Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #1 (June 1992)

This is what a $5.00 comic book used to look like.

This story begins with a civil engineer trying to sell Bruce Wayne on the ultimate neighborhood. I haven't read more than her pitch and Bruce's response so far because it sent me spiraling. The pitch is awful. It sounds awful. It sounds like all of the worst ways to make your community absolute shit. It's the kind of pitch you hear from somebody and, if your morals are more important than your pocketbook, you spit in their face because just saying no to this kind of pitch isn't a strong enough refusal. Bruce Wayne, as you'll see, pops a huge boner over part of this pitch and the only reason I haven't immediately completely lost respect for Batman for simply this one bad move by a pedophiliac writer is because I'm hoping he's just acting like he thinks Bruce Wayne would act. Of course Bruce finds his pocketbook more important than his morals; he's a billionaire! It's like when I see Clark Kent trip; I know it's a put-on to protect his secret identity. So when Bruce Wayne is all, "Yes, I would love to invest in your dystopian community!", that's just his version of tripping over an office chair and spilling scalding hot coffee on Jimmy Olsen.

Anyway, sorry to throw you in the lake so abruptly! Here's the woman's pitch to Bruce:

Note the name of the issue. I have a feeling it's important!

Bruce's response to this pitch, which he interrupts (as indicated by the two dashes (am I supposed to perceive those two dashes as an em dash?)), is "Wait a minute, Ms. Diforza did you say .... free of crime?" (All punctuation transcribed exactly as in the speech bubble.) So Bruce's no-crime boner and the title's allusion to "good intentions" and where they'll take you makes me believe that Bruce might actually be buying into this shit. All he had to hear was "free of crime" and he forgets how she said "private security force" which means a bunch of people paid to beat the shit out of any person they can plausibly condemn as a miscreant without having to answer to any citizen board or elections. He ignores where she says "private recreation" which means exclusive clubs to keep out whatever type of people they deem "unworthy" of using their facilities. He ignores "corporate" and "high end" and how that speaks volumes for what this community will be interested in protecting (hint: property values over people). He doesn't even flinch at the characterization of a neighborhood that's been ill-served by the city so that it's maybe not as up to code as the people living there might want it to be, never once mentioning the people living there because they have no other choice. If you mention how the buildings are old and decaying, you don't have to speculate on the people living there and what will happen to them. Making a place "crime free" doesn't just mean kicking out people in poverty and shunting them somewhere else where they're now in even worse sorts. Guess how else you can make a place crime free and worth living in? Providing the necessary help for people in poverty, not ignoring the infrastructure of an area simply because of a bias as to who lives there, dropping the over-policing shit because police always make everything worse, and refusing to buckle under by selling everything out to private and corporate interests so that rents force people out of their homes and into the streets where shit starts spiraling out of control even faster for those barely getting by as it is.

I won't say, "Fuck you, Bruce Wayne," yet! But I'm fucking close, man!

Fuck you, Bruce Wayne!

Ignoring DiForza's condescension with the phrase "little people" (a phrase she's using because whatever word caused her to hesitate and re-think saying was probably some kind of slur), what makes Bruce think that the "little people" are the ones who will benefit from this corporate, high-end, privately secured neighborhood?! I know Bruce Wayne isn't stupid so he'd better be fucking with her! He'd better already have alerted Alfred to get his Batsuit ready because he's got to follow some rich fucking corporation-fellator around for the night. I bet she sets at least three homeless people on fire on her way home from the gala.

Thinking she's landed him so easily with her pitch to create a new crime-free Gotham, Diforza eases up and really starts spouting her racist, classist garbage. Bruce was probably just giving her enough slack to hang herself, right?

I bet this conversation was cut up like this because in much the same way Clark show's he's clumsy to prove he's not a super dude, Bruce probably drops the N-word while dealing with fucking pricks like this at his rich shindigs.

Oh, I see! She probably figured she didn't need to mention that the current residents were going to be kicked out. Rich people would just take that as a given that anybody listening to this shit would understand. So her idea of helping out the "little people" is getting Bruce Wayne to throw some money at the project and build some kind of Section-8 housing in some other beaten-to-shit Gotham neighborhood.

Being that he's like the title character of this series, The Riddler crashes this gala by walking in and stripping a woman by pulling one bow of her outfit. I didn't realize he had any actual super powers until now. I guess you can't go around calling yourself The Bra Wrangler or The Panty Dropper though. I mean, you could but everybody would think you were an idiot frat bro. The Riddler pretends that stripping the woman was a sign of his intelligence which sounds about right since most of the guys who want to be seen as logical and intelligent are usually the ones who try to defend any kind of misogyny. "Dude, it was just locker room talk!" As if guys showing their true nature in a private space is supposed to be some kind of defense. A lot of us men grew up actively avoiding locker rooms because these Neanderthals felt they could be as awful as possible. If you defend something by saying it's jus a thing that guys do in a locker room, those of us who grew up with you and spent time in high school locker rooms with you understand you all too well. You're a vile, despicable human being.

