Zod Loves Faora #6

The only way this cover could be more symmetric is if Faora wore an "M" on her chest. Fine, I guess there can be other ways. Like if Superman had a beard. Or if Kal and Diana were Zod and Faora.

Last issue the fight between Superman, Wonder Woman, Zod, and Faora ended in a stalemate. I forget why exactly. Superman fucked up his tactics and ended up with his balls in Zod's vice or something. I know it was Kal's fault; I just forget the particulars. This issue begins with Superman and Wonder Woman going about their business while Zod and Faora build a contraption to release the criminals trapped in the Phantom Zone. Apparently the good guys think a stalemate equals a moment to catch their breath. If only Batman were around to tell them otherwise.

I suppose if business is getting godly weapons and armor for battle, it's acceptable. I assumed they went off to bitch and moan about relationship problems.

Hephaestus loans them his invisible chariot so that they can sneak up on Zod. That's probably a good idea considering the armor Hephaestus made them is fucking horrendous. It makes them look like some demon from a Clive Barker novel whose skin has been used to bind an ancient book which houses the creatures most sensitive poetry, leaving its muscles and tendons exposed to the elements, raw and inflamed. This intense and constant pain is the main motivation for the creature to write poems.

Burning Fire Burn Burns
You whom I look at,
The whom who hurts my heart.
Scars it. Burns it. Tears it apart.
Not because you won't love me,
But because you won't stop breathing on the exposed muscle.
Please step back a few feet.
And stop drinking so much.
Mother.

Somebody really needs to have a chat with Hephaestus. It's going to have to be me, isn't it? Okay. Fine.

"Hey? Hephaestus? First off, could you change the spelling of your name? I'm sure the Baristas at Starbucks would appreciate something a little easier to spell. At least understand it's hard to spell and stop flipping out and posting pictures of your cup to Instagram every time they spell it wrong. "Can you believe this shit? Who the fuck is "Hayfestus?" IDIOTS!" Second off, don't listen to everybody when they say you're ugly. I get that your mother treated you like shit and made you feel like a monster but what did you expect? Hera treats everybody that way! You don't have to design all of your armor to make everybody look as hideous as you feel. Buck up, Master Smith! People like you! How about putting the aesthetic back in a word that means beautiful but also has 'aesthetic' in it? We'd all appreciate it!"

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong person to design better armor but I'm not starting a conversation with Tony S. Daniel since he's doing a surprisingly terrific job on other aspects of this comic book. I don't want to interrupt him and get him off of his game. The long, drawn out fight scene is a little bit choppy but it's easy enough to follow. Unlike all the fight scenes in Hawkman when he was writing that! Holy fuck, I've never been so confused! Except maybe the first time I had sex which amounted to me mostly thinking, "Am I supposed to come now? Now? How about now?"

The ugly ass armor Hephaestus made has the ability to absorb the energy of every punch leveled against it. After Superman and Wonder Woman absorb a nice, substantial beat-down, they set off the armor causing a massive explosion that knocks Zod and Faora into the ocean. But before Clark and Diana can finish the fight, Apollo interferes because Superman was a dick to him previously.

Have your fun while you're still alive, Apollo. The First Born is coming for you.

Superman and Wonder Woman are quickly defeated by Zod and Faora now that they're filled with Apollo Juice. But they don't kill them because there isn't time. You know, that's the kind of thing you really should make time for, guys. You think you're going to stuff them into a nuclear reactor and they won't be able to heal up to stop your plans but you'd be really, really wrong. The number one rule of being a super villain (the rule that's always ignored for some reason!) is to kill the good guys when you get the chance. Stop pretending you don't have time because the clock in the Phantom Zone is always ticking. Zod can open the gate while Faora kills the heroes. Delegate, assholes! But no. They leave Supes and Wonder Woman alone while they open up a portal into the Phantom Zone where Warworld and an entire army await their lead. I hope Jim Starlin was consulted in this use of Warworld because that's his baby. It's his greatest achievement! It's such a great concept that he's stolen it from himself over and over again during his long career. Genius!

