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.

The Adventures of Superman #499 (February 1993)

Was Superman known for his love of falconry?

I read a lot of stuff. Sometimes when I'm sitting on the toilet (which usually isn't long because I'm really efficient with my bowel movements, generally. But sometimes, you need some patience), I just grab some bottle or box out of the bathroom cabinet or pantry and read the label. Today, I grabbed a bottle called "Dr. Bronner's Siberian Fir & Spruce Sal Suds Biodegradable Cleaner". The Non-Certified Spouse is currently in another state and I can't ask her immediately where she bought it but if I had to guess, it was at Schizophrenics 'R' Us. What grabbed my attention was that every section of the label is filled with writing, some horizontal and some vertical, so you have to turn the bottle to read it. It looks exactly like when a schizophrenic puts there thoughts down on paper. Every empty space covered by the smallest font imaginable. And after reading the label, my instincts were confirmed. I hate to use the term "nuts" because we all have a variety of mental illness issues to varying degrees but I think "cuckoo" might be too insensitive. Of course, Dr. Bronner has made it work for him so no judgments from me! Plus I'm not schizophrenic but I have read Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark's book, The Eden Express, which details quite well how a trip on LSD mirrors schizophrenia and I have done loads of LSD so I'm probably nearly an expert to speak on being schizophrenic. That's how it works, right?

Anyway, here's the opening line (I think it's the opening line? It's at the top of the label and in bold font) of Dr. Bronner's rant or manifesto or thesis:

Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! Teach the Moral ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly 6 billion strong & we're All-One! "Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!"

Following that opening 16 "absolutes" that Dr. Bronner begins by stating they're "From Confucius' Absolutes". I have my doubts that Dr. Bronner got his "absolutes" from Confucius but since I've never read Confucius, I can't say for certain. It's just a hunch based on the contents of his absolutes. Let me quote #2 here:

2. It is an absolute full truth that everybody in God's tremendous universe must eat or there is no body! To shine on, eat must even the Sun, consuming every second on its surface meteoric matter 100,000 tons! Exceptions? Absolute none!

But the absolutes aren't the weirdest part! The cake gets taken by the lines placed vertically that explain the history of the company. It begins normal enough, I suppose.

From '29 to '44, soapmaker-master-chemist Bronner built 3 American soap plants, trained 9 chemists, licensed 6 of 53 patents for $60,000!

A little awkward, sure, but if written on a normal label and left at that, nobody would even pay it much attention. But then the second line is all, "Oh, you thought you bought soap from a person without schizophrenia? Oh how wrong you were, consumer!"

But after '44, after losing father-mother-wife, almost his own life, tortured-blinded, he deeded to African astronomer Israel's 6000 year great All-One-God-Faith all of his patents, plants, products, profits, 4 new industries: Planetemples & "Town Without Toothache" potassium-soda industry giving mankind a new Mineral-Seasoning, Barley Malt Sweetener, Corn-Sesame-Chips, Balanced Bouillon, Sal Suds & 'Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps'.

I really wasn't planning on transcribing this whole label (and I won't! I just did one of the sixteen Absolutes! I'm just going to finish this biography) but I am absolutely fucking fascinated by this thing. How many people are buying this stuff and just not reading the incredibly tiny and off-putting type just plastered all over the label?! Anyway, here's the final bit of Dr. Bronner's secret history which he decided should end in a poem that, I guess, equates to Philip K. Dick's pink laser piercing his brain?

In '74, after father-mother-wife murdered, ourself tortured-blinded, we wrote this poem: To keep my health! To do my work! To love, to live! To see to it I gain & grow & give & give! Never to look behind me for an hour! Never to wait in weakness nor to brag in power! Always working, searching for more truth, more light! Always writing, teaching what I found good & right! Robbed-starved-beaten-blinded, wide astray! Back with the full-truth I've gained, back to the way. Smile, help teach the whole Human race, the Moral ABC of All-One-God-Faith, Lightning-like strong & we're All-One!

Fucking magnificent! Dr. Bronner, wherever you are, beaten, starved, blinded but not down, no way, I just want to say: I fucking love you, man! But also, speaking as a tourist in the schizophrenic brain space, maybe check in on some medication because while it all looks connected and True when the brains chemicals are zigging and zagging in ways they never were meant to be, it's all nonsense once your mind returns to regular chemical functions. Sure, I get it! Normal brain = boring brain. Regular brain chemistry = no magical mystical beautiful All-One connected world! But you're probably exhausted by the connections, dude. Although, really, I can't fault you and maybe I just want to bring you down because I can't always remain where you are, seeing what isn't but possibly could (or should!) be. Why should I think the non-LSD, zero-schizophrenia brain sees reality better than the Everything is Connected brain of the tripping or mentally ill? I can't! Plus, why would I want to ask Dr. Bronner to change his ways when he puts this at the bottom of the main label:

In all we do, let us be generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants. For we're ALL-ONE OR NONE! ALL-ONE!

And with Dr. Bronner's last thought, we're basically in the mind of Superman and back to the comic! See? It is all connected!

I love Tom Grummett's choice of perspective on this page.

Last issue ended with Westfield, the leader of Cadmus, and a crew robbing the grave of Superman. This issue begins with the revelation that Lex Luthor filled Superman's grave with heat detectors and infrared monitors but no cameras for some reason. The reason could be that it was 1993 and Lex didn't want to be known as the Margaret Thatcher of Metropolis by filling every space with CCTV cameras. But he also built in a backdoor tunnel leading to the crypt that he could use for, well, you know what a tunnel into a crypt that contains only a corpse would probably be used for. He has sent Supergirl to investigate.

Supergirl discovers Superman's coffin is missing and a hole has been drilled into his tomb. She follows the hole hoping to find Superman alive and well and maybe a vampire which is why he still needs the coffin?

Later, this guy takes a jab at this other guy while I think about Oreos and boobies.

I'm not really interested in stories about Superman's D-List characters so I'm really not paying too much attention to the Gangbuster stuff. I doubt his story will be significant anyway since Gangbuster doesn't become one of the leads in Reign of the Supermen. I don't think. I never did read that!

I'd say I don't recognize about 40% of the characters in this story. I was definitely one of the people DC was thinking about when they decided to kill Superman. "There's a bunch of stupid nerds out there not buying any of our multiple Superman titles! We've tried everything to attract them to his stories and yet nothing! What do they want from us? Blood?!" And it worked! For a little bit What they didn't plan on was how the non-Superman lovers were less like Audrey II. A few drops did appease us and then we stopped buying the comics and everything was back to status quo and DC didn't keep murdering more and more heroes to keep our attention. I mean, they broke Batman's back but who wasn't already reading Batman and all his alternate titles?! So much better than Superman!