It turns out The Riddler works for Ms. DiForza seeking out leaks in her security or faults in her engineers' plans. He makes an appearance, insults Bruce Wayne, and then flaunts his way right out of the room. Since Bruce Wayne has a huge deal in the works that involves evicting technical criminals (squatters), Batman decides to try to scare them out. Or maybe he's investigating. If he's just investigating, he sure goes about it in a way that's likely to start some violence. Just like a fucking cop, man!

Maybe I should just be glad he's not Judge Dredd.

Batman's too smart not to already know what the fuck is going down out here in the shit neighborhoods and abandoned buildings. But sometimes naïve Batman gets taken down from the shelf so social-economic shit can be spoken in character to help bring the reader a little closer to finding sympathy with lawbreakers and anarchists who aren't out to harm anybody. They're fighting the system every day just to survive as freely as possible (not "free" as in "paying nothing" but "free" as in "the man ain't gonna fucking control me").

Bob offers Batman some dinner (arroz con pollo, one of my favorite dishes my grandmother used to make!) but Batman decides to do his best Judge Dredd being slightly reasonable impression by repeating, "A crime is a crime." Oh, fuck you, Bruce Wayne! You know who the real criminals are! Why you hassling these folk?!

As Batman loses the debate with the squatters, the real criminals fire bomb the building they're squatting. Much easier than convincing Bruce Wayne to get involved! Although putting the lives of the squatters' children in danger will probably get Bruce Wayne way more involved than Diforza and The Riddler want him to be. You know, as Batman. Because once the squatters have abandoned the building due to the fire bombing, Batman's free to see them as people instead of criminals and then he'll be all, "I'm Batman! I stop street crime which means I now have reason to go after the white collar criminals! They should have stuck to manipulating and ruining the lives of people via capitalism! That's acceptable!"

While not necessarily needing to be rescued, Batman is rescued by some gigantic armored robots who probably had nothing to do with the arson at all. I mean, Batman also happened to be at the location and I'm not suspicious of him. So why not give the private robot security team the benefit of the doubt?

They look a little bit like Gordon's Bat-armor from The New 52.

The Riddler proves to be a pain-in-the-ass employee to Ms. Diforza. Instead of building a security system, he builds traps that can be evaded if the intruders are smart enough. When he procures information against Ms. Diforza's competitors, he tries to leave clues as to who stole them. Ms. Diforza decides to put up with him because she feels she owes him for how much he's done getting the project to where it is but her head of security wants to kick his ass back to his parole officer. He blames The Riddler on The Batman hanging around the condemned buildings within the future development. That one, at least, isn't The Riddler's fault.

A few days later, after the fire-bombed building has been torn down, Ms. Diforza holds a press conference to explain to the city and the "little people" how New Gotham will benefit everybody.

Oh, fuck you, Donna Diforza.

I'm not even sure why this comic book needs The Riddler. Diforza's doing a bang-up job being the villain already.

I'm so sick and tired of people who purport to want to help people but only if those people succumb to their control and approval. Any time anybody tells me they "approve" of what I'm doing, I punch them in the fucking mouth.

The protesters take over the stage and Bob grabs up the microphone to describe to the press what's really going on their neighborhood. But she's blasted by one of the armored private security guys working for Diforza. Bruce steps in to half-heartedly defend the protestors.

Yeah, you dumb robot. Smaller amounts of extreme physical violence would get the job done!

Bob and her crew attempt to kidnap Ms. Diforza while Bruce and the robot man argue about just how much to hurt the protestors to get them to shut up. I don't know if Gerard Jones thinks protestors would do this kind of shit or he knows he's writing a comic book about Gotham City so things really need to escalate. Or maybe Bob was just using Ms. Diforza as a human shield so that Ms. Diforza's goons wouldn't shoot her a second time. It feels like Gerard Jones thinks he needs to slowly make the readers understand that the protestors are the good guys instead of presuming the readers have already started out in that position. It's like he's writing for people from 1992 and/or Gamergaters.

Earlier, some of the elite at the gala were pointing out how much Donna Diforza was flirting with Bruce Wayne and I'm beginning to think that's why Bruce is having trouble coming around to simply putting an end to this whole project. His body has diverted too much blood from the think organ to the fuck organ. And, I mean, I kind of get it.

