30 years of having not read it again. If I were Stephen King, I would have called the book The Long Walk but I guess he couldn't because his alter ego was busy on a story with that same exact title at the time. The first time I read it, I remember thinking, "What the fuck? The good guys didn't do shit but take a long hike with their dog. Randal Flagg and all his cronies fucked up a bunch and then Trash Can Man took them all out himself." The heroes of The Stand were the most passive heroes of any book where good faces off against evil. But this time, I realized that their strength was simply in their resistance. Was The Stand a novel about the success of passive and non-violent resistance movements? Because the only actions the heroes take against Flagg are being killed by him and his goons in ways that make Flagg mad and make his people less confident in him. I suppose if I were gullible, naïve, or earnest-minded², maybe I wouldn't sneer at the thought that God was the real hero of the book. Maybe The Turtle from It was the real hero of The Stand? Was The Turtle still alive at this time? Or had it already choked on its own sick? Anyway, my favorite part was when the nerd got to have butt sex with the hot older kindergarten teacher. Although later he tried to shoot her in the face and I just want to make it known that I didn't think that was cool.

Back to Superman, he decides to do a little foreshadowing.

I guess the marquee is doing a little foreshadowing too. Plus a little antisemitism.

I suppose just having Mel Gibson's name on a marquee isn't antisemitism. You know what else isn't antisemitism? Being against the country of Israel committing genocide against Palestinians. One of the definitions of antisemitism on the State Department website reads, "Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews." Replace "Jews" with "Palestinians" there and you can understand why people against Israel's genocide of Palestinians aren't pro-Hamas. We're just not accusing every Palestinian of being responsible for Hamas's actions. Plus, Israel is a country that does things that can be perceived as right and wrong. Why are people not allowed to decry the wrongdoings of this particular country? Saying that people against Israel's actions are actually against all Jewish people is actively doing the antisemitism in that previous definition of antisemitism from the State Department website.

Oh, I understand that none of what I just wrote matters to anybody because being able to call progressives "antisemites" trumps actually having rational conversations about stuff. Ever since the right and center left forced Corbyn out of being Prime Minister in the United Kingdom with constant and unrelenting false accusations of antisemitism, I've been saying that that was going to be the tactic used in America to silence progressive voices. And lo and behold, here we are where alt-rights and center-lefts stand arm in arm to punish progressives.

Oh well, fuck 'em, I guess. I'll keep voting for people who hate me just to try to turn shit around while they keep accusing me of not voting and calling me a Hamas-dick-sucker and hating me for being critical of the people I vote for just because I expect them to do better. My main problem with center-left democrats is how often they'll forgive atrocities committed by our government simply to maintain their comfortable status quo. Comfortable political-minded people are the worst, really. Maybe just be uncomfortably humanity-minded once in awhile.

I hate to even have to discuss this stuff instead of thinking about the girth of Doomsday's space penis! But people I know and care about constantly shit all over me, probably without realizing they're shitting on me, because they simply assume anybody who believes the things I believe didn't vote for their stupid-ass center-left candidates. I supported Bernie but then voted for Hillary when the time came. But people made me eat shit forever after that because obviously I ruined everything. I voted for Biden but was made to eat shit. I voted for Kamala and they just kept feeding me shit. None of them respect me, care about me, or think I'm willing to make things better. They fucking despise me and people like me but they also expect us to vote for them anyway. And I do because they, at least, can probably, eventually, be convinced to change things for the better. But you try to put the slightest pressure on them and out come the center-left telling you that you're fucking it all up and you should shut the fuck up and maybe even go die in a fire, you know, if one happens to be handy. So sometimes I need to vent!

Oh, guess what! I also supported Ralph Nader! And, contrary to the idiots who blame Ralph Nader for Gore's loss in Florida (at the time, anyway. We all know it was actually the Supreme Court that cost Gore at this point, right?!), Nader wasn't to blame. If we had a system where voting was mandatory and Nader siphoned off enough votes to cost Gore the election, I'd agree with them. But, and this is part of the center-left delusion where they think everybody on the left should have to vote for them, not everybody who voted for Nader would have even gone out to vote at all! You can't simply assume that all Nader's votes would have went to Gore. It's disingenuous and an easy argument to make and also absolutely, stupidly wrong.