Clark had a cat named Elroy?! Why didn't DC highlight this character instead of stupid non-feline Gangbuster?!

There's not much more to the story since Elroy only makes about three panels. Bibbo and Gangbuster fight some drug dealers. Turpin loses his pants in a fight with the Underworlders. Supergirl fails to find Superman's body. And that's about it. This issue's main goal was to make sure a bunch of different characters found out Superman's body had gone missing. And that's about it.

The Adventures of Superman #499 Rating: C-. This issue feels like the one editorial chose to not advance the story because they plotted the story out beforehand and only really needed seven issues to tell it. But they felt they needed to include every Superman title an equal amount of times which meant each of the four had to appear twice. It's also possible that they needed less than seven issues to tell the story and one of the next three will also tell nearly zero story. Of course, if I were a fan of Superman and all of the characters that appear in orbit around his main stories, this issue would have been fine because I enjoy character driven stories that don't necessarily drive the plot forward. I'm not one of those people who would watch an episode of Lost that didn't drive the mystery forward because it spent the entire episode with Hurley fixing up a VW van and finding a nice golfing spot. I remember people getting all worked up at The Walking Dead whenever they would tell a tangential story in the midst of some major conflict. As long as an episode or issue has something to say, either about the character or the world or the ongoing mystery or whatever, I'm usually pretty happy about it. But since I don't give a fuck about Turpin or Gangbuster or Bibbo (sometimes I might act like I care about Bibbo but, deep down, he could have his skull crushed by Mercy Graves' thighs and I wouldn't give a shit. My penis would (because of Mercy's thighs and not because of Bibbo's exploding head!) but my brain would be all, "Good. Who cares? What's going on with Elroy?") but I'll forget anything they did in this issue in about five to ten minutes.

Superman #76 (February 1993)

I do not like this cover but I can't explain why.

It's times like these when I wish I'd done more work throughout my life coming to terms with my emotions and exploring my feelings more deeply because then maybe I'd know why this cover depresses the shit out of me. Don't get me wrong! I know it's not the sentiment that's depressing me! I'm not a pussy and nobody has the right to bully me and call me a pussy because I'm an adult and not in junior high anymore so don't even think the cover made me feel actual emotions like a junior high school kid who deserves to get thrown in a trash can after school as he scuttles from wall to wall trying not to be seen. It depresses me because it's, like, bad. But I don't know why. If only I were as good at expressing things as David Foster Wallace who might be one of the first novelists I've read in my fifty plus years of reading who makes me see exactly what he's describing and in a way where he's not even trying or smacking you in the face with your own science textbook while trying to find the stankiest trash can in the quad. But then again, look at what happened to Wallace! He hung himself from his back deck! Is that what happens to people who have looked inward so deeply that they can easily express their perceptions and feelings of the world in such a casual and illuminating way? No thanks! I don't even have a back deck! What am I going to do? Hang myself off the rickety stairs leading up to my front door? They barely hold me while I'm carefully ascending or descending them! They'll definitely collapse in a spray of splinters, moss, and probably termites if I drop my fat, pussy, still-not-over-Pig body from the bannister!

I've never been to a Funeral for a Friend before. Not that friends of mine haven't died. I've just never been to a friend's funeral for complex reasons that probably have nothing at all to do with the way I've called my feelings pussies and shoved into mind trash cans. I have been to family funerals though and let me tell you, those are not a good time. Are they supposed to be a good time? At my grandmother's funeral, one of her sister's kids got up to speak and all she kept talking about was how she hounded my grandmother on her death bed about Jesus and making sure that Ann, my grandmother, had accepted Jesus before she died and then happily declaring before everybody gathered that my scared, dying grandmother who was probably sick of being browbeaten by this Jesus lover had finally accepted Jesus as her lord and savior before dying and how that was supposed to make us all feel better. I should have gotten up and rescinded all of that with actual facts about my grandmother, like how she distanced herself from the church because she couldn't understand the casual antisemitism, as if she was supposed to just go along with everybody else's hatred of Jewish people because of the historical fact that Jesus was crucified by, well, you know, his own people? I mean, who else would have crucified him? Oh, sure, the Romans did but as a Catholic, you can't go around hating Romans because they crucified Jesus! Plus that one guy washed his hands of it or something so that probably explains why the Romans couldn't be blamed, right? It was also at my grandmother's funeral where the priest presiding over the ceremony (is a funeral a ceremony?) didn't know shit about my grandmother so began with, "I Googled Ann's name to see what her name meant," and then went on as if he knew her because he now knew that Ann meant, I don't know, merciful or something. Fuck that guy and fuck Connie. I think it was Connie who said the Jesus stuff. Fuck if I can remember my 2nd cousins!

The saddest funeral I have ever been to was my grandfather's funeral because his little brother, the last living one of my grandfather's siblings, was sitting at the viewing in the front weeping and there wasn't a trash can in sight so I couldn't do anything about it. Actually, what I did about it was go up front, sit by him, put my arm around him, and cried with him. I would use my grandfather's brother's name here but I don't know how to fucking spell it! Melio, maybe? I don't know! I only ever just said it growing up! In that moment, I might have been sadder than Pig made me. But definitely not sadder than the end of Guardians of the Galaxy just a week after my cat and soulmate and familiar and best friend had died, my boy whom I often called my Raccoon Boy. And then when Rocket is so sad and needs to be comforted and I'm crying now but I didn't cry in the theater and it wasn't until we left Laurelhurst and we crossed the street on the way back to the car and I just fucking exploded and was weeping and wailing and I scared the absolute shit out of the Non-Certified Spouse because I'm not generally such a pussy.

If you haven't understood by now that I'm mocking the idea of calling people who feel emotions a pussy than maybe you shouldn't read anymore of my stuff. Or just throw me in a trash can, I guess.

Oh, I also think my mom punched my sister at my grandmother's funeral but fuck if I know for sure because I generally just try to stay out of their shit. I think my grandmother might have died in the same room as them while they were screaming at each other and they may have blamed each other for my grandmother basically "Noping" out of their fucking shit way grander than I've ever managed.

Everybody is here? This is everybody?! What the fuck?