Dive, Donna, Dive

Before Donna and Bruce fuck in the pool, Bruce learns that Donna's head of security is an ex-Stasi operative from East Germany who proposed this whole idea of "central community planning." And he still doesn't drop the project right there! Oh, yeah, I forgot that happened before he got laid. Maybe he'll put a stop to the project on the next page as he's dumping the used condom in the bin.

It's sort of hilarious that in 1992, the person in charge of the capitalist crimes had to be an East German Communist. What? People wouldn't buy that an American corporation would commit violence against poor people on the land they want to develop? I mean, there were people in 1992 who absolutely understood you didn't need a Communist to be the baddie. I was there! Kurt Vonnegut was there! Thomas Pynchon was there! Um, probably some other people who understood the horrors of capitalism too but I didn't know any others personally.

The Riddler, who must be a tried and true American, does not like seeing a Communist involved in this project. Also The Riddler has this obsessive-compulsive thing he does where he has to send a riddle to Batman to give Batman a chance to stop any crime The Riddler knows about or is involved in. So The Riddler, spying on the Communist security chief, realizes he's going to kill the squatters. He sends a riddle to Gordon who passes it on to Batman. But Gordon doesn't just have the riddle for Batman; he's also got a stupid fucking moronic question.

Who the fuck cares, man?! Dump those assholes who think they need to know why Batman was with some squatters. Fuck you, Jim Gordon!

From how seriously Gordon asks the question, you'd think Batman got caught fucking goats. "The people need to know, Batman. Why were you fucking goats?!" Batman doesn't answer because Jim won't tell him what assholes want to know. I bet it's The Court of Owls! I think this is the first appearance of the idea of the possibility of the Court of Owls!

Batman witnesses Bob Cifuentes' car blow up, killing her friend. She rushes out to the street and is immediately arrested by the Armored Goons. Batman realizes, begrudgingly, that he has to side with the squatters. He attacks the Armored Thugs but before he can do any real damage, the police, having been called by Diforza's goons, arrive to take Bob into custody. Batman doesn't want to beat up the police no matter how many police need beating up, so he backs down and assures Bob that she'll be okay, if she's innocent. Bob gives Batman a dose of reality.

"If you are innocent." This fucking dick seriously doesn't want to have to be on the side of poor people.

Batman goes back to grill Gordon and discovers the Armored Goons have been deputized to work with the Gotham Police. Gordon doesn't like it but he can't prove the leader, the Communist, is as bad as he thinks he is. Batman promises to find the evidence and heads out to patrol for the rest of the week.

A few nights later, Batman encounters one of the Armored Goons. He engages him in battle and the entire fight, Batman is all, "One small charge on my batarang to stagger him but not injure him. A smoke bomb to disrupt his sensors but not injure him. One more batarang to stop him but not injure him." Every other thought from Batman is, "I've done everything right not to injure this guy!" I wonder why he keeps reminding the reader that he's so cautious about causing bodily harm? If he thought like this all the time, I wouldn't be so down on how much he loves to break bones!

Oh! That's why! So we know Batman didn't actually kill this guy.

Attentive readers will have remembered how Captain Communist told one of his men who fucked up during their mission that he would have to teach them a lesson about being a victim so they know that this man was killed by the Communist and not by Batman. But the police won't know that when they find the dead guy with an exploded boomerang on him. Oh, and also when The Riddler sends a VHS tape of the killing to the police department.

The issue ends with Ms. Diforza firing The Riddler because he's packed his office full of sharks and she's like, "What the fuck?! How are we supposed to take care of these sharks?!" Now I guess Ms. Diforza has two enemies? Batman and The Riddler? Because The Riddler doesn't seem happy about being fired. He's like a cat who keeps biting and scratching you when you're just trying to take your hand away because the cat thinks it's a game but you're just all, "Look, cat! I just don't want a bunch of dead sharks stinking up my building!" And now the cat is all, "A-ha! Now that you've tossed me outside so you can get rid of my sharks, the real game is afoot!" Was that metaphor/analogy any good?

Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #1 Rating: B+. I'd probably have given it an A+ if Bruce Wayne and Batman weren't being so fucking strict about the law and obtuse about understanding how capitalism victimizes so many. Also I have to criticize Gerard Jones' need to make the main villain a fucking Communist. That's like putting fifteen hats on another hat. Sort of unnecessary. Also still kind of funny though.

Superman #77 (March 1993)

And thus we bid adieu to Superman. Forever.