Superman and Wonder Woman have a plan to stop Zod and Faora though! They know how they can destroy the portal to the Phantom Zone which would be great since Zod and Faora have wandered inside to lead the army out. Idiots! Anyway, Kal and Diana decide to cause a nuclear explosion which will collapse the portal and save the world.

I know matter is composed of mostly empty space but you figure if her sword can split an atom, it would be accidentally splitting one every now and again, right? That doesn't seem very safe!

Anyway, they don't need to "split an atom" to get a nuclear explosion here. The Uranium isn't just sitting there not decaying! I'm pretty sure just slashing at the containment cells will set that explosion off as well. No need to be accurate or anything! Also shouldn't this thing be full of water? Or something? I'm not a Nuclear Physicist but it's not like you just turn Uranium on or off! You don't just deactivate a nuclear reactor by turning out the lights and locking the door! This seems like a fairly dangerous state to leave a reactor that's been decommissioned since 1963! I'm pretty sure you take out the radioactive material and dispose of the spent fuel rods in Nevada. But what do I know!? I just got done believing that Boomerang can block bullets with his turn-around sticks over in Superior Foes of Spider-Man!

Anyway, the (s)explosion happens and the portal is destroyed. But were Superman and Wonder Woman killed as well? Probably not. Superman can easily survive it and Wonder Woman was wrapped in his cape which we've seen can't be destroyed. It might have gotten a little hot in the middle of the blast but nothing Superman's frigid breath can't resolve.

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #6 Rating: No change. There was a lot of punching in this issue. The cover was fairly accurate.

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #5

Does it literally? That's a weird name to give your baby.

Superman, being the gigantic naive fuck-up that he is, managed to give Zod access to his Phantom Zone Extraction Device and Zod immediately used it to free Faora. Meanwhile the entire world is fixated on Superman and Wonder Woman's romantic life. Has the media given them a cute nickname like Bennifer yet? Like Superwoman? Or Wonder Man? Also, was Bennifer (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) the first time that the media began talking about Hollywood couples by merging their names? Which has now become a huge thing where people just merge the names of any two people that they ship? If so (and I'm not doing the research to know for sure if it's true), that means Kevin Smith began this sick and disturbing codependent way of talking about couples! I'm pretty sure he coined "Bennifer" when working with them on Jersey Girl.

Wouldn't it be weird to be Jennifer Garner and have to hear people referring to her and Ben as Bennifer when everybody knows who the Jennifer part of Bennifer really is?

Wonder Woman has finally gone back to visit her family since she wasn't visiting them over in her own title although she did manage to get back to visit in her own title last issue probably so Azzarello could beat Charles Soule to the punch.

Hera's a big jerk! She knew cursing the Amazons to become living phalluses would be the worst.

So far, I've been enjoying Soule's version of Wonder Woman as much as Azzarello's version. Geoff Johns' version over in Justice League is a real ballbreaker though! She just loves to pick fights, doesn't she? Not that Azzarello's version isn't wont to punch a sibling in the head now and then (was that enough negatives in that sentence?!). But she's mostly tended toward resolving conflicts with compassion and smooth talk. But still, we all lose our heads now and again when having to deal with family. Especially when your family are arrogant narcissists that think turning their in-laws into snakes is a bloody good joke.

The only real problem with this comic book is that Superman and Wonder Woman are dating. But if that's what's happening, and it provides some well-written stories by Charles Soule, I'll go with it. But they have to get naked together at some point. Enough of all this kissing in costume! Get to banging on-panel already!

Wonder Woman is visiting Themyscira to talk to herself out loud. Maybe Superman's super hearing can't penetrate Themyscira's magical defenses, so she can express her doubts without fear of Clark hearing and getting all pouty. Although she probably doesn't have to worry about him hearing her right now because he's a little bit busy fighting the creatures that Zod set free from Superman's menagerie.

Mirroring Zod and Faora's escape from The Phantom Zone which Superman guards in his Fortress of Solitude, Wonder Woman discovers that something has escaped from Tartarus, home of the monsters, the entrance of which lies in the middle of Paradise Island and guarded by the Amazons. Now they're probably both going to give Batman a call and ask for help. Or maybe Wonder Woman will call Batwoman since she's helped her capture an escapee from Tartarus before.

If you don't need a lecture then don't call Batman! Sheesh.

