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.

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?"

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!"?

________________________________________________________________________________
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!

Justice League America #62 (May 1992)

Covering Maxima's mouth when it's her eyes that shoot her psionic beams reeks of misogyny.

On the cover, Weapons Master uses the Green Lantern ring to cover Superman's eyes so he can't be blasted by heat vision. That makes sense. But he should then cover Superman's mouth to protect against his cold breath. Being that Weapons Master doesn't do that and instead chooses to cover Maxima's mouth, which is harmless, hints at a darker reason for what he's doing. If I only had one gag for these three people, I wouldn't even choose to put it on Superman. It's Guy Gardner whose mouth you want to shut up so you don't have to listen to his empty bravado! But this asshole chooses to stop the woman from speaking. I don't want to boil everything down to some guy being angry because he has a small penis because having a small penis makes a person a victim of "mainstream" society for nothing they had any control of. But it is a handy metaphor for a guy with low self-esteem who hates women because he fears rejection based on society's idea of what makes a man (i.e., the penis). Also, when a man says that a man who demonstrates some behavior he doesn't like has a small penis, he's actually proclaiming, "My penis is satisfactory." I don't want anybody making any assumptions about the size of my satisfactory penis so I won't blame Weapons Master's misogyny on having a small penis. If I did, it would just be as a metaphor anyway. But I feel that specific metaphor is harmful. Which is why I choose to use a different metaphor and say, "Weapons Master has a tiny empathic ability." Although that's not a metaphor; it's just a statement. Maybe our world needs to express things less in metaphor! Why lump nice guys with small dicks into the same category as the biggest jerk-offs on the planet? There are plenty of jerks out there with humongous penises and tight buttholes they don't deserve!

Wait. What was the tight butthole a metaphor for again? Oh, that's right! Being a prude! Never mind. I'm mixing my metaphors now! Let's just get directly to the point: Weapons Master, in choosing to gag the only member of this group that he has no reason to gag, makes a loud and clear statement about what he thinks of women. Unless it's just what he thinks of Maxima. She really gave him an ego drubbing in their previous encounter when she was all, "I'm the queen of everything and you're no Superman, you little dicked asshole!" That was Maxima using that disgusting metaphor! Not me! You can't blame me for writing character-driven dialogue!

When we last left the Justice League, they were being used as pawns in a "game" created by Weapons Master (unless the game was created by the three-eyed red alien from Justice League of America #1). I put the word "game" in quotes because it wasn't much of a game. Blue Beetle just had to put figures of the Justice League on a chessboard and hope he put them on Freedom Squares instead of Danger Squares. Pretty shit game, actually. So far Ice was placed on the game board in a Danger Square which transported her to a planet of lava where she's sure to die. Blue Beetle was pretty upset about this, according to the art.

He should have had a V-8.

Having taken Ice off the board in a failed effort to bring her back, Blue Beetle decides to place Superman on the square Ice's figure had been on. Superman is transported to lava world too and saves Ice's life. Then they fuck. Probably. It's what I'd do if I were Ice. For survival, I mean! Like when you're camping and a blizzard hits, you're supposed to get naked and cuddle up with your friends to conserve body heat. Well isn't the opposite also true in a total-lava environment? Ice and Superman need to get naked and cuddle so that Ice can keep their body temperatures down! Fucking is the only logical way to survive.

Look, you can try to convince me that two people can get naked together and not fuck but I won't be listening because I'll be imagining the two naked people fucking.

Weird. I thought Ice's vagina would have a lateral lisp.

Weapons Master gets upset with Beetle about the little stunt he just pulled. Maybe stick to guns and electrified nets, Weapons Master. I bet Games Master wouldn't have made this error!

Blue Beetle's next move is to put Booster Gold on one corner of the board and Maxima on another. In his head, he's experimenting to figure out more information about the board. In reality, he's just randomly placing his teammates on a dangerous device. I guess he figures if he gets the information he wants from this move, he'll be able to place Guy Gardner in the perfect spot to save the day. Or to make sure Guy dies? It's hard to guess at Beetle's motivations. Guy doesn't have his ring right now so it's the perfect time to get him out of everybody's hair forever.

Back in New York, Bloodwynd the absolutely, totally human magic-user confronts Maxwell Lord and Oberon. They're all, "How do you know so much about us? Are you telepathic like our old member, J'onn?" Bloodwynd is all, "I cannot say but I did find a clue telepathically from one of Weapons Master's weapons!" The clue points toward a mysterious yacht that probably hides a Dominator and Weapon Master's hot girlfriend. Sorry, young people, I don't know either of their names and resorted to reducing them to their race and gender!