If you weren't reading comic books in 1993, you have no clue how sad we all were that we were going to be losing Superman forever. Every essay I wrote in college revolved around the Death of Superman and what it meant for every American from here on out. Didn't I? Maybe I just mentioned it once in one of my memoir papers entitled "Within the Dream of the Sleeping Red King". Also my friend Brent assures me that I was nearly inconsolable that my nephew would grow up in a world without a Superman. Maybe I said that because I was feeling so sentimental about my one year old nephew but I surely didn't say that because I gave a fuck about Superman, as evidenced by the fact that I own, pre-New-52, about a dozen Superman comic books. That's not counting nearly the entire run of DC Comics Presents because I didn't collect that for Superman! I collected it for the guest stars and, only discovering it after the fact, Ambush Bug. What I'm trying to say is we weren't a cynical lot of bitter bastards! We took DC at their word that they were killing Superman and that everything would be different after that! It was a sad and terrible time.

Also, I might have had several concussions from downhill biking accidents between 1993 and now which have muddied my memories of the time. It's possible I'm getting the death of Disco confused with the death of Superman.

Before I begin discussing this issue, just a quick update on my Infinite Jest read. One of the things I always do when I'm trying to understand a text is figure out why the book was called what it was called and why the characters are named the way they are. And while Infinite Jest was obviously a reference to Yorick from Hamlet, I wasn't sure why it was chosen as the name of the text and James Incandenza's name for his ultimately deadly Entertainment. I had been discussing it with the Non-Certified Spouse over dinner a day or two ago and later that night, the book simply explained it pretty fucking matter-of-factly to me. The father of Hal Incandenza (if, at railroad spike, we were forced to choose a protagonist among the many characters, it would certainly be Hal. But without a threat of hearing the squeak, I'm choosing to believe this text is anti-protagonist), who de-mapped himself by putting his head in a microwave oven, created his deadly entertainment to try to make his child, whom he saw suffering more and more from anhedonia and disassociation from the world and others, happy. The entertainment, or Hal's father, was the jester, Yorick, full of infinite jest, trying to pull his son out of his spiraling depression and separation from the world. So while I've been meaning to dive back into the world of Shakespeare (being that I've lugged that six pound book of the collected works of Shakespeare around my entire life, having purchased it in college), I sort of have to probably read Hamlet next. Mostly because of Infinite Jest but also because of Station Eleven which I should re-watch around the same time (and, probably, read the actual book).

I've also been reading Stephard Bachking's The Long Walk which I haven't read since 1986 or so. The only things I remember (or think I remember since I haven't gotten to them in this re-read yet) are when the main character Ray needs to take a crap under the threat of being shot if he takes too long and how he goes fucking nuts at the end of the story (probably not a spoiler for the movie because they'll probably change 85% of the book). But what keeps going through my head as I read it this time is this: "Is this Stephen King's more vulgar and dumbed down version of "Night-Sea Journey" by John Barth?" My current hypothesis is "I'm pretty fucking sure it is" but you'll have to wait for my full review on Goodreads when I finish it. By the way, I highly recommend "Night-Sea Journey" and most of the rest of John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. I say "most of the rest" because I know not everybody enjoys the kind of tangled stories that I enjoy. It's not like I go around recommending Gertrude Stein to anybody else no matter how much I adore her. I am acquainted with the limits of status quo brains for their entertainments.

And then I opened this comic book to the first page and, by golly, even at 53, I have discovered I can spontaneously ejaculate!

Enough about my literary inclinations; here's some man nipples and a mention of my ejaculate!

I'm not one of those people who desperately need to figure out if somebody is trans or not; accepting a person as they present themselves is (and should be!) the be all and end all of how we interact with each other. But (oh no! He said but!), that being said, Lex Luthor is a fictional comic book character (whom I should be able to speculate on wildly) who just had his mind transplanted inside a cloned body. Lex presents himself as male because that's what he is. My hypothesis is that the clone his brain was put into was female that has had top surgery (and possibly bottom surgery but that's not my fucking business. Besides, he's fucking a mass of shifting, sexless cells, so he can basically be packing anything down there and Supergirl can just make whatever genitals will most please Lex (even a toaster, I guess?)) and is taking hormones to maintain his presented masculine traits. Why would I even consider this? Well, the luscious nipples and fabulous hair were my first clue but men often have amazing nipples and hair as well so it didn't have me wondering at all. Wondering about my sexuality, sure! But not about Lex's gender. What made me suspect Luthor's brain was placed inside a woman's body was this:

Look at those dainty feet! And the limberness!

I'm more than certain that Dan Jurgens can draw feet reasonably well so this has to be purposeful! And those delicate, scrumptious feet aren't a mistake because they exist in more than one panel.

They're so cute and delicate!

Sure, maybe Lex just has tiny feet. Maybe Dan Jurgens was having a weird foot day. But it's also possible Lex Luthor II's brain was placed in a female body. Or a cloned body drawn by Rob Liefeld.

Even weirder than Lex's miniscule little lady feet though is Lois's choice of outfit.

Is this Lois Lane or David Byrne?

