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.

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!

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.

Superman: The Man of Steel #18 (December 1992)

Look out, Superman! It's a fat guy in a hazmat suit!

In 1992, a fat guy in a hazmat suit was the most intimidating and threatening image a team of comic book creators could come up with. Either that or Dan Jurgens hadn't quite finished with his sketch for a creature that would finally bring down Superman. After pressuring him to finish up the scariest creature he's ever designed but getting nowhere, they simply yelled at Jon Bogdanove to "put him in a bag covered in PVC piping and be done with it!" This cover looks like something Keith Giffen would have wet farted out of his asshole while drunk and still made into the most hilarious comic book DC ever published. Except it's supposed to be threatening. Maybe everybody remembered how fucking stupid Lobo looked when he first appeared and yet he became the deadliest character in the DC Universe. So editorial was all, "Who cares how dumb he looks! We'll make him threatening later!" And then Dan Jurgens was all, "What if his bones were on the outside?" And that allowed Bogdanove to make Doomsday just a little bit more interesting on the inside.

This isn't anything like Wolverine, you cynical assholes. Doomsday's knuckle blades are stubby spikes!

I don't know why Doomsday broke out of the middle of the Earth instead of crashing to Earth from space. I guess so he could be more of a surprise. Coming from space, everybody would have noticed him. But crashing out of the ground like a fat mole in a hazmat suit tangled up in PVC pipes? That's fucking bad-ass! Did that read as sarcastically as I hoped it would? I don't like to be sarcastic because it feels like I'm disrespecting the medium of comic books when I do. But having just realized, after all these years, that Superman was killed by a fucking mole man has me questioning if the comic book medium perhaps didn't have the best people working in it.

This is the page opposite the one I scanned of Doomsday breaking out of the ground:

Apparently you put glasses on this body, throw it in a suit, make it stumble and stutter a bit, and suddenly everybody thinks this Chad is a fucking cuck.

Sorry for the worst-people-on-Earth vernacular. Sometimes I can't help myself. Anyway, those two pictures splashed on opposite pages tells nearly the entire story soon to come. A demon of destruction risen from Hell battling against a soaring, sky-bound angel of hope, complete with the name of the victor over Superman's head. Did I even need to buy the next year's worth of Superman comic books? Did I need to purchase this issue twice?

Oh yeah. I have two copies of this issue! I'm sure it was an absentminded error and not some sort of '90s comic retirement plan. I never fell for that investment shit. If I have two copies of an issue, it's because the comic book shop left the comic on the "NEW!" rack two weeks in a row and I'd forgotten I'd purchased the book the week before. I have far worse duplicates than the first appearance of Doomsday as evidence that I wasn't trying to make money. Although the main evidence of that is that I own zero Image titles from the '90s!

The main story concerns some underworld monster club living in the Metropolis subway and sewer tunnels who want to take over the above world. Was Superman's main threats in the '90s mole people? Lois reads Clark's mail at work warning him of a mole man attack on a power station. She realizes he doesn't check his mail at the Daily Planet because the mail boxes are on the ground floor and he always comes in via the roof. So she leaves a note on his computer and tells a coworker that if they see Clark, tell him Lois left a note on his computer. Too bad Clark didn't give Lois a nifty watch that alerts him to trouble like he gave his boy Jimmy. Maybe he did but she used it on non-emergency things like needing to get super fucked or asking him to pick up toilet paper on the way home so he took it away.

Before Clark can read the message about underworld monsters breaking into a power station's sub-levels, the monsters cut the power and Clark loses Lois's message! How did Lois not foresee that happening?! She's fucking losing her touch.

Meanwhile, Doomsday proves he's as dangerous as a feral cat.

I don't know why the bird flies directly into Doomsday's hand. Is that ever mentioned again? Does he have the power to control animals? Was that scene simply an allusion to the canary in a coalmine theory of detecting danger? Plus it reiterates the idea that this threat to Superman comes from under the ground. Is that important or am I making too big a deal out of it? Was Doomsday meant to represent Satan? Was this some kind of Christian allegory where good battles evil? Then it looks like evil has won but good actually just died to save mankind and then returns from the dead a short time later? Were we all fooled into buying some pop culture Christian tat? Man, I'm so pissed now!

If you want to see how quickly a crack journalistic news team like the people running the Daily Planet can figure out when a blackout happens, check this out:

Almost as quickly as everybody else in the world!

I'm surprised the media would jump to the conclusion that Metropolis was having a blackout without first hearing all the sides to the story. If even one person says there's no blackout, don't they feel compelled to then report that some sources say there is no blackout and that opinion should be weighted just as heavily as the opinions — heavily weighted with all of the evidence that their opinion is correct — that a blackout is happening. I guess internally, inside the newsroom, they can speak the truth which they'd never dare print. Assholes.