Oh man! This was the era where Lobo³ was the biggest threat in the universe! Doomsday must really be trouble!

Superman follows Doomsday's trail of destruction. He senses no pattern to Doomsday's movements. He seems to head off to whatever he sees that he can destroy. Superman didn't see how Doomsday's first actions were to murder a bird and then a tree so he's pretty confused about Doomsday's penchant for destroying everything. But we readers saw and we thought, "That maniac will destroy anything! I mean, a bird?! And then a tree?! What's next? A gopher?!"

If Superman had only read my theory about why the balding Doomsday was so angry, he might have been able to figure out where Doomsday was headed before he got there.

I knew it! This is about Lex's hair regrowing supplements that don't actually work because why is Lex still bald then?!

While demolishing the appliance section of Lex-Mart, Doomsday catches a preview for an upcoming wrestling show in Metropolis on a big screen television.

"Mother, please?"

I guess Major Mayhem looks like Doomsday's mother so Doomsday heads to Metropolis to find her. I don't know if he finds a map or asks for directions after this. Or maybe one of his super powers is to hear the name of a place and then know how to get there?

Superman catches Doomsday standing there slack-jawed thinking about his mom and smashes him into the back wall of the building. If I were Superman, I'd try to contain the fight to Lex-Mart so that I could both save the day and destroy something of value to that bald dickhead who's always trying to shove Kryptonite up my k-hole. In a forced and mean way and not in a loving, gentle way like Lois does, I mean.

Doomsday laughs maniacally as he punches Superman in the throat which is a good sign. It's good to know he's kept his sense of humor after whatever caused him to become the destructive monster he's become. Probably something to do with his dad abandoning him and then blaming it on alcohol and then constantly buying into right-wing propaganda and voting against the best interest's of Doomsday even though he would often send emails to Doomsday to assure him that he loved him. But he never checked in on him when Doomsday stopped communication for months on end and often just assumed Doomsday was mad at him so he kept his space which doesn't seem like something a loving father would do. Wouldn't a loving father want to check in on his son when he hasn't heard from him? Maybe even especially if he thought his son was mad at him? I don't know, I'm just speculating from my imagination!

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor's brain in an Australian-accented cloned body with luscious hair tries to convince Supergirl from going to help Superman. I don't know which Supergirl this is at this time so I'm not even going to guess. Is she Kal-el's cousin? Is she a human-shaped amoeba? Is she the one that fucked a horse? I don't know.

Oh yeah! The luscious red hair! No wonder Doomsday fell for Lex's scam hair growth product!

As Doomsday and Superman battle their way through several businesses, parking lots, and school buses, Superman discovers that Doomsday can almost read and sort-of speak English.

Stupid Doomsday. That doesn't read, "Mother please whore-bush."

Superman finally manages to get hold of Doomsday and throw him into a nearby unpopulated mountain. While he follows after him, he has himself a little think about "young" Lex Luthor and how cool he is. Superman acts like he wants to be his best friend! But then he has a moment that I assume is foreshadowing and helps me understand, perhaps, where Doomsday came from.

Roger Stern hasn't been subtle about the foreshadowing in this script so I'm assuming that's exactly where Doomsday came from.

The mountain which Doomsday smashed into the side of turns out to be the secret headquarters for The Cadmus Project. I don't remember what the fuck that is but apparently The Guardian is part of it. And since The Guardian is known for wrangling young boys and "mentoring" them, I'm super suspicious about what these assholes are up to.

Superman and Doomsday battle for awhile in some fake forest that Cadmus grew, destroying it in the process. The Guardian arrives to keep Superman from discovering Cadmus's disgusting secret. He's just in time for Doomsday to explode out of the rubble Superman buried him in and get knocked unconscious. Superman also gets knocked out! Without any pursuers or anybody to stand in his way, Doomsday leaps off to Metropolis to go find the wrestler that looks like his mother.