Lois has dropped by to tell Lex that Cadmus has Superman's body, as if he didn't already know. He acts as if he didn't already know but that's because he's a manipulative little prick who can never give the slightest hint about his hand to anybody at the poker table. Lois, also a manipulative little bitch, pretends she's going to publish a story about it but she really just wants Lex Luthor to destroy Cadmus. She's afraid printing the story would kill one or both of the Kents. Ha ha! If only she knew her previous story has already done that!

I don't know whose toes I'd suck first!

Pa Kent doesn't die which is probably good because I laughed at him face down on the cover of Superman The Man of Steel #21 so many times that people might suspect I'd feel bad. I can't have people suspecting things that aren't possible so I'm glad Jonathan has pulled through. Although it was weird that Pa didn't respond to any of the medical treatment for his cardiac arrest until they ripped his shirt open to expose his old man nipples and then he jolted awake with a "Clark!" That's just an observation. I'm not suggesting anything untoward or kinky.

Later in the women's locker room at LexCorps, Sasha, the martial arts trainer from earlier who knocked Lex off his tiny feet, has a mysterious encounter with a mysterious person who can't be Lex Luthor because Dan Jurgens totally sets it up to be Lex Luthor.

You can tell I really wanted to concentrate on the dialogue in this encounter because I left out the previous panel where Sasha is topless.

No men around LexCorps? So, like, if Lex had to clone a body for his brain, it would probably have to be female? And, if this is Lex, just like a villainous piece of shit Republican, he's all, "Being that I'm a male brain inside a female body, I have a right to be in either changing room and I'm going to use that fact for nefarious purposes! Ah ha ha ha ha!" But that's just dumb speculation because this obviously isn't Lex killing Sasha. This murderer being revealed as Lex has as much chance as the island on Lost having been purgatory!

Oh, what the hell! Here's Sasha's tits!

Also, Lex admits to killing Sasha before the end of the comic book so I guess the island in Lost was purgatory! I mean, at least until the writers decided it wasn't because too many people guessed that it was. Just like when everybody guessed Monarch was Captain Atom so DC decided Monarch was actually Hawk! So dumb!

Also also, Pa dies at the end. And it's way less funny than when he died in the field on that cover. Ha ha! That looked so silly!

Also also also, Supergirl retrieves Superman's body and she, Lex, and Lois return him to his crypt inside a new coffin, probably created by Lex to suck out the last of Supe's powers or some other weird shit.

Also also also also, some good news: I don't think I have any more Superman comic books to read! Yay! The bad news? I'm going to be reading more Gerard Jones' comic books soon. Boo! Hiss! Just to clarify, I'm booing and hissing because he's a convicted sex pest and not because he's a terrible writer. His comics are always top notch! Now if I were booing and hissing about Scott Lobdell, it would be because his writing was terrible and not because he's been convicted of being a sex pest. I'm not saying he is one! But I'm also saying you can't prove a negative. So, you know. Shrug!

Superman #77 Rating: C. So, in the end, Superman died forever and we never saw the likes of him again. At least for about seven months or so. During those months, I bought a lot of Magic the Gathering cards to salve my emotional turmoil and often wept for my poor nephew's non-Superman future! So sad! Then when Superman returned, my main reaction was, "Thank God they didn't bring Jason Todd back! I hope he stays dead forever!" But you know how that ended too: me buying even more Magic the Gathering cards to salve my emotional turmoil and constantly weeping for my poor nephew's non-non-Jason Todd future. Stupid Judd Winick!

Superman The Man of Steel #21 (March 1993)

What wattage bulb are the fucking Kents using for their front room?

Most of my questions on this blog are rhetorical so I don't need anybody pointing out that the Kents probably use "as bright as a yellow sun" wattage on all of their bulbs. Also, did you notice this bit on the cover that keeps making me giggle because I'm a fucking monster?

Ha ha! What is he even doing?!

You might have forgotten that Superman died eight or so issues ago. That's what the whole funeral thing is about even if the funeral was over three or four issues ago. I don't like to deal with specifics because people on the Internet will just wind up clucking their tongues at me and correcting me. But if I say something like, "Superman died somewhere in the last ten issues," I can't be proven wrong because I'm not wrong even if I'm not accurate. It's how I've lived most of my life which is why I haven't been successful at anything except still being alive somehow. And even that doesn't have anything to do with my accomplishments! You can't say I somehow kept my mother from aborting me or that I willed the car not to be in the other lane of traffic when I flew around a blind corner while crossing the center line on my 10 speed bike coming down Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains at ridiculous speeds or didn't fall to my death while stealing a fire extinguisher from some grain factory in Los Banos while drunk or any other number of simple luck-based moments where I just happened to not die. I would add that I had nothing to do with surviving that time I got hit by a car but fuck that because the only reason I survived was because of my super acrobatic skills and stuntman-like reflexes!