Meanwhile the underworld monsters (or should I say the demons from hell?) celebrate their victory over electric power. They will now rule the city since we all know that nobody can do anything but whinge on and on when the power goes out. The overworlders will simply roll over just to get a little more juice for their entertainment systems.

Meanwhile, Doomsday smashes a tree. Boy, he sure is evil!

Superman apparently got the message about the power station being under attack because he arrives in time to find some little kid spraypainting the Superman logo on the roof of the power station. He doesn't have time to arrest the kid for copyright infringement because he has to go underground and stop the army of mole people from taking over Metropolis and also killing Lois. With the help of a pacifist underworld hippie, Superman saves Lois. Without any help from anybody else, Superman saves Metropolis from the underworlders who weren't actually Metropolis underworlders but refugees from Warworld who couldn't stop making war.

Superman couldn't pull his punch enough to not make a hippie's head explode. Lois just returned the favor and saved that guy's life.

I don't know about you but Lois's foot going up Superman's bunghole is kind of doing it for me right now.

Meanwhile, Doomsday finally decides to attack a bridge so that the Justice League notices. Nobody cared when he was just destroying wildlife. But start doing property damage and the authorities perk up real quick. Oberon hears about the carnage and contacts the Justice League to take care of it and/or get their asses kicked so hard that they all lose confidence in themselves and fear fighting crime for the rest of their lives.

Superman: The Man of Steel #18 Rating: B. I never read much Superman so was this kind of thing normal? Did he often beat up a space threat like Warworld only to have to face some threat from underground immediately after? Constantly swinging back and forth between the two? Which makes Doomsday the ultimate threat because he crawled out of the Earth but we eventually find out he's from space. I think. What am I, a boring ass Superman scholar? Unless he was battling Lobo or Ambush Bug, I barely gave a shit about him! I only owned the entire run of DC Comics Presents for the guest stars!

The Weasel (as seen in Batman and Robin Annual #1)!

Part 14 of an at least 52 part series of Who’s Who entries of New 52 characters (but probably a whole lot more what with cancellations and all).

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: John Monroe
Occupation: University Teacher
Marital Status: Unknown
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [Now Blackgate Prison!]
First Appearance: FURY OF FIRESTORM #38
Height: 5'8 1/2" [That one-half inch is a very important inch.] Weight: 170 lbs.
Eyes: Blue Hair: Brown

HISTORY
"John Monroe was a student at Standford University over twenty years ago, where he had little social contact with his fellow students, who, if they noticed him at all, referred to the unlikable Monroe by such names as 'weasel.' [What the fuck is that about? He keeps to himself and they begin calling him names? Fucking cowards was what those other students were. Did they ever try to get to know him? Fucking society is full of assholes. As soon as two people get together, they become oppressive jerks! Or as soon as one person begins a blog where he makes fun of Scott Lobdell's writing day in and day out. Sometimes oppressive jerks are born that way as well!]

Monroe's embitterment over this treatment led to his becoming a murderer decades later [Whoa whoa whoa! For fuck's sake, those students might have been assholes but that sentence seems to jump to a bit of a conclusion, doesn't it? Perchance something happened across those twenty years that might have been the reason? Or was poor fucking John Monroe just stewing in his own hatred for the assholes that wouldn't just let him be until he couldn't take it anymore, grabbed the rifle, and headed up into the bell tower? Um. I don't know how he did his murdering. That was just an example.]. He was then teaching at Vandemeer University in Pittsburgh, where several of his fellow Stanford students also had positions [Did Standford have some kind of program to set up graduates at Vandemeer? Are Vandemeer and Stanford sister schools?! I've been in the Stanford library before. I think I was called a weasel. But two decades isn't quite up yet, so I have yet to become a murderer.]: Arnold Lintel, head of Vandemeer's engineering department; Linda Walters, an instructor in music; and physics professor Peter Banks. To rationalize killing these three, Monroe convinced himself that they represented threats to his getting tenure at Vandemeeer [Okay. Now that the first sentence has been explained, it makes more sense. And tenure is definitely worth murdering for.]. Monroe devised the costumed identity of the Weasel and brutally murdered Lintel, Walters, and Banks, as well as Vandemeer night watchman Chuck Gherkin [Uncalled for!].

Soon afterwards, Dr. Martin Stein--the physicist who is part of the composite being called Firestorm (see Firestorm)--arrived at Vandemeer to fill a position of professor in the physics department. The Weasel twice tried to kill Stein, until Firestorm finally defeated and unmasked the Weasel [Isn't that a bit of overkill? Firestorm versus an ordinary man in a furry costume?]. The Weasel's current fate is unknown [He's busy biting through gas lines in Gotham!]."

POWERS & WEAPONS
The Weasal has no super-powers but is highly agile and is a fierce and formidable hand-to-hand combatant [Yes, just the kind of villain to challenge Firestorm. Was the issue where Firestorm defeated The Weasel one page long?].