Action Comics #684 Rating: C+. I suppose this story had to be told over quite a few issues to build the tension leading up to Superman's death. But I also think it was padded a bit because they needed Superman to die in his own comic book which meant they had to fill all the Triangle Books with the Doomsday fight until they got back around to Superman. I've only got one more issue until The Death of Superman so maybe I should do a quick search for that issue so I can review it along with these others. Otherwise I'll be going directly from next issue to Funeral for a Friend which seems a bit unsatisfying. Although if I remember correctly, isn't the Death of Superman just 20 splash pages with little dialogue until Superman dies and Lois goes, "Oh no! He's dead!"?

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¹It probably isn't canon because his initials aren't R.F. and also because it sprang like Venus from the sea foam out of my head but I always suspected one of Randall Flagg's alternate identities was David Thorstad.
²Supra.
³Lobo is fucking terrific, isn't he? And sexy!

The Adventures of Superman #497 (December 1992)

Somebody suggested Supes could defeat Doomsday by using his head and Superman was all, "I'm stupid!"

Am I missing something? Does Superman have some sort of Super-back-of-the-head explosion power? Is this a reference to one issue from 1962 by Gardner Fox where Superman discovers this weird-ass super power by leaning back in Perry's chair with the headrest at the Daily Planet and bringing the entire building down with his Super Reverse Head Butt Explosion? Or — and I suspect this is more to the point because even if Superman has Super-ventriloquism, there's no way he has a Super Reverse Head Butt Explosion — was Superman simply all out of ideas so he decided his best chance at stopping Doomsday would be ramming his entire body into a creature that's tough enough to hit him harder than he's every been hit before with the weakest point on Superman's entire body, his neck? After this moment, Superman should have finished the fight with his head lolling back and forth across his shoulders, chest, and back.

Or maybe Superman's X-ray vision told him that Doomsday's biggest weakness was his tum-tum?

The previous part of this story ended with Superman chasing after Doomsday and leaving a family of three to burn to death. On purpose. He could have saved them and then chased after Doomsday but he remembered hearing Booster Gold say, "Doomsday is faster than The Flash!", and Superman panicked. Plus he's probably hung around Batman so much during JLA meetings that he's bought into the argument that it's not his fault if somebody he could have saved dies. "If a manslaughter conviction wouldn't hold up in court, I'm not morally culpable," Batman would say defensively before anybody else said anything at all after Batman had just broken the femurs of eighteen henchmen, leaving them to bleed out in a filthy alley. Henchmen who only took the job with The Riddler to feed their starving children in an economy ruined by Wayne Enterprises.

Dude's got so many different super powers, he forgot about his super breath.

It's hard to blame Superman for his incompetence because it's so much easier to blame the writers for their incompetence. Every reader knows that Superman could have easily saved this family without slowing him down in his pursuit of Doomsday. The real fault lies in the story being broken up just at the point where the boy's family were about to burn because any team of writers and editors could never resist making that a major cliffhanger between issues. "What if Superman has to choose between saving the boy's family and pursuing Doomsday?" some editor said while calculating how much money they were all going to make by killing off Superman. "But Superman could easily blow out the fire with his super breath just as he sped off after Doomsday," suggested a writer who doesn't like money and was told to shut the fuck up with his stupid suggestions that would lead to no extra drama and conflict.

Superman realizes that the key to saving this kid's family and stopping Doomsday somehow comes down to the fact that Doomsday leaps but doesn't fly. "A-ha! I've got it," thinks Superman as I begin to spiral into a tornado of thoughts trying to rationalize Superman's power of flight against the laws of physics. "Doomsday has to obey all natural laws," thinks Superman, "whereas I basically have magic powers!" Somehow that's the answer to all of Superman's current problems. I'll figure out what he means when I get back to reading the comic book but I'm sure the answer will somehow be that Superman throw Doomsday to the ground and while Doomsday is beginning to leap again, Superman will have time to fly back, help the family, and then continue to pursue Doomsday. A solution much more stupid than just having saved the family before flying after Doomsday. Which I acknowledge is a dumb solution if your main intent is to create drama which — let's face Superman facts — is hard to due when you're writing a character that's all-powerful and invulnerable and basically God.

Superman shoves Doomsday into the silt at the bottom of a lake which should stall Doomsday long enough for Superman to get back to the family. Just in time to see Bloodwynd save them but to take the credit himself.

Remember, Bloodwynd is actually Martian Manhunter so he just about died saving this family from a fire that Superman could have put out with a Super Fart as he flew off to chase Doomsday.