For the record, I'd like to point out that I was hit by a car while crossing with the light in a crosswalk and it was entirely the driver's fault who was rushing to make a left-hand turn before more cars entered the intersection from the other direction and didn't see me although I, using my apparent spider-senses, did look over my shoulder just in time to see that she was about to plow into me and I leapt up off the ground so that my feet were in the air when she hit me saving me from serious injury as the car simply hit my calves and tilted me, sliding me across the hood where I bunched myself up to hit the windshield with my shoulder. I then bounced off the car, helicoptering around a few times before landing on my hip about five feet away to the side of the road. Fearing that the driver might attempt a hit and run, I sprung up immediately like a rabid raccoon and jumped back in front of the car to keep them from driving away. In the end, the driver probably shit herself thinking she had just killed somebody and I was all, "It's cool. No harm done." She really wanted to take me to a hospital but I knew every part of my body that had been hit and how much and I was all, "No, I'm good." Maybe it was lucky that I was all good but I knew I hadn't hit my head or torso so I wasn't worried about internal bleeding or brain injury. She gave me her card to call her in case anything cropped up and I needed to, I don't know, sue her? If I knew where her card was, I'd call her right now and transcribe our conversation! But that was like twenty-three years ago so she's probably dead now.

Ha ha! Oh man. Get up, lazy!

Jon refuses to get up. But not Lois! She wakes up in a nipple-stiffening panic!

Wait. Is she waking up to an alarm? Or is she orgasming from her vibrator?

Sometimes comic books are confusing especially when you're a huge pervert (which, I'm assuming, everybody who reads comic books are so that probably didn't need to be added). I should also point out that her dream was about Superman drowning in a a whirlpool and if that isn't some serious female wet dream symbolism, I should probably re-read Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung.

Ha ha! I've never read that! What do you think I am? Somebody who reads books without nipples in? I'd never read something that talks about the weird fucking dreams Carl Jung had while growing up and his confusing thoughts about his budding sexuality! That's nerd shit!

The buzzing sound effect is neither alarm nor Lady's Private Time Bed Buddy; it's Perry White calling Lois to tell her that she's having prophetic dreams now. Metropolis is flooding! Stupid Cadmus. It's all their fault rigging the underground tunnels in the city with mines to keep people from finding out they stole Superman's corpse to do "experiments" on. I put experiments in quotes because I don't think sticking your penis in the butt of a dead alien contributes to the growth of our scientific knowledge. That's more something people do for "the kicks."

Meanwhile, in Kansas:

Ha ha! No, no. Not yet! But it's coming!

Currently in Kansas, Bogdanove and Janke are drawing panels right out of Preacher, if'n they'd only left the word balloons off.

I removed the speech bubbles for maximum effect!

See? If Garth Ennis had written the story that went along with that panel, you'd be thinking, "Did Martha just catch Jon fucking that cow?"

Back at Cadmus, Dubbilex is all, "How do we even know Superman is dead? Haven't you noticed how his clothes healed and he's not bruised and bleeding anymore? That must mean something, right?" And The Guardian is all, "Shut the fuck up, Dubbilex." Then the Newsboy Legion simply walk right into the lab where Superman's corpse is being "experimented" on because I guess they're latchkey kids? How do they have top secret clearance? Are the readers supposed to like these little shits? I've only just met them and I want to cut off my leg, burn it to Baphomet, and ask for the boon of a quite specific Mandela Effect where these little fuckers no longer exist.

Please tell me all you see is a blank panel here or else I crippled myself for nothing. Praise Baphomet!

I just want to say that it's really difficult to do something clever that you're fairly certain nobody is even going to ever notice. But I'm used to it because I have the dad that I've had. Thanks for preparing me for nobody ever noticing my accomplishments!

The Underworlders investigate the flooding and discover it was probably Cadmus who did it. The Guardian also learns of the flooded tunnels with help from, well, um, I guess maybe he just figured it out himself. On the topside, Lois has ventured into the city to do some of her reporting that she believes got Superman killed because she, um, didn't help Superman fight Doomsday and just observed? She's gone nuts if she thinks she could have helped save Superman!

Batman finally makes an appearance but not to express how he wishes he could have helped Superman. He just brags to Alfred that he could have killed Superman too, if he'd wanted.

The Superman in Batman's memory is like ten times more fit than normal.

Lois, being the ace reporter that she is even when Superman isn't feeding her all the information, discovers in practically no time at all that Superman's body is missing and that Cadmus is probably behind the graverobbing and the flooding. Basically she slips past the idiot police guarding the crypt, runs into Maggie Sawyer who simply spills every bean she has, and then winds up in the right place at the right time to run into the Underworlders who have found evidence of Cadmus's bombs that caused the flooding. She's a genius!