Wonder Woman doesn't call anybody because there's no cell reception on Themyscira anyway. Instead she finds the escaped creature herself, stabs it in the head, and tosses it back down into Tartarus. She then uses her Lasso of Truth to secure the doors to the underworld because I guess her Lasso would really come in useful if only she still had it on her later on in this story.

Wonder Woman easily takes care of her problem so Superman is probably mirroring her results and easily putting Zod and Faora back into the Phantom Zone, right?

Forget how powerful the eye lasers might be, the real brutality here is the kicking.

People often talk about how violent video games are but none of that really bothers me because they're just games. But I recently found what I feel is by far the most brutal moment in my history of video game playing so far and it involves kicking. Stomping, actually. Xbox Live just recently gave away Dead Island for free to Gold Members and I've played a bit of it. I know you're fighting zombies but the most brutal moment I've ever experienced (which, obviously, makes me laugh like a demented madman) is knocking a zombie to the ground and then just stomping the shit out of it until it dies. Playing alone, this is sadistic. But playing in multiplayer with two or three other people standing around helping to stomp the shit out of this zombie? It's practically perverse in its brutality. Sure, these are zombies and I guess they deserve to die because they're not like us and who cares that maybe their motivation for eating people's brains is because rising back up as a zombie hurts like a motherfucker and they're just trying to euthanize all of us poor living souls and keep us from their pain and torture. But they're also human figures in bikinis and shorts. So it really just feels like you're a psychopath let loose in some tourist trap in the South Pacific. It does send me into paroxysms of laughter due to the exaggerated violence of it all. Make of that what you will, Doctor Judgypants.

Oh yeah, look at that. No reception on Luddite Island.

Wonder Woman finds Superman and saves his ass because he's more journalist than warrior. Wonder Woman tells Zod that "He is mine!" (referencing Superman, of course!) in Kryptonian and Zod is impressed that she learned the language for him. Are you kidding? Of course she didn't! All she needed to learn was "He is mine!" And now the Moulin Rouge soundtrack is going to be stuck in my head for yet another week.

Of course.

Okay, so maybe Diana isn't using her compassion to win this battle. But then you don't fly into a fight with hugs and kisses when you've just gotten a desperate call from Cyborg telling you that Superman needs help NOW!

Oh! I almost forgot Wonder Woman's best portrayal so far in The New 52: her guest appearance in Batwoman! That bit where she puts Pegasus out of his misery is just beautiful and heart-wrenching. The great thing about Wonder Woman is not that she is compassionate and refutes violence. It's that she has a belief system in place that allows her to run the entire spectrum. She kills when it is absolutely needed or her only choice. But it shouldn't be her first choice. Geoff Johns' Wonder Woman in Justice League just seems bloodthirsty. Azzarello's version is much calmer and she spends far more time talking and having tea with her loved ones than she does murdering monsters. Charles Soule's version? It's really kind of hard to tell just five issues into it and concentrating on her "love" of Superman. I really can't wait until they break up and things get awk-ward!

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #5 Rating: No change. I'm still waiting for Charles Soule to disappoint so I can pounce like a rabid dog and tear his throat out while ranting incoherently about his awful stylistic choices and his atrocious characterizations! I feel so much more comfortable when I can truly hate a comic book and its creative team.

Action Comics Annual #2

I haven't even opened the cover and I think it's accurate to say "Krypton Returns" will be the shittiest comic book story I will ever read in my entire life.

I don't think Scott Lobdell is capable of writing a comic book story without the cheat of Time Travel. That's because it's easy to think, "The DC Universe is like this. But what if it had been like this!" Then you create a character that comes from that future place to make the present place turn into that future place. Or you send a character from the future into the past to change the present! Or you...well, I'm tired of thinking of things Scott Lobdell can do with time travel. Mostly he just drives me insane. See you on the other side of sanity!

Thankfully the first page gives the reader a synopsis of Superman's life. His planet exploded. He was raised to be good. He's a member of the Justice League. Got it! I think I'm ready to understand the underlying themes inherent in this dramatization! Although Lobdell forgot to mention how people have an inherent distrust of Superman because he's an alien and he's more powerful than human beings.

Superman has found himself in space where a Temporal Tsunami is causing suns to flare and die. But even worse, it's causing "oceans to give way to mountains of ice or seas of primordial lava." Wait. Is that worse? I don't know. It's a stupid event because Scott Lobdell created it. And that's my unbiased opinion!

Okay, it's slightly biased. I wonder if Scott Lobdell thinks critics hate his writing simply because they're assholes who don't like him rather than the truth of the matter which is that Scott Lobdell sucks at writing? The problem is that he sucks so badly that I don't think I'll ever recognize when he writes something well. Because I'll already be rolling my eyes and thinking up mean things to call the misguided doctor that delivered him safely instead of strangling him at birth. I wish I could create a Temporal Tsunami and change that fateful day! Of course, everybody would completely freak out if I ran into a delivery room and choked a newborn. But I'd be sure to bring copies of his comic books with me so I could use them in my defense. "But Judge! Read these and then just try to tell me what I did was abhorrent! You'll see! I was only saving comic books! It was justifiable homicide! I've saved this timeline!"

Superman was yanked from Earth to the Temporal Tsunami. He then sees a gigantic glowing portal in space and thinks:

Yes, that's perfectly logical. Lost in space? Best thing to do is fly into a swirling blue portal! That should take you home! Or will it take you to the source of the Time Distortion? Make up your mind, Superman!

Inside the Portal, Superman runs into Supergirl and Superboy. Sheesh, what names! I guess Kryptonians lack imagination.

"Your honor, I'd like to introduce Exhibit #1 for my defense. Come on! Admit it! You kind of want to choke that baby now too, right?"

Inside the Blue Portal, The Supers discover Oracle! Who is Oracle, you ask? How should I describe him? Have you ever been having sex with somebody and it was awful, just terrible. But you still figured the orgasm was going to be worth it. So you kept at it, minute after minute, issue after issue, and you just kept thinking about the orgasm and how this fuck was going to Goddamn at least make you feel good at the end of it. And then you blacked out and woke up with an out of order sign covering your genitalia? Also imagine if a Wolverine were trying to make a nest in your rectum during the entire process. Also somebody was reciting William Carlos Williams' poetry softly into your ear. In other words, you'd be confused, bored, disappointed, and in pain. Well that pretty much sums up the reveal of Oracle in Lobdell's H'el on Earth story. And now he's back for more! Somebody lube up the wolverine!

The Omniscient Narrator reveals that the Omniscient Being known as The Oracle is just one of an entire race of omniscient creatures that mostly don't interfere with the Omniverse unless something is about to destroy it. But since they're omniscient, they know that the universe won't be destroyed because they interfered with it! God, life as an omniscient being must fucking suck ass. If you're not into sucking ass. I meant that as a bad thing but I can see how it's sometimes a good thing, so I just wanted to be clear.

And it's a good thing Oracle decided to interfere or else The Supers would never have glanced over their shoulders to see Krypton come back to reality! I'm so fucking happy that this character has been so integral to this story! If the Oracle hadn't arrived to point, the story never could have continued and Superman would never have been able to defeat the Temporal Tsunami! This might just be the most brilliant use ever of an Omniscient, Godlike being! I also think I'm beginning to acclimate to having a wolverine shoved into my anus.

Actually, it just looks like a pile of metal shavings and shrapnel stacked up on somebody's dead front lawn. I'm not going to scan a picture of Krypton because it looks exactly like I just described it.

Oracle takes off because his job has been well done. He deserves some galaxy sized Oreos as a reward. Meanwhile, The Supers don't begin losing their powers underneath the Red Sun of Krypton because I don't see a sun anywhere nearby. Perhaps H'el pushed a moon in front of it.

Sorry, I was mistaken! The Oracle did not leave. Instead he shoved his way into Superboy's mind so he can explicate the goings on of the whatsit and stuff. Also, he teleports the Supers to the surface of one of Kyrpton's moons.

Actually nobody on Krypton would dare to visit because they have no way of escaping the gravity of the planet. I know, I know. H'el solved that problem during his twenty-five years of changed history. But the Omniscient Narrator doesn't know that!

Once Oracle takes over Superboy so that it can talk to Superman which is exactly what Superman wanted, Superman tells him to get out of Superboy first and then they'll talk. Does Scott Lobdell remember anything he writes? It was just in the script two pages ago! Superman already explained to the others how The Oracle didn't talk but used emotions to communicate. And now it's found a way to talk and Superman is telling it to fuck off? See, Judge? SEE! I can see you imagining your hands around that tiny baby's throat right now! Nobody would have to suffer through this misery if only a heroic time traveler would go back and change it all! Sure, it would be at the cost of his own freedom and probably his life because judges are stupid jerks that won't listen to reason in matters of infanticide! But, Goddamn, it would be so totally worth it!

Oracle continues spouting nonsense.

Oracle's people observed all life before the beginning of time. Nonsense! To an omniscient being, time has no ending nor any beginning.

Oracle mentions that "almost before the planet started to cool, it was clear that Krypton presented a problem." Wrong! Krypton presented a problem before, during, and after it existed. The problem was dealt with before, during, and after it existed. The problem was never a fucking problem because it always never was forever dealt with before it was a problem.

The bottom line is that, and I might be explaining this better than the comic book explained it, H'el is caught in an infinite time loop. He sends the cells that will become him into space. They eventually wind up on Earth as the humanoid H'el. He battles Superman and Supergirl and loses. He's shot into the past to land on Krypton. Once on Krypton, he sends his cells back into space and fucks with time a different way each time he returns to this point of the loop. So in H'el #1, we saw him kill Zod and Jor-el. Other times, he's stopped the clone wars, or became Jor-el's fuck buddy, or sucked every dick on Krypton. He's tried almost everything because he has an infinite amount of opportunities although I don't know how he remembers it all from one life to the next. I guess he injects the cells with his genetic memory or some other technojargon. But his screwing with time has caused a Temporal Tsunami. And now Oracle is here to tell Superman to fix it right the fuck now or else. Of course Supergirl isn't going to want to play along because she has Krypton back and fuck the rest of the universe. Although I don't know how Superman is going to get anything done under a Red Sun. Hopefully he's in a timeline where H'el has managed to turn the Red Sun into a Yellow Sun. Although that would mean an entire world of Superpeople that Superman will have to deal with. And wouldn't the planet itself, Krypton, kill them all since it's made out of Kryptonite?!

Oracle must have explained enough because Kara slaps him out of Superboy so that they can get on with saving Omnithing.

Faora lives on the moon because she's insane and/or desperate.

Faora knows all about H'el and his time shenanigans because Oracle told her. He probably had to tell her an infinite number of times until she finally believed him for some reason. It was probably a lot like Groundhog Day. I don't know why he was so forthcoming with Faora though. And why did Rocafort give her a cane just like Doctor Veritas? Are they the same person?!

Superman spends one thought bubble thinking about how he hopes his powers keep working under the red sun. I bet that's the only mention of that ever because everybody forgot about it until the book was ready to print and then some upstart Associate Editor said, "Um, you know Krypton has a red sun, right?" After that, Superman learns that he is going to have to go back in time with his Super Family and pull a great big fucking Marty McFly. You know. He has to return time to its correct path. Which means...dun dun DUN...SUPERMAN WILL BE THE CAUSE OF KRYPTON'S DESTRUCTION! WHAT A TWIST!

I hate how only characters in Scott Lobdell's stupid fucking comic books call the Universe "the Omniverse." Suck my Omnidick.

Anyway, Faora sends the three Supers back to different points in time to change history so that it gets back on course: Superman to stop H'el when he succeeds in keeping the planet from exploding; Supergirl to make sure the clone war does something or other; Superboy to make sure Supergirl is shoved onto a rocket and sent to Earth. I don't think she sent anybody back to stop H'el from sending his cells into space in the first place though, so it'll all just happen again. Fuck poorly written time travel stories. Why am I still commenting on this crap? Here's what happens in the next three parts: the Supers get Krypton to blow up again and everyone is saved and these three versions of the Supers disappear and this story never fucking happened and nobody remembers anything. Except one little thing will be changed, like Superman will meet his baby self and put some memento into the rocket or something. The end.

Action Comics Annual #2 Rating: Fuck everybody.