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.