Meanwhile back in Kansas:

Ha ha! Oh man. So funny!

Jonathan Kent has yet to collapse in a field actually. He's too busy constantly hallucinating moments with his son.

Holy shit! Superman is 10 times more fit in Jonathan's memory than in Batman's!

Lois teams up with the Underworlders to infiltrate Cadmus. She runs into the, um, some other, no wait, she and the Underworlders apparently find Superman's corpse without any help from, um, you know, nobody, I guess. Once she discovers Superman's corpse, she kicks motherfucking ass while looking super sexy as a hot frog.

I think my dick just said, "Ribbit."

Lois and her friends can't carry Superman's body out of there but she takes some pictures and flees when the alarms sound. She publishes a story about Cadmus stealing Superman's body so that they'll have to give it up or face mobs taking them down.

Meanwhile, in Kansas, as Jonathan learns about his son's corpse being "experimented" on:

Dammit. This isn't as funny as the cover made it out to be.

Superman The Man of Steel #21 Rating: B+. Now that Jonathan has died (or has he?! Is he as dead as Superman is?!), do we need another 8 Part Epic, "Funeral For a Friend's Father"? Fuck, I hope not! Or, actually, I don't really care because I'm fairly certain the next issue of Superman I read will be the last Superman issue I read (until I discover where I've stored Superman #75, of course). Thankfully I won't be reading all the Superboy and Steel and Eradicator and Red/Blue Superman crap that followed this. I'm not sure how I even stayed interested enough to finish out this "Funeral For a Friend" story arc back in 1993. I mean, it's not terrible. But I've just never been that interested in Superman and his cast of characters.

Action Comics #686 (February 1993)

This should have been the cover to The Adventures of Superman #499.

This cover must be doing its impression of the quiz show Jeopardy because we were given the answer to this riddle in the previous arc of the story, Superman Triangle Issue #7. I felt like last issue was filler so that probably has something to do with this cover being on the wrong comic book. My brain is too old to give a shit about backing up my hypothesis with three strong arguments followed by a conclusion. Also that's baby shit that Debate Bros still somehow cling to. Maybe it's because Junior High was the peak of their lives? Anyway, let's just pretend that my I've written a Big Baby Essay Paper and my arguments that last issue shouldn't have existed are "DC needed to make this story arc 8 issues, 2 for each monthly Superman title," "This cover should have been on the previous issue," and "Why would God let me come up with this hypothesis if it wasn't true?" Bam! Prove me wrong, Bro!

The other riddle on the cover, "Why is Lex Luthor so paranoid?", doesn't need a proper answer because it's a simple tautology. He's that paranoid because he's that paranoid. Paranoia makes you that paranoid, whether it's warranted or not. Does Lex Luthor do crimes against Superman because he thinks Superman will somehow make humanity weaker and thus ultimately destroy humanity? Does Lex Luthor believe Superman will destroy him because of his crimes to stop Superman from destroying him? Paranoia doesn't need any reasons to justify itself because the nature of paranoia isn't that it's a rational reaction to the reality surrounding you. It's going to creep up no matter what outside factors exist. Because paranoia creates paranoia.

I'm not a doctor so the previous paragraph might be absolute bullshit. But God let me think it so it is more probably the absolute truth instead?

This issue begins with The Guardian chasing down criminals driving minivans.

He's not bulletproof but you have to stop aiming directly at his shield, you moron!

The way automatic guns kick, you'd think The Guardian would have been killed in his first fight against some young tough with an Uzi. The first five bullets would ting off the shield as the barrel slowly kicked upward until the sixth bullet would just blow right through The Guardian's neck or chin. Except I don't actually know what The Guardian's powers are so, you know what? Maybe I'm the moron! Maybe The Guardian is bulletproof and the shield is just to remind the readers that he's a Captain America knock-off!

Man. I should have read ahead to this panel so I wouldn't have had to publicly admit that I didn't know something!

The revelation that The Guardian isn't bulletproof (or, more literally, that he doesn't need to be but I'm guessing that he's not and he's just being casually dismissive of the danger he's in here) is less jaw-dropping than the revelation that four guys armed to the teeth with automatic weapons are simply stealing a mini-van. The Guardian apprehends them all and the last one still conscious whines, "You could have killed me!" You hate to see somebody trying to kill somebody else get upset and accuse the other person of trying to kill them. And by "you", I mean "I". I hate to see it. If I were a vigilante and some piece of shit criminal said this after I'd disarmed and subdued him, I would strip him naked, dress him up in a huge Big Baby Diaper, shove a pacifier gag into his mouth, and leave him hanging from a streetlight in one of those baby jumpers. Sure, that would take up more time than it's worth but if you're going to whine when I use every violent option available to me to keep you from killing me, the least I can do is absolutely humiliate you. I might also have a sidekick who's a tattoo artist whose only job is to tattoo the image of the Big Baby Debate Bro Criminal in a diaper hanging in a baby jumper on their back so everybody in prison knows they're a Big Whiny Baby Boy Who Wants Their Num Nums.