The panels depicting Superman and Ice on the lava planet lead me to only one conclusion: Dan Jurgens is as hot for Ice as I am! I mean as I pretend to be! I'm going to show you two panels from this comic book and you are going to have to take a cold shower and try not to think about ice, no matter your sexuality.

I just have one thing to say: "Pudendum."

Booster Gold would kill to have that much of a bulge!

I've maintained for years that Ice has the sexiest outfit. Because it can do things like this!

Another huge plus of Ice's costume: extremely large fuzzy boot cuffs!

Superman tells Ice she needs to help herself stay cool because he somehow conveniently forgot about his frost breath. Unless he lost that power after Crisis. I can't keep any of that shit straight this many years out.

Ice makes a few "ice pebbles" which is cute if you like to picture them dribbling out of her butt like a farmyard goat (which I do). As she's dying in the heat, she asks Superman if he's married and then tells him her secret identity. This lava planet is making Ice one thirsty ho! Lois gonna have to beat the horndog out of her.

Back in the game room, it turns out that Blue Beetle's assumption that the opposite of the corners of the board would have some kind of connection is correct as Maxima and Booster Gold wind up on a strange planet together. To Maxima's dismay, really.

"The men of the Justice League are lucky Max Lord doesn't have a Human Resources Department," writes the guy who has been ogling Ice for the last five pages.

To be fair to myself (which we should all try to be extremely fair to because I'm a sensitive boy), I'd be ogling Booster Gold's crotch too if anybody would ever draw any kind of bulge down there. I'm guessing Dan will be the guy to do it. You can almost think he's attempting it in the above panels but it's really just the shine of Booster's glossy outfit and not a penis.

Maxima shoves Booster away and he gets angry and annoyed, yelling, "Hey! What gives, Maxima?" Maybe she doesn't need you constantly expressing how much you want to fuck her? At least not to her face. Save that shit for your LiveJournal, buddy.

No wonder all the women want to fuck Superman. The rest are a bunch of lechers.

Wally West has been nothing but a sex pest in Justice League Europe for the last three years. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold often fall all over each other hitting on any woman in their proximity (both have been pestering Maxima since she arrived). Even Ralph Dibny has been getting into the act. And Max Lord and Oberon can't be looked to as role models either! The only guys not sexually harassing their teammates on a near constant basis are Rocket Red (who is married (not that marriage matters, seeing as how Ralph is acting)) and Metamorpho (who is absolutely in love with Sapphire). Oh, and J'onn but if he were attracted to an Earth woman it would be weird. Like if I wanted to fuck the raccoons that come by my backyard at night. I do not want to fuck them, by the way. Just read my t-shirt that says, "I am not attracted to sexy raccoons."

I realize I didn't mention Guy Gardner because did I really need to mention that chauvinist? He's a given in this matter, right?

You know what? It's not only the men who have a problem in this League and a reason to get an HR Department set up posthaste. Crimson Fox and Catherine Cobert wouldn't get off Captain Atom's jock while he was still alive! I'm pretty sure Sue Dibny even fucked him in the janitor's closet in Issue #6 (and #7. And #3. And #13. Hell, every issue where Sue and Captain Atom aren't currently on-panel, really).

Weapons Master isn't much better as you'll see in the next panel. When do I stop attributing all of this pent-up sexual aggression to the characters and just start accepting, like everybody else already has, that comic book writers and artists are horny and lonely and can only gratify their sexual urges through their "art"? Like Weapons Master in that panel I mentioned!

"Light show," Beetle? Weapons Master is using the ring to create a stag film.

I can't believe I used the phrase "stag film." Where did I learn about pornography? From Happy Days?!

Maybe I shouldn't blame comic book artists for all of this weird expression of sexuality. I can't say that if I got a Green Lantern ring, I wouldn't first use it to make a bunch of naked women to have sex with. It's pretty much what The Fermata is all about! Nicholson Baker writes the most pornographic and rapey book he can imagine and yet it's maybe the best book about writing I've ever read. "Oh, I'm a writer who suddenly has the ability to stop time! I can get all the writing I want done at any moment! Except I'm mostly going to use all of this extra time jerking off."

Some of you might be pointing out he does quite a bit more than jerking off, like sexual molestation and assault. But that's just the metaphor! I was being literal about what keeps a writer from writing. I know the Internet itself is one of those things but The Fermata was written in 1994. At that time the two biggest distractions from getting your novel written were the urge to jerk off and your stupid cat demanding constant attention.

I just went to Goodreads to see what people are saying about The Fermata because it's full of sexual assault. I never thought it's main point was erotic fantasy. It's obviously a man taking advantage of women! But I always maintained it's a great book about writing. But on Goodreads, I didn't read one review that even mentioned it's a metaphor about writing. Did I not read enough reviews (probably?)? Everybody just seems to think either it's a gross book about sexual assault (it is!) or it's an awesome sexy fantasy about assaulting women (all the guys, probably!). Am I wrong that it's a metaphor about writers and how they allow themselves to be distracted so that, even if they could stop time, they'd still have excuses not to get to the writing? Was I super smart when I first read it back in the mid-90s or was I super dumb?!

You might also think, "Sounds like a pretty thin premise to justify a book full of sexual assault." But that's also kind of the point? Pages and pages and pages of Baker's writing are just him "jerking off." He's writing the most detailed descriptions he can of these sexual assaults, spending far too much time, using far too much of his writing ability, to describe page after page of these encounters. It's like an artist putting all of their effort in doodles because they're refusing to look at the real work set before them.

Weapons Master also makes himself a martini so I see he knows how to have a good time. He mentions Blue Beetle has two more pieces to move and that's when I finally remember Fire exists. Whoops! Sorry, Fire! I was too busy looking at Ice's underboobs to remember you!

Blue Beetle realized that when he placed a person's piece on the board, that person was able to interact with the environment for a few seconds before disappearing. So he plays Guy's piece hoping Guy has noticed too. Guy wakes up and calls his ring back to his finger. Guy doesn't warp to a strange planet but I don't know if that's because Beetle played his piece on a Freedom Square or the ring protected Guy. Whatever the case, Guy attacks Weapons Master who warps away only to return seconds later with a weapon that I presume can defeat Guy Gardner. Just like back in the JLA cave!

I'm supposed to believe Weapons Master doesn't have any weapons which shoot yellow bullets? Please.

Weapons Master retreats to his yacht where he has to kill the Dominator before it returns to Dominaria and reports to its superiors that Weapons Master sucks at fencing Green Lantern rings. I don't know if "Dominaria" is the name of the Dominion home planet. I do know it's the home of Prodigal Sorcerers, Grizzly Bears, and Savannah Lions.

Green Lantern's ring saves the other Justice League members by tracking their quantum particles or something. It's all done off-panel during the scene where Bloodwynd, having tracked down Weapons Master to his girlfriend's yacht, attacks.

"You may be fast but are you fast enough to interrupt this sentence with an amazingly long-winded threat somehow spoken in the instantaneous moment in which you warp away from me? Oh, you are."

Don't ask about Guy Gardner on the computer screen. I have no idea what's going on with that. Maybe Weapons Master has CCTV installed across all of his various pocket dimensions and lava planets.

Bloodwynd can't rescue the Justice League because J'onn J'onzz doesn't actually have magic powers. But he is able to disassemble Weapons Master's computer system, take it back to the Justice League Headquarters, plug it into their teleportation system, hire some hackers to write a program to communicate between the hardware, and eventually use the system to warp the team back home.

When the adventure is over, Max Lord announces that the Justice League have not only succeeded in their first mission which was really just the League defending Guy's ring from a thief but that they've gained two new members!

Max Lord telegraphing that these are diversity hires with, "They're certain to widen the group's appeal."

If they truly are diversity hires, that means Martian Manhunter is stealing the job that should have gone to Cyborg all these years ago! Fucking dick.

One last pic just to prove that Dan Jurgens is a professional comic book artist using the proof I mentioned in my Justice League Europe #37 review.

See? It took Dan until the last page but he got one of the female characters into a towel!

Justice League America #62 Rating: B. This two part story was satisfactory for introducing the new members of the League. It had all the usual beats of a team comic book. First they get defeated by the bad guy because they didn't work together and then they come together later, all using their particular talents, to defeat the villain. Aside from Fire who never moved from the table during the entire conflict. I guess Ice didn't do much but need saving. And Booster didn't do much but annoy Maxima with his crude suggestions. But Maxima helped because she cussed out Beetle when he put her piece on the game board! That helped Beetle realize that his teammates could act for a few seconds before being sent to some dangerous dimension. And because this wasn't a real mission and just a minor assault by Weapons Master that took place just before the League ever appeared all in one place together, I won't fault it for being a story where the villain attacks the League directly meaning no real "Justice" was served. So instead of the Justice League saving the world 0 out of 2 comics, I'll give them a pass on this one and start the tally next issue.