Supergirl had way more people at her funeral. Is that because she was more popular than Superman or did Crisis on Infinite Earths actually decimate that much of the DC Universe?! It's actually kind of sad that so few heroes managed to make it to this memorial. My favorite part of this panel is Aquaman's legs sticking out from under the Daily Planet logo. If I saw Aquaman trying to hide from the rain, I might think twice about standing in it. How fucked up is this rain if Aquaman — who's only known for two big things: loving water and molesting fish — won't let it touch him?

The second page destroys my whole Aquaman theory almost immediately because this comic book is like comic book fans on the Internet: neither one wants to see me have fun.

Here's Aquaman saying the most boring and expected thing. No wonder everybody hates him and the people who don't hate him are lying because they secretly hate them but have decided being a contrarian is the meat of their personality.

Can you imagine having the Wisdom of Solomon and yet everybody still argues with you and questions your opinions? It's kind of how like my friend Bob who always said I was the smartest person he knew grew up to be a huge Christian and devout Trumper (mostly because he was blown up in Iraq and found solace in the unthinking, virtue-signaling lifestyle of "patriotic Christians") ignoring me now as an adult every time I tried to point out how the man he seemed to worship was actually a huge know-nothing ignorant moronic demagogue. Captain Marvel's situation is exactly like that! Not that I'm claiming to be the smartest person! I'm just claiming that the guy whom I once dared to eat tape who then complained after eating it that it was "stuck in his throat" and I was all "of course it is; it's tape!" thought I was smarter than he was. That's not a huge bar to leap is what I mean.

While the heroes gather on top of the Daily Planet to remember their friend while people down below think, "Why are they gathering at the Daily Planet to honor Superman? What's Superman's connection to the Daily Planet? Maybe Superman worked there in his secret identity?!", the coolest kid in the world has traveled to Metropolis to apologize to whomever he can because he thinks it's his fault that Superman died. Why? Did this skateboarding, heavy metal loving, mom bitching at, school hating, long-haired lover create Doomsday? Was this kid so cool that he jerked off on a rock and the rock got pregnant and it gave birth to Doomsday?! Am I even close to figuring out Doomsday's origin here?

The coolest kid in the world travels to Metropolis for a press conference called by a woman who wants to report that she was Superman's wife!

Wait. So that woman is Mrs. Superman? I'm confused. Also, did I miss the issue where Lois's head was transplanted onto the frame of an ex-football player?

Is what Lois doing here an example of dramatic irony? If so, it's not as good as that moment in Les Misérables where the innkeeper is scavenging the dead after the battle and he's all, "God in His heaven, he don't interfere. Because he's as dead as these stiffs at my feet!" Except we, the audience, know Marius, the stiff he's currently stealing the watch off of, isn't dead at all! I'm an atheist because however the universe came into being, it definitely wasn't some magic creature made in our image but that's still an awesome line because I love literature and musicals and the human mind and feeling feelings and philosophy and Sailor Moon and all of those other things that caused me to see the inside of several trash cans over my lifetime.

The coolest kid in the world runs into the lamest kid in the world (Jimmy Olsen) and they decided to go get something to eat at Bibbo's Bar and talk about Superman and, I'm guessing, possible blow jobs in the back room. Jimmy Olsen is gay, right? Isn't that why he became the Elastic Lad? Wasn't that an allegory of being "not straight"? Especially since he became Elastic Lad whenever he drank semen.

What's that? It was a serum and not semen? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it was semen.

Later at Clark Kent's apartment, the "How Do We Convince the World Clark Kent is Dead Without a Body Gang" meet to discuss options.

My guess is the plan will be "Call Batman and have him figure it out."

The heroes have not gathered in Metropolis for a wake; they've come to answer letters sent to Superman every Christmas by kids who understand writing to Santa Claus is a huge waste of time. Apparently the main Post Office in Metropolis has a huge room devoted merely to storing letters to Superman, mostly because Superman only reads them once a year on Christmas Eve. Presumably these aren't just Christmas letters though and they build up all year and the employees at the post office fucking hate Superman. You can tell because they just toss the letters on the floor.

Why is Guy here? Can he even read?

Guy cynically assumes that every letter is going to ask for something and Wonder Woman is all, "Guy! Many unfortunate souls find themselves without hope or power to affect their situations. Superman realized he can't be a beacon of hope without helping those he's shone his light upon." Or some shit. But then Nightwing and Aquaman open up and read the first two letters and Guy is all, "In your face, Wonder Woman!"

Unfortunately, Guy reads a letter when a dying woman wants to once again see her son estranged for 30 years and Guy is all, "Fuck! Why couldn't I get the space debris kid?!"

The rest of the issue is a montage of the heroes doing good things for people to prove they're actually heroes and not just authoritarian fascists who beat the shit out jay walkers and shoplifters. Plus Wonder Woman helps get the cool kid's dad back in the picture and Flash and Green Lantern rebuild their house. My brain tells me this is an uplifting story but my heart has been yawning for the last ten minutes. Is this what a World Without A Superman is like? Super boring?!

The only exciting part of the issue is the end when we see Cadmus has decided to get into graverobbing to steal Superman's body. Christ, that Westfield is super horny for dead aliens.

Superman #76 Rating: C. My favorite part of this comic is the bit that wasn't expressly stated. In the montage part where all the heroes are helping out and answering letters to Superman and just generally doing good work, Batman is nowhere to be seen. Of course he wouldn't waste his time with this sentimental bullshit! Mostly because his whole thing is based on sentimental bullshit and also insanity. You can't be a grown man running around in kid pajamas trying to end crime because you're super sad about the death of your parents and think people are going to see it as grim and dark when it's just sad and sentimental and fucking insane. I swear to God Alfred might be the worst character in the entire DC Universe. How many years did he simply not get poor Bruce some therapy?! Did he have too much British stiff upper lip to allow Bruce to work through his feelings in an appropriate manner?! With therapy, Bruce might have been able to see his life more clearly and understand that he isn't stopping the death of somebody else's parents by donning the mask; he's actually causing more kids to lose their parents when he breaks all their limbs because they were so desperate in their poverty to work for The Joker or The Riddler or The Penguin and then almost certainly died of shock and sepsis later after Batman had long stopped thinking about them and then, technically, could go on believing he doesn't kill. Although after watching The Sopranos, I suspect therapy wouldn't have necessarily stopped the violence.

Superman: The Man of Steel #20 (February 1993)

Where were most of these assholes while Superman was fighting for his life?!

Everybody at this memorial is completely judging Superman. It's easy to pretend heroes would be all, "If Superman couldn't defeat Doomsday, who could?!" But look at Batman back there just knowing he could have found a way to defeat Doomsday without killing him nor dying himself. And Hal Jordan must be thinking, "I'd've stopped him with the most powerful weapon in the universe which I know how to use properly unlike that anal prolapse Guy Gardner." And Captain Marvel's thinking, "I might only be a young boy but I've got the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Hercules and the sexiness of Aphrodite and the quickness of a Zebra and more sexiness and then, I don't know, the visage of Medusa? Why are my powers so complicated? I should probably just introduce myself as magic Superman which is obviously better than non-magic Superman." And Wonder Woman is all, "Leave it to a man to think a problem this tough could be solved with his fists and/or dick." And The Flash knows he can beat anybody being that everybody else basically winds up in stasis when he's running full speed but, you know, writers and editors don't take advantage of that because how interesting would those stories be? Better to think he can be hit with a boomerang and majorly pranked and soaked in a rainstorm and trapped in a mirror. And Aquaman is thinking, "I wonder if Doomsday was part fish?" And Nightwing is thinking, "Damn I look good in my ponytail and disco collar!" And Fire is thinking, "Damn, who designed Nightwing's look? Some eighty year old nerd?" And Mister Miracle is thinking, "Darkseid is."

I don't care what Robin is thinking. Probably has his mind on his little Russian girlfriend's boobies. Which, now that I say that, does make me care about what he's thinking (meaning his little Russian girlfriend's boobies).

The issue begins with just another day-in-the-life scene of the unthanked blue collar workers who have to clean up Metropolis after every alien invasion.

I'm going to believe The Daily Planet's headline simply reads, "Super Dead!"

Lex Luthor's still upset he didn't get to kill Superman so he decides he'll do the next best thing: bury Superman! He says it in a really vengeful and mean-spirited way but his actions show a man really putting a lot of loving thought into Superman's funeral arrangements, crypt, and memorial statue.

Back on the farm, Ma and Pa Kent sit around in the dark whining about how they can't be at Superman's funeral because everybody would be all, "Why are those two old poor people here? Who let them past security?!" They also seem to be concerned with exposing his secret identity but why should they care? They're Clark's only family. If they want to expose themselves to retaliation so they can mourn their son properly, why shouldn't they? I guess Lois could be put in danger too but she puts herself in enough danger already. No need to worry about Lois!

Speaking of Lois, she's super sad and shit but you know who isn't sad? You know who isn't sad because he's super mad? And the most fit? And the coolest?

This is the way an Alpha villain treats Superman's death! You shove a guy's head in his own ass and smash another's face into the wall. You don't go purchasing flower arrangements and paying for a memorial statue like a beta cuck.

Unluckily for the all the readers of this comic book, Lobo's appearance only lasts one page. I love that Jon Bogdanove decided that Simon Bisley's Lobo is the canon Lobo. Just this monstrously-muscled, out-of-proportion beast with a massive head of unruly hair. Just the best Lobo. Of course I wouldn't kick Val Semeiks' Lobo out of bed.

Fine. I wouldn't even kick Charlie Adlard's Lobo out of bed because I want to fuck Lobo.

During the funeral procession, Batman stops an assassination attempt on the fascist leader of some little country who has come to mourn (or celebrate?) Superman's death. Out of respect for Superman and being in Superman's city, Batman doesn't break four of the man's four limbs. He just hands him from a flap pole and disappears.

At the park where Superman's body will be interred beneath the memorial statue set up for him by Luthor, the crowd grows so huge that a few people are shoved around a bit. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman go full cop on the situation and begin restraining large groups of people. Wonder Woman is all, "We were worried things might get out of hand!" Just like a fucking cop. The only thing that got out of hand were some criminals with guns who tried to force Jimmy Olsen into selling his snuff pic of Superman. But Robin took care of them and then the crowd, who were angry that some mafia thugs were disrespecting Superman, joined Robin in beating the shit out of them. And then the forces of justice swept in and treated every person, even those standing by, as if they were causing trouble. But it ends just as quickly as it began because there's really nowhere for that plot thread to go. It was just there for some dramatic tension before everybody calms down and the funeral gets back on track.

Meanwhile in Smallville, Ma and Pa Kent about to take part in one of them murder-suicide things..

Just as Ma and Pa get back to the house so Pa can get his shotgun, the phone rings. Lois is on the other end, full of guilt at simply reporting the news as Superman fought for his life and died. Ma and Pa are ecstatic! Somebody does still need them! They have a daughter! They tell Lois they'll be headed to Metropolis to take care of her.

Superman: The Man of Steel #20 Rating: B. Bill and Hillary Clinton speak at Superman's funeral which was awkward and terrible. I don't mind seeing characters in-universe discuss how sad they are that the Man of Steel has died. But I certainly don't want to see a couple of real life politicians just saying what they know they're expected to say. It's also weird when a comic book uses the actual president in story arcs. But then again, it's also weird when they don't and the president of the United States is just a sort of vague white male. I guess this is one of those "Kobayashi Maru" situations for the comic book companies, at least if they're trying to make me happy. Maybe just leave the president out entirely. Because now I have to read this comic book and think about fucking Neo-Liberals and how their shit campaign style gave us Trump two times. And probably for the rest of our lives unless Donald Trump hears the squeak sometime soon! Please let him hear the squeak. Please oh please oh please!

"Hear the squeak" is from Infinite Jest. If I say it any clearer, I might get deported!

Action Comics #685 (January 1993)

Bah. Superman would never smash a car like this.

Back in January 1993, Action Comics went woke while also prominently placing the word "MARVEL" on their cover. Did they want to go broke for two reasons? You know, woke and sued by Marvel. Obviously by replacing Superman with Supergirl, DC Comics instantly lost all of their money, their reputation, and every single fan who thinks they understand the word "pandering". Except none of that happened because most people's minds weren't completely rotted and falling apart by being too online, too unlaid, and too Joe Roganed and Andrew Tated. Also if you were upset not just by the death of Superman but by his replacement by a woman and a Black man and a too-cool-for-school kid and a robot, you couldn't just go online and @ the creators with your juvenile take on the world. You had to write a letter and put it in an envelope and purchase a stamp and exit your parent's house by climbing the steps of the basement to go outside and walk to a mailbox and who the fuck has time to do any of that when Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar needs to replayed for the eighth time? Oh, I'm sure a few rabid fans took up that quest and embarrassed themselves by actually signing their names to a letter published in a future issue of one of the Superman titles while the editor responded in a way that could be translated as "Hey readers! Don't be like this asshole!" Also I don't think the miserable steaming shits who call everything woke would see this as woke because look at how much leg is showing and her tits are massive! They believe "woke" means "anything not pandering to the white, male, heterosexual gaze." Because they're vile, despicable turds. And mostly racist.

This is the photo they went with? Superman's corpse surrounded by free Daily Planet advertising?

According to Jimmy Olsen's snuff Pulitzer, Superman died when Doomsday attempted to rip his head off, stretching his neck to near Ralph Dibny levels.

After Superman's body has been carted off to the city morgue, the leader of Cadmus returns to wave some papers in everybody's faces declaring that he has a right to all alien corpses because he's a pervert with a kink I'm definitely shaming. Come on! You would too! This guy wants to fuck E.T.! This guy and his fascist "science" goons are prepared to murder Turpin, Sawyer, and The Guardian to get their hands on the thicc alien corpses. I don't like The Guardian and I don't even know who Turpin is and I constantly fear Maggie Sawyer will steal my girlfriend so I don't really care if they're all killed by this Impotent John Constantine/Max Lord mash-up of a man. But I do sort of care about Superman's dead butt cherry. I'd hate to see him lose it through non-consensual Cadmus, um, "probing."

At least The Guardian prepared to have the shit scared out of him today by wearing his costume with the built-in diaper.

Westfield (the Cadmus leader) not only wants Superman's body, he wants to shut down all knowledge of Cadmus taking Superman's body. His men shoot out the satellite on the WLEX van outside, arrest a reporter, and tell the camera man to simply shut off his camera. I don't see how that's going to stop the spread of information so I'm just going to assume that they also killed everybody off-panel immediately after these useless actions. Except that one of the members of the Lex Luthor News Org's crew manages to place a single call to Alexander Luthor to let him know that some mysterious federal organization has shut down all the news agencies from reporting on the mysterious federal organization. And, now that Superman's dead, there's nothing Lex Luthor hates more than a nameless federal organization interfering with his plans. Alexander Luthor failed to send his super soldiers and Supergirl to help Superman (you know, because he hated Superman and created Doomsday to kill Superman) but he does send them out to defeat Westfield and his agents. Although if Lex knew how they were going to desecrate Superman's corpse, he might have let them get away with it.

After the battle, Lex Luthor uses his powerful connections to make sure Cadmus loses its government contract for alien corpse "disposal." Cadmus is ridden out of town by The Guardian and Supergirl while Lex Luthor makes sure his face is plastered all over every television screen in Metropolis declaring that he's going to pay for a massive sepulcher for Superman which will be placed in everybody's favorite Metropolis park, presumably as a memorial but I think it's a threat! "This is what will happen to any of you peons that go against Lex Luthor!"

What follows are a few pages of mourners paying tribute to Superman, Lois crying in an elevator alone, Pa Kent having to talk Lana Lang down from a bridge, Ma Kent wondering why Pa's consoling Lana and not her, some Arabs overly concerned with Supergirl's lack of face covering, and some Japanese reporter teaching me a new word.

Let's see . . . "tyro" means "a person who follows a pursuit without attaining proficiency or professional status." How fucking rude! I guess "tyro" means "Mary Sue"?

That panel makes it look like that Japanese man is crying over the fact that a woman is taking Superman's place.

I need to confess something that maybe was super obvious from the way it was used in the above caption but I have no idea what a "Mary Sue" is or how it's defined or how one is supposed to recognize one. Is it just an insult saved for female characters that the insulter would have simply preferred had been male? Why isn't there a true equivalent of a "Mary Sue" for male characters? Is it because it's totally understandable if a guy who knows nothing easily learns something but, like, a woman learning something quickly? What a ridiculous concept, right?!

I wonder if 21 year old me felt any emotion while reading this and my capacity for feeling anything has eroded over time? If that's true, I can't even imagine how 21 year old me would have reacted from seeing Pig. I probably would have locked myself in a room for two years and just rocked back and forth while trying to come to terms with "reality." Can a person cry long and hard enough to die from dehydration?

I think the real culprit behind The Case of My Missing Emotions is Dr. I Just Don't Give A Shit About Superman and his accomplice, Madame Do I Even Really Care About Comic Books Anymore?

Later, Alexander Luthor is allowed to view Superman's corpse, side-by-side with Doomsday, in the morgue. Luthor decides to smash a chair over Doomsday in a show of anger that I would have chalked up to Luthor faking a display of outraged emotion so people think he cared about Superman so much that he couldn't help himself from desecrating the corpse of Superman's killer. But thought bubbles were still a fairly regular tool in comic books in 1993 and Luthor's thought bubbles betray my assumption.

Wait. So Luthor isn't behind Doomsday?!

Luthor isn't celebrating Superman's death but a lot of other criminals are. Apparently nobody thinks much of the Metropolis Police because with Superman gone, it's time to go hog wild in the city! One group of criminals rob a jewelry store, run over a cop as they escape, and drive right into Supergirl stood in the middle of the street needing to pee.

Bad luck, chaps!

After a truly imaginative scene where the cops are happy to have a woman do their job for them and even tell her to take care now that Superman's death memento mori'd them into the realm of hyper-existential fear, we get two touching pages of Bibbo being so sad that he resorts to a night of not drinking and prays to God instead. Is rolling your eyes in an exaggerated manner and dramatically stating, "Jesus motherfucking Christ," a sign of being moved by the pathos of this scene? If so, I was really touched by it!

Action Comics #685 Rating: C. This issue was called "Re: Actions" because it was how everybody in Metropolis (and sort of around the world) reacted to the death of Superman. At first I thought, "Oh, that's an interesting title." But then I finished the comic and noticed the letters pages are called "Re: Action" which is when I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Jesus motherfucking Christ." Oh! That doesn't mean you've been moved to tears at all! It means you're irritated beyond words! Anyway, it was all right, I guess. Sometimes I think Superman comic books could use more Bibbo and then they have more Bibbo and I think, "These comics need less Bibbo. I wonder what Space Cabbie is up to?"

The Adventures of Superman #498 (January 1993)

How many days did they just leave Superman's body lying in the street?

Either The Daily Planet printed off an extra edition sensationalizing the Doomsday attack while the attack was still going on or Superman's body, possibly too heavy to move, has been left for at least a day on the streets of Metropolis like a piece of garbage. Perhaps the edition of this paper was explained in the previous issue of the story, Superman #75, where Superman died. But I have no idea which short box my Death of Superman comic book has been stored so I'll have to read it later when I stumble upon it. By then, I'll have totally forgotten about this shot of Superman lying amid papers which had to have either been published after he died or while he was still currently battling Doomsday which, you know, seems pretty insensitive. As if the New York Times printed an edition of their paper before the second plane had hit the second tower.

This issue begins with Jimmy Olsen missing out on several Pulitzers.

Get out your camera, dumb-dumb!

Jimmy Olsen might think it's disrespectful to snap shots of Lois cradling a dead Superman in her arms but he'll think differently after Perry White calls him every rude name in the American, British and possibly Spanish Dictionary for missing this shot. Although it's possible he already snapped it in Superman #75! How can I know since Past Me can't figure out how to organize his old comic books?

This seems to be the immediate aftermath of Superman's battle with Doomsday so I'm not sure why the editor is telling readers to read Justice League #70 first when that one takes place some time later when Ice is out of the hospital (again!) and somebody has already created black armbands to show they're mourning. Perhaps Batman already had boxes of Superman's Dead Armbands lying around the batcave. He probably has boxes for every hero, especially Aquaman.

Lois and Jimmy can't actually tell if Superman's dead or alive because you probably can't feel his heartbeat through his invulnerable skin. Besides, his resting heartrate is probably a fraction of a beat per minute. And does he even need to really breathe? How often do you think Lois wakes up at night and pokes him with a bit of Kryptonite just to make sure he's still alive? Oh shit! Could you imagine Superman with sleep apnea? I bet his snoring would vibrate Lois's skull until it was soup.

Bloodwynd (who can read minds because he's J'onn even though nobody knows that yet) and Dubbilex assure everybody that they can find no signs of brain activity which indicates he's either dead or Guy Gardner. And since he hasn't honked Lois's tits yet as she cradles him, he's not Guy. The Metropolis Special Crimes Unit aren't sure if Doomsday is dead either so they go about their special military safety protocols to determine if he's still alive.

Their protocols are the same as any six year old with a stick.

Dubbilex decides to read Doomsday's mind and decides Doomsday must be dead because he's not angry anymore. Lois, on the other hand, refuses to believe that Superman is dead because what do any of these idiots know about Kryptonian biology? He might just be in a really deep coma as his body recovers from the near-mortal injuries and will come back to life in just a few months! Jimmy tries to point out that she's being hysterical and we're almost saddled with a Death of Jimmy Olsen issue.

Also Lois was right from the very first minute but all the "extremely rational and logical" men were all, "Stop being so emotional! He's dead, Lois!" Fucking men.

Speaking of men fucking, The Guardian decides this is his chance to go for it.

Gross.

I don't think that's gross because Superman is dead. It's gross because Superman's a guy. No wait. Strike that. Reverse it. It is because Superman's dead. Whew! I saved my reputation by the skin of my teeth!

Just for transparency's sake, Cat Grant also tries to tell Lois Superman's dead and Cat isn't a man. Although she is Lois's biggest career rival and jealous of Lois getting to stroke that fat Superman dick. Cat suggests maybe STAR Labs can help Superman but Lois, not listening to Cat Grant as usual, screams that somebody should do something to help Superman. So maybe STAR Labs could have helped but Cat's suggestion was ignored.

The EMTs arrive, shove The Guardian off of Superman, and get to work working on a body that they don't understand at all. But hey, what is it to be human if not blundering into a situation believing you know what you're doing?

"Hey, I don't feel a pulse on this alien's incredibly hard and rigid neck! And The Guardian couldn't feel him breathe while he was kissing him! Maybe zap him with the shock paddles in the place we'd normally shock a human whose heart was fibrillating!"

This defibrillator probably messed up Kal-el's healing process which is why we wound up with Red and Blue Superman. I mean, unless there's a different explanation later. How should I know?! This is the only run of Superman I've ever read and I stopped after Funeral for a Friend!

During the chaos of the aftermath of Doomsday's attack, Lex Luthor finds his way to the streets to collect the disgusting alien creature he calls Supergirl. He cradles the gray mass of ungenitaled flesh gently, picks the thing up in his bulging Australian arms, and takes whatever it is back to Lex Tower to, I don't know, fuck it? What is Supergirl anyway?! Did Lex create her? Is she his alien waifu?

Meanwhile, the EMTs continue to be stupid.

Did these guys do their training at the Victor Frankenstein School of Medicine?

Jimmy Olsen realizes Superman needs a doctor that's actually examined him in the past when he was healthy. But Lois is all, "Superman was a man so he never went to a doctor! Although he was examined once by Kitty Faulkner at STAR Labs. Hopefully for medical reasons, that slut!" Meanwhile, Cat Grant is all, "Where's that fucking stupid klutz, Clark? Shouldn't he be here doing his job?" And Jimmy is all, "Yeah! Stupid Clark! Where is that jerk? Can't even do his job correctly! Total failure!" And Lois is all, "**SOBS HYSTERICALLY**"

Meanwhile, Ma and Pa Kent, apparently unable to watch the battle on television, distracted themselves by completely changing their outfits and redecorating their television room.

Maybe Ma didn't fight off Pa's advances like I thought she had and they got naked, fucked, broke the couch, put on a change of clothes, and retired to their alternate television room?


This is what they were up to during the huge televised battle between their son and Doomsday.

Cadmus makes off with Doomsday's body but Dan Turpin, Maggie Sawyer, and The Guardian refuse to let them take Superman. There's a bit of interdisciplinary violence before Cadmus backs off and leaves Superman with the "good" guys. The "good" guys, understanding nothing about how a defibrillator works other than what they've seen in the movie Flatliners concoct a massively powerful set of paddles to shock Superman back to life. It doesn't work although maybe it does work but they don't know it? I have a feeling this moment probably helped so that Bibbo and The Guardian and these other nobodies can be seen as heroes later.

Later at the Daily Planet, everybody is all, "Don't worry, Lois! Clark may be among the missing now but he'll show up like always!" And then Lois sobs even more and Jimmy walks her home.

The Adventures of Superman #498 Rating: B. By the end of this issue, Superman's body is still lying in the street while Perry White and the rest of the Daily Planet are busy putting a paper together so maybe a newspaper can get a paper out quicker than anybody can move Superman's body? Doomsday's body has been hauled off for scrap already though. Probably a good thing Cadmus didn't get Superman as well because then he'd come back to life with all of his organs outside his body and a nasty scar straight up his chest and abdomen. Somebody really should have hauled Doomsday's body into the sun although I don't know who could have done it now that Superman's dead. I guess Guy Gardner. Or Doctor Fate could maybe have teleported him there. I suppose the editor wanted readers to read Justice League #70 first because it's a good tribute to Superman just after he died even if it's not in the correct chronological order for the plot. Or DC just wanted to make sure everybody bought more comic books. As if killing off Superman wasn't causing DC to sell maximum comic books at this point anyway. If only The Death of Superman issue had been drawn by Rob Liefeld! Can you imagine how many copies that would have sold in the '90s?! So many! Also imagine how many pouches Doomsday would have had on his costume! So many!

The Man of Steel #19 (January 1993)

Doomsday? More like Gonna-Put-A-Baby-In-Your-Wombsday!

No? Was I trying too hard with that one? Because to me, it looks like they're about to kiss and also they're both currently nutting hard. Doomsday's nut looks more painful but that's probably because his erection is trapped inside a cock cage of pure bone. Plus he probably cums bone. Also his boner is a literal bone.

Other interpretations of the cover: Doomsday just sneezed black snot all over Superman's face. Superman just sharted and Doomsday is reacting to the incredibly putrescent smell. Doomsday just burped and Superman is reacting to the incredibly putrescent smell. Lois just shoved a three foot dildo up Superman's ass and Doomsday's shocked that he could take that much. Superman just tore off all of Doomsday's testicles (I'm assuming he has eight). Or maybe they're headbutting each other?

If I were in my younger, more energetic days (like when I was in my youthful forties!), I would have photoshopped the blood on Superman's face to look like semen. But I'm lazy and in my fifties and psychically wrestling with my mortality on a near-constant basis so instead, I'll just point out that Doomsday's semen is probably blackish red. Whew! So much easier! So much of my precious little time left saved!

I suppose I could have asked some artificial intelligence site to do it for me but then I'd have to kill myself and probably all of my neighbors too, just to be sure they weren't looking in a window and watching as I wrote out my idiotic AI prompt because I'm a fart-sniffing loser who believes not in artistic expression but only in final (and shitty) products. Imagine if Joseph Heller had been too lazy to write Catch-22 and had, at the time, access to a machine that sharts words in pseudo-non-random order after you half-heartedly tell it your idea. "Hey, Protégé [which is something it probably would have been called]. Write me a story about a guy in the military who doesn't want to be in the military because he's afraid to die for no reason especially since the war is basically over and he keeps going up in bombers to risk his life when there's actually no need but he can't get out because to get out you have to be crazy but if you want to get out that proves you're not crazy because only a sane person wouldn't want to throw their lives away in battles that mean absolutely nothing at this point in the war and so he keeps flying missions until he sees this one guy's guts blown out while muttering how cold he is and he realizes people are so fucking fragile and why are lives so freely thrown away by powerful people over nothing at all? Also make sure a whore hits a guy over the head with a shoe repeatedly, a guy with a funny name buys Egyptian cotton and sells it for less than he buys it but somehow still makes a bunch of money somehow by selling eggs maybe?, a pipe smoking guy kills a whore, a young kid gets blended by a plane's propellers (after which the pilot just crashes the plane because fuck man how do you live with accidentally doing that to a friend and compatriot?), and another guy with apples in his cheeks keeps crashing so nobody wants to fly with him but he keeps trying to get people to fly with him but everybody is all 'you're crazy you crash every time' but then we find out that he was practicing crashing to escape and the main guy is all 'holy shit that's how you get out of this mess that you can't control and you have no power over getting beaten down constantly and will eventually be killed by these maniacs! you fly with the guy crashing planes and then sail to Finland or you get the Native American to throw the sink out the window one of those!'" That would totally have worked to get the exact piece of mind-blowing literature that Heller came up with the hard way, right?

I should re-read Catch-22! Although do I need to? Seems like I remember all the salient bits!

This issue begins with Doomsday popping heads and cracking necks which immediately gets the interest of my penis. No wait. I'm just getting word from my penis that the violence isn't what got it interested. It was Doomsday's nipples.

I'd be so embarrassed if my last words were translating a rampaging monster's words incorrectly. He's saying, "Mother please!", my dead dude.

Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen try to follow the battle across the country in their news chopper but it's just not fast enough. Lois keeps dictating the story she's going to win a Pulitzer with as they go even though they've fallen way behind the fight. "Superman probably punches Doomsday in his weak spot which . . . Jimmy, where do you think Doomsday's weak spot would be? The butthole? Jimmy! I'm sorry I asked. Just keep taking pictures." Meanwhile Jimmy mumbles, "I know it's my weak spot," and Lois pretends not to hear that. Lois is in a panic not because Superman might be fighting for his life but because Cat Grant's news chopper is also in the air trying to get the story! That fucking bitch! Hopefully her chopper's blades will catch some shrapnel and it'll John Landis into a playground.

Superman decides he's been holding back for too many issues now, mostly due to editorial mandates. But since he's going to die next issue, he has to give his all one great big final try! So he smashes full speed into Doomsday's weak spot.

Jimmy's a genius! That actually looks like it hurt Doomsday! It definitely surprised him!

Superman grabs hold of Doomsday by the prostate and flies him up into the sky to toss him into space. But Doomsday's like a lizard and his prostate easily comes away in Superman's grip, allowing Doomsday to get away and fall back to Earth while Superman is left pondering if ripping out an alien's prostate is gay, this being the 90s and all. I think it's definitely not gay to stick your hand in an alien's asshole and tear out its prostate. But sniffing and licking it after might be? Or is that just regular old human curiosity?

Meanwhile, The Guardian has a telepathic conversation with some creature with tits on its forehead. Dubbilex? More like Dubbil-D!

The alien works for Cadmus and suspects that Doomsday migth be a Cadmus creation. That means he's full of gooey caramel? The Guardian, afraid to get sued at the end of this, asks the alien to mindread Doomsday to make sure he's not one of Cadmus's "D.N.Alien" experiments, and if he is, maybe put in a call to their lawyers toot sweet.

Ma Kent worriedly watches the news coverage at home in Smallville while trying to fight off Pa's sexual advances.

"Oh, he'll be fine, Ma! Please, just touch it! We've only get ten minutes until Wheel!"

While leaping into Metropolis, Doomsday doesn't account for the years of failing to keep the infrastructure up-to-date and crashes through the street and into the underworld. He lands on top of those weird underworlders who live in the Metropolis sewers and have recently been arresting refugees from WarWorld. Doomsday frees the War World criminals to help make more trouble but then kills them on the next page when they try to suck his dick for his help. I'm suffering narrative whiplash! I totally expected Doomsday's rescue to start causing chaos like in Knightfall but instead I guess he just dropped in to tie up some loose ends. Who needs these WarWorld pricks causing trouble now that Doomsday's arrived? Small beans, these guys.

Superman arrives and thinking back to his younger days spending all day watching wrestling with his dad, he throws a Swinging Neckbreaker on Doomsday.

Being Superman, he has the added benefit of not just picking Doomsday up from the ground but himself as well!

Doomsday quickly taps out and Superman saves the world! Again! The End! is probably what Lois wish would have happened. But instead, Doomsday's foot catches on a power line, tearing it from the wall. It sparks and ignites the gas that's either from a broken gas line or Doomsday's butthole, and everybody blows up in a massive explosion. By everybody, I think I just mean Superman and Doomsday because Superman warned all the underworld losers to get to safety. Unless the writers of the four monthly Superman titles met up for tacos and story arc discussions and all agreed the whole underworld people of Metropolis story was getting fucking old. Then all the underworld people blew up too, cross my fingers.

Oh! I guess crossing your fingers works! I should do it more often. Let's see, cross my fingers and, "I hope I get a massive blow job from like four women and/or feminine guys!"

I'll let you know if my crossed finger wish comes true! Although you can never rule out that it didn't come true until I'm dead. Or maybe buried because who knows what might happen to my body in the morgue.

While Superman and Doomsday blow up the entirety of the suburb known as Newtown and cause several news helicopters to crash into each other from the shock waves (probably not Cat's or Lois's), Alexander Luthor's giving a press conference to explain how what's about to happen to Metropolis is Superman's fault. It's the same old chicken and egg smear campaign used by every other demagogue villain before Luthor, like Glorious Godfrey and Councilwoman Alderman and every Republican that can't get Hilary Clinton's name out of their mouths even though everybody else never even thinks about her anymore and every centrist who suddenly has decided that the definition of antisemitism is not wanting a country to bomb hospitals and kill children and murder journalists and generally just decide every civilian of a certain ethnicity is a terrorist: is Metropolis less safe because Superman lives there?! It's the kind of speech that, by now, everybody should understand that the person giving it is always the baddie. If you spend all of your time trying to get the press to spread terrible gossip about a generally accepted good person, or hell, even a neutral person who nobody has really thought about much, you're almost certainly a piece of shit with an agenda that leads directly into your bank account.

Supergirl rushes off to help Superman as Superman and Doomsday continue to buttfuck across the Metropolis skyline.

I mean battle. They're battling, not buttfucking. Right?

One of Doomsday's bones penetrates Superman before Supergirl can arrive with a hose. She manages to get Doomsday off Superman and Doomsday turns on her. Doomsday punches the smile right off her face. Also her nose and one of her eyes. And her chin and cheeks too? Gross.

I still wouldn't throw her out of bed.

Hell, why would I throw anybody out of bed? Once you've got them in your bed, you're practically doing it! Sometimes when a woman gets in my bed, I've already done it in pants several times just thinking about it! I suppose if she was all, "Oh no! I'm about to spray diarrhea everywhere!", I might throw her out of the bed. But more likely, I'd simply run out of the room trying not to throw up at the thought of all that terrible liquid foulness coming out of the spot I really want to put my mouth.

Supergirl loses consciousness and turns into some gray alien that I absolutely would throw out of my bed.

It doesn't even have the spot where I want to put my mouth! Useless!

Bibbo happens to be nearby on a roof with two much smarter people. They've hauled up a massive laser and were just waiting for Supergirl's sexy behind to get out of the way before firing it at Doomsday. They must have consulted with Jimmy Olsen because they blast Doomsday right in the place I'd put my mouth if I was attracted to Doomsday but I'm not because he's gross and angry and I do not find angry, gross people attractive. Hell, I don't even find angry attractive people attractive.

Pow! Right in the kisser!

In my special view of the world, Ralph Kramden was always threatening to anally fist Alice. You probably don't want to hear what I think Ralph was constantly doing to Ed. Don't worry! In my mind, Ed loved it and everything was consensual. Alice getting anally fisted by Ralph was something Alice loved and Ralph threatened her with it because it made her come so hard she'd become docile and subservient in her overloaded pleasure sensors state of ecstasy. That's way better than the actual version of The Honeymooners where we just had to believe that threatening domestic violence against your wife was the height of hilarity. I mean, it sort of was but the threatened violence wasn't the funny bit. The funny bit was how Alice (and the audience) knew exactly how broken and impotent Ralph was and how she scoffed in his face because she knew he could never go through with it.

Superman picks himself back up as Doomsday shakes off the blast from Bibbo. The two combatants meet back up and begin punching each other in the face. It's now an outright brawl until one of them drops! Or, you know, both of them at the exact same time like in Rocky II.

The Man of Steel #19 Rating: C+. Loads and loads of destruction this issue, mostly due to gas lines breaking and blowing up large parts of the city. During these chaotic events, various citizens of Metropolis philosophize on the nature of Doomsday. This allows the reader to realize Doomsday isn't just another gigantic space monster that Superman has a tough time beating up. Lois says, "Doomsday is probably the deadliest foe Superman has ever faced," and I was all, "Oh no! That can't be good!" Then The Guardian says, "I'm afraid Doomsday is too big for Superman to handle alone," and I was all, "Are these goosebumps or rapid onset adult arm pimples?!" The alien Dubbilex mind-speaks, "We'll have to work to stop him in any case. If anyone can stop him," and I was all, "This doesn't look good at all!" (Because I had shit myself from the tension.) Then Superman himself thinks, "Better finish this quick, if I'm gonna live to finish it at all," and I passed out for about ten minutes from worry and anxiety. Then I almost saw up Supergirl's skirt in that one panel and I got my second wind and a boner. Then some other character whom I don't recognize says this about Doomsday, "From the way he's behavin', I'd say he's the devil incarnate usherin' in the end of the world!" By then, I was sort of spiraling not from my worry about Superman but my worry that my boner got even harder after I saw that Supergirl was actually an ugly skinny gray androgynous creature with bug eyes. But then the comic book was basically over and Superman had survived and I don't remember where I've stored my Superman #75 issue so now I'll never know how this fight turns out! Although the next issue in my stack has the header "Funeral for a Friend" and the advert square reads "World Without a Superman!" so, you know, it doesn't look good.

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!