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor steeps in paranoia. Superman's body is missing so Lex Luthor, who just recently faked his death, worries that Superman has faked his death to trick Lex Luthor into dropping his guard. But you know who never drops their guard? Paranoids! That could be Thomas Pynchon's sixth Proverb for the Paranoids, just after #5 which is "Paranoids are not paranoids because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations." That seems to go against my paranoid tautology which might look bad for my ability to hypothesize since Pynchon was a genius. But Pynchon was also a paranoid genius who couldn't quite perceive the world outside of his paranoid mind which meant that his paranoia caused him not to think every situation was paranoid because that's how his mind worked but to think every situation was paranoid because, being paranoid, he put himself into those situations. Are those different things? I'm not even sure that sentence makes sense but it hurts my head to re-read it so I'm just going to leave it alone now and ignore it.

One other fault with my argument that I didn't mention: I am also generally paranoid but in a way that allows me to see outside my paranoia and convince myself that I'm starting to think in a paranoid manner. This ability to sort of see outside myself was honed living with my mother who abso-fucking-lutely is (or has been at times in the past?) super paranoid. She also downed a lot of "diet pills" in the '70s so her paranoia may have been less genetic and more amphetaminic. But there must have been some genetic aspect because when I lose my outside overview of my paranoia, I can spiral really quickly. It's only afterward when the paranoid situation I, according to Pynchon, put myself into has passed that I can look back at my thoughts and actions and think, "Whoo boy! What a coconut!"

Lex Luthor explains to Maggie Sawyer why Superman's tomb contains secret doors and tunnels.

Elsewhere in Metropolis, The Guardian gets a telepathic message from Dubbilex that something fishy is going on at Cadmus. He heads back to find Westfield in a lab with Superman's corpse and a technician who had no qualms about dissecting Superman's body until he realizes he's getting caught up in "office politics." I want to say that I'd hate to be friends with somebody eager to cut up a corpse but doesn't want to be judged by his coworkers for that but I have a feeling I already am friends with people like that. It's best that I just don't know that they're like that, I think.

Weird that they would put him in an undamaged suit before taking it off of him to slice him up.

I suppose somebody else put Superman in the new suit before the funeral and not Westfield and his sadistic crew. I don't know who though. Batman? Does he keep a spare suit for Superman in the Batmobile? Maybe it was Wonder Woman? I don't want to be gross but I'm going to be anyway because my mind instantly provided me with a picture of Wonder Woman carefully putting her mouth around Superman's penis while changing him. I don't know why my mind would think that. Maybe my brain was all, "Wouldn't you give it a shot if you thought a BJ would bring Superman around?" Maybe my mind was also just thinking, "Superman naked? Suck that cock!", and it forgot I was thinking about Superman's corpse being naked which makes it gross, at least in most U.S. states. It's also possible that Superman's suit regenerated and it's a hint that maybe the same process is taking place within Superman's body!

A bit of a tussle takes place around Superman's body but ultimately The Guardian is convinced by Westfield to let the experiments go on. The Guardian was apparently brought back from the dead so he figures he owes Superman a chance at being brought back too. That means cloning him and using Dubbilex's telepathic powers to imprint what he's previously collected of Superman's mind and personality onto the clone's brain. Yeah, sure. That seems fine! Who cares if a new Superman isn't really Superman? The only person who would be able to notice is the old Superman and he's dead!

Luthor, Supergirl, Maggie Sawyer, and Dan Turpin investigate Superman's tomb but are stymied by an explosive which floods the tunnels used to break into Superman's crypt. Lex and the police go their separate ways having failed to find out what happened to Superman. But both parties pretty much know Cadmus was behind it. They agree not to go public with the grave robbery, especially now that the Superman Is Jesus Cult have arrived from California to shake tambourines and give out flowers to everybody.

The issue ends with the Kents and Lana Lang flying back to Kansas and, I think, a hint at a future lesbian romance?

I don't know what true compassion looks like because my male gaze consumed my empathy during my teenage years.

Action Comics #686 Rating: B+. You might think I'm kidding about my empathy having been destroyed and maybe I would also normally think that but then I keep glancing over at the pile of comics I have to read and seeing the cover to Superman The Man of Steel #21 and giggling. You can Google the cover to see just how much of a monster I must be to giggle at that cover or you can wait until my review of it coming up in, oh, I don't know, a week maybe? A day? Three months? I am not consistent.