I shouldn't be so hard on Superman. Just because he can Super Fart, it doesn't mean he can do it on command! Not many people can!

People who also could have saved Mitch's family by the time Superman got back: the Emergency Medical Team and firefighters who have already arrived by the time Superman came back. Ice who has been fawning over the nearly dead Guy Gardner and who, get this, has frozen water powers which, I'm thinking, could have been used against fire. But it's better that Superman come back to save the mother and her child because it's his comic book. That means it's his responsibility.

Meanwhile, Doomsday has defeated the mud at the bottom of the lake and destroyed a military helicopter in the time it took Superman to get back to him. But Superman has learned a valuable lesson from the nearly burnt-to-death family: save the innocent bystanders while Doomsday's on the downward trajectory of his gravity rainbow.

Mr. Destructo. Man, why didn't Superman get to name Doomsday?! Why did everybody go with Booster's nickname?!

So this is why Superman hasn't been thinking clearly and nearly got a family killed! He's been trying to come up with his own name for Doomsday that will stick! Half of his brain power is being used to think up a name for this monster because he's upset that Booster came up with a cool name for this guy immediately. Clark Kent knows it's too soon for Doomsday to stick. If he can get ahead of this and get the name "Mr. Destructo" into a quick Daily Planet article, he'll have scooped Booster Gold and probably get a thumbs up from Batman! All he has to do is get to a computer and type up an article during Mr. Destructo's next leap!

Superman forgets about Mr. Destructo being at his mercy where inertia is involved so he doesn't grab Mr. Destructo and drag him into outer space. Or maybe Superman's simply scared to grapple with this monster because the monster is so strong? Whatever the reason, Superman decides to brawl with him at ground level and destroy half the town of Kirby. Most of the brawl involves Superman having to save all the people nearly killed as a result of the brawl. Luckily, Maxima returns from having ambulanced Blue Beetle to a nearby hospital.

Meanwhile in Metropolis:

What the fuck?

I wasn't paying enough attention to understand how it happened but it looks like Lois caught wind of Booster calling the creature Doomsday. Booster named him that in Justice League #69 (hee hee) but I already packed it away and don't feel like dragging it out just to see how Booster's name caught on so fast. But if Lois is already referring to the monster as Doomsday, Clark Kent doesn't have a hope in hell of getting his Mr. Destructo moniker going. Also, somehow, Steve Lombard calls it Doomsday in a breaking news event that happens just as Lois and Turtle Boy are heading out on their assignment to cover Superman's death.

Back to the battle between Maxima, Superman, and Mr. Destructo, we learn that battle causes Maxima to gush like a smashed gas pump.

Now I'm as hard as a street light set to throbbing by a Maxima-shaped cock ring.

Man, I wish I had an image to show this over-the-top sexual metaphor that's going to lead to an enormous climax! You know what? I do!

Oh man. I'm about to explode!

Superman, Maxima, and Mr. Destructo also explode. But Mr. Destructo doesn't need any recovery time and he stomps off toward Metropolis and Supes and Maxima take a little post-coital nappy. The Guardian pulls up on his moped some time later to ask Superman, "Was all of this destruction necessary?" And Superman is all, "The guy's name is Mr. Destructo! What did you expect?!" It's at that moment that The Guardian has to give Superman the bad news: the media is already calling the creature Doomsday. He was too late! But at least Superman learned how to defeat the creature that couldn't be defeated by Superman with the help of dozens of other heroes!

Oh, okay. It was all the other heroes getting in the way. That seems like an, um, reasonable conclusion.

The Adventures of Superman #497 Rating: B. Superman learns a valuable lesson in this issue: you cannot count on your friends. Unless the lesson he actually learned because he's not as cynical as me was that he needed to protect his friends and since we've seen Mr. Destructo has the ability to kick the shit out of all of them, he realizes he can't ask anybody else to risk their lives against this creature. It's weird because the lesson heroes usually learn is that they're better together. But sometimes you have to learn that your friends are full of weak sauce and if you're going to die saving the world, it's better that you don't drag them all along with you because then DC wouldn't have any comic book issues on the shelves after they all die. Except maybe the new Turtle Boy.