Superman #22

Jon needs to learn to eat his Popsicles faster.

Some weird shit is going down in Hamilton County and I just figured out what it is! Rorschach's disintegrated atoms probably came to rest in the soil! So now it's all, "I'm not trapped out on the farm with you. You're trapped out on the farm with this cow's disgusting milk and a weird house in the swamp. Oh, and me!"

This issue begins with Lois Lane reminding me of a traumatic moment in my life.

I get it, Pat and Pete. You guys are sadistic assholes who don't want anybody to forget the murder of Goldie. Unless you're going to bring Goldie back from the dead, can you just stop reminding me of the death of my best friend? I mean the death of Goldie!

Since Batman is locked in a freezer covered in rotting cow's milk, Lois Lane is the only capable investigator left in Hamilton County. She heads out to solve the Mystery of the Whatever The Hell Is Going The Fuck On. If anybody can solve it and possibly fall out of a helicopter while doing so and have to be rescued by Superman, it's Lois Lane!

During her investigation, Lois stumbles upon a bank of monitors set up in the basement of the Hamilton Town Hall. On every monitor are images of Jon at different points across his life. Even at times before they were living in Hamilton County! Is this is a new mystery or can I just stick it under the general heading of the Whatever The Hell Is Going The Fuck On Mystery? See, it was pretty smart to name it so loosely, right?! You were probably thinking, "That title would never sell a single Goddamned Nancy Drew novel, you stupid cunt." Whoa, whoa! Why so hostile, imaginary reader? Sheesh! Bring it down a notch.

That King Arthur movie still looks fucking stupid.

Is this a modern retelling where King Arthur's a hipster living in a gentrified neighborhood in Portland and pulls Excalibur out of a Marantz 6370Q turntable? It would explain the "from nothing comes a king" tagline.

Lois is discovered discovering the town's secret of knowing her family's secret. She rushes home to find the leaders of the town in her living room acting ominously. That was the opposite of hyperbole! I don't know the word for that because I rarely ever find it useful!

Lois escapes the weird town elders by slipping on her Batman Doomsday Glove and blasting the fuck out of them. Then the Batmobile pulls up to rescue her and she gets away. The Batmobile suggests killing the fuck out of the people chasing her and Lois is all, "Hells yeah, bitches!" So then missiles blast a bunch of town folk and the Lois Lane runs one of them over and somewhere Superman and Batman weep heroically. I'm guessing Lois Lane realized these town elders weren't really human, what with the being able to survive giant squid attacks and being able to be seemingly everywhere at once. Otherwise, Lois Lane had better find a good lawyer who knows their way around a murder in self-defense trial.

Lois Lane is finally stopped by Mr. Cobb the Dairy Farmer. That confrontation will have to happen in a later issue because it's time for the big surprise reveal of what Superman found in the House of Mystery in Deadman's Swamp! He stumbles upon a huge ship underground. Deep within it, he finds Batman, Robin, some criminal clowns, Frankenstein, and Lady Frankenstein all stuck in a bunch of vacuum tubes. Unless they're Bacta Tanks. I guess they didn't get every piece of Candice the Alien when they blew her up a number of issues ago. I'm pretty sure that was made explicit during that issue but hell if I can remember that far back! It's not like I remember she was called Kroog and she was capable of reforming from even a single misplaced bit of herself. Based on the black goo everywhere, it's possible a whole bunch of Kroog (or Kroog as a whole bunch of parts of itself?) have created a Kroog haven here on Earth. It's also possible it's different aliens altogether.

The Ranking!
You know what? Fuck ranking comic books. If you can't tell I liked a comic book, what does it matter? That's never been the point of this blog and I only stapled it into place on the finished product because people seem to expect that kind of thing. Maybe live with the ambiguity and uncertainty of whether or not I actually liked a comic book I read and made fun of! Maybe don't rely so much on other people's stupid opinions (even if those stupid opinions are coming from a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader). Maybe just enjoy this diatribes for what they are: a huge waste of everybody's time!

Action Comics #976

I accept neither of these as the real Superman. Where the fuck is the spit curl?

If this cover says what I think it's saying, it's kind of a spoiler for the end of the story, right? Preboot Superman is Superman Blue, the Superman who thinks his way out of situations. New 52 Superman is Superman Red, the Superman who prefers punching first and then punching later too. And if they are Superman Red and Superman Blue then they're just two halves of the same Superman. That means the ending of this story will be the merging of the two Supermen which will result in Superman being the better Superman who can also claim to be Batman's friend. And while you are all standing and applauding the use of Red and Blue Superman in a novel way to explain some pretty fucked up Superman history, please try to ignore the Blue and Red Lois behind the curtain. It probably makes sense somehow. I bet after Superman split himself in two with his kryptonite-powered Dopplegänger creator invention (which he totally didn't invent because he wanted to fuck himself), Lois wandered in to totally not dust it because that would be sexist and thought, "Hmm. I wonder what it would be like to fuck myself?"

So that's probably the end of the story! I guess there's some details I'm missing and, hopefully, some flashbacks to Lois fucking herself (and Superman too! It's not that I don't want to see that as well. I just want to see Lois on Lois action a little bit more).

The story continues with New 52 Superman and Lois being freed from Hell by Jon. He doesn't realize they're not his parents though because he's yet to see Superman punch a helpless normie criminal in the face while Lois writers a terrible article on how heroic Superman is rather than how violent and debauched. Preboot Superman and Lois fell off the side of the building and are presumably dead. Unless what's really happened is that Superman and Lois have just finally forgotten everything the way Mr. Mxyzptlk wanted them to forget because they already merged with Red Superman and Red Lois aka the New 52 idiots.

Look at this bully! He even pushes himself around.

As Superman and Mxy argue, Jon notices a couple of blue spheres floating around now. It looks like the red versions of Superman and Lois just kicked the blue versions out of their homes. So now they just need to merge and they'll have beaten Mr. Mxyzptlk. Plus Dan Jurgens doesn't need to think of a way to trick Mxy into saying his name backwards because Mxy has a signed contract that says he'll agree to go home if Superman makes it to the end of the board game. And anyway, Mxy wants to go home before Dr. Oz takes notice of him.

I probably could have left this review with my interpretation of the cover because the details really don't matter! Mxy bails because he's afraid of Dr. Oz while Superman and Lois embrace their blue (Preboot) and red (New 52) halves to fix DC continuity. I probably should have put fix in quotes because every time DC tries to fix something wrong with their continuity, they just make it worse. It would be so much easier to just embrace my fix: denial! Just fucking pretend everything works and stop worrying about the discussions on rabid fangender forums about the minutest continuity problems!

It looks like DC might just be taking my approach but with this story as a kind of Pilate washing his hands of it all moment. Here's what Dr. Oz says: "This changes everything. A new, existence-wide, single reality, rebuilt from two. A timeline and history both familiar and new with lives realigned. Consistent with the memories and experiences of all. Everything solidified. Locked in so it all fits." There you have it! Exactly what I was hoping Rebirth would be (although it took long enough for DC to get around to it. And, in fact, I don't think DC intended this fix, exactly, from the beginning. They probably read my blog and were all, "That Tess is right! Let's just create a universe where it all works simply because we say it does! But we need a story to get us there! Oh! I know! How about instead of just a Red and Blue Superman, we have a Red and Blue DC Continuity! Merge them and then all stories are true!" Then Greg Rucka was all, "But what about what I'm doing in Wonder Woman! You're going to ruin my story with your shortcut!" And DC was all, "Oh, go to hell, you pretentious twat."

Dr. Oz marvels at Superman's ability to rewrite reality without the go ahead of his editors. Then Dr. Oz thinks, "Speaking of editors, I wonder what Big Blue will think about this! And I don't mean Superman!" Then there's a shot of Mars. Stunner!

The Ranking!
+1! I have to give this a plus one, at least, because it's done the only thing I really wanted out of Rebirth. It's simply allowed for all stories (Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, New 52, Rebirth) to be as true as the reader wants them to be. Don't like a story? Forget about it! It doesn't need to exist! Love a story that was wiped from existence by some reboot or another? It's part of continuity if you want it to be! All you have to do is ignore the ravenous fangenders who will obstinately bring up moments that contradict the moment you love! This issue is a loudly shouted "FUCK OFF!" to those dicks!

Action Comics #975

"Bizarro am looking at Superman's ass!"

You might be thinking, "Shouldn't it be 'Bizarro am not looking at Superman's ass'?" No! Because he's embarrassed that he was caught looking at it and he's denying that he was looking at it. Which sucks for Bizarro because most people who aren't bothered with trying to understand the whole "Bizarro speak terribly" thing (I don't know if I meant that in Bizarro or not. Bizarro speak really am good. Bad. Whatever) will just nod their heads in agreement and think, "Yeah you are!"

The good thing about being a full week behind on my comics (in a manner of speaking. I currently have 28 comics in the stack. At 14 per week and this being so close to a new week when I should have about 14 in the stack anyway, I'm one week behind. Maths! But then some of those comics are a month behind because of the odd way I've been reading them. Like how I have two Mother Panic issues to read) is that I get to read the last three Superman Reborn comics at once! Probably not at one sitting though. I'm already jonesing to play Friday Overwatch.

At the end of the last issue, DC included a page with a title something like "Who is behind Mystery Clark Kent?! It's not as surprising as you might think so here are five super villains that DC has been using way too much lately. Try to guess which one is behind the mystery!" Then, like this cover, it had a bunch of characters to choose from. I forget exactly which ones but I'm sure it was Doomsday and Cyborg Superman and Mongul and Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk. I'm sure Mxy was included because there's a bad thing about being a full week behind on reading comics too: I already saw Mxy on the cover of Superman #19. I'm glad he's the villain because he hasn't been as overused as the other ones. Plus it's easy to explain any inconsistencies in the plots since Rebirth if the person behind the story is Mxy and not just Dan Jurgens.

At the end of the last issue, Jon Smith was wiped out of existence. There's been a lot of that going on. He was wiped in Justice League too! To increase tension, DC Comics probably should have waited to release Supersons until after this story concluded. Now I know he's going to be fine or else the next issue of Supersons will be Superson. And that will be a little too confusing if it's a comic book about Damian Wayne and called Superson. People will begin thinking somebody was cuckolded.

Clark and Lois (the Smiths! Not the Kents!) head to Clark Kent's apartment in Metropolis to search for Jon.

No! No! Not the fridge! This is going to be grotesque!

Jon isn't chopped up inside the fridge even if that would have been the best Rebirth moment yet. Instead, it's full of junk food. If it wasn't for the cover with Mr. Mxyzptlk on it, I'd be guessing Bizarro was the culprit. But I'm also a card carrying member of the Trixie Belden School of Detectivanting (that's doing detective work while gallivanting around the globe) so I saw some huge clues earlier that Clark Kent couldn't be Bizarro. Like how he could conjugate "to be". Not that most Americans could conjugate "to be" if you asked them. "To be. To have been. To be better. To behave?"

Clark appears out of nowhere (he must have been in nowhere since Superman didn't hear his heartbeat nearby). Superman immediately resorts to violence while accusing Clark of taking their son. That's understandable, I guess. I don't know if I'd be angry if somebody took my son but if they took my cat, I'd throw punches first, ask questions later (after regaining consciousness from being beaten up because I suck at fighting). Clark responds with, "Oh, the son you never told me about?!" Why the fuck would Superman need to tell Clark Kent about his son?! This guy has an ego problem. Hmm. Being that Clark is really Mxy, that previous statement is pretty fucking obvious.

Mr. Mxyzptlk reveals his plan to Superman. He was just trying to help Superman regain his secret identity by pretending to be Clark Kent. And he wasn't just pretending! He cast a spell so strong that he truly believed he was. Well, he calls it a spell. But really, he's just manipulating three dimensional reality the way I...well, never mind what I was going to compare that to. It's personal.

Mxy reveals his plan but not his identity. He wants Superman to guess! Well, that should take the rest of the comic book seeing as how answering questions isn't as easy as punching faces.

Wait. So he is Bizarro? I'm confused!

Mr. Mxyzptlk finally reveals himself and tells Superman that he's going to make everybody forget about Jon the way Superman forgot about Mxy. That's cool. I'd be okay with the moment at the end of this issue where Lois says "Jon who?" being the end of the Superman Reborn story. I'm already forgetting about the little fucking cat murderer.

The Ranking!
No change! At least Jurgens didn't wait until the last possible moment to reveal Clark Kent's true identity. Also, I don't know why I'm doing this ranking bit when I haven't even mentioned the back-up story yet! Whoops!

The back-up story takes place in a world of doors. It's where Jon's being kept captive by Mxy. Maybe "captive" is the wrong word since they're just hanging out the way friends do. Although if my friend Doom Bunny ever dropped by unexpectedly, I'd feel like I was being held captive in my own home. So maybe "held captive" is synonymous enough with "hanging out with friends."

Mxy tells Jon a story about the last time he tried to come to Earth to fuck with Jon's dad. I mean play with him! I guess "fuck" and "play" can also be synonymous, right?! Anyway, when Mxy appeared, he was instantly captured by Dr. Oz. Mxy's feelings were hurt when Superman never came to save him. He really does have a huge ego, doesn't he?

Mxy lets Jon know that he's stuck in Doorland until Superman figures out how to beat him. How will Superman get Mxy to say his name backwards this time? I bet he just punches Mxy in the face until Mxy says "Uncle." I mean "Kltpzyxm!"

Superman #13

This is no time to be taking a selfie, Supes.

The Review!
This issue is about love and reflection and monsters in love too. That last part is the best part. I don't care that Superman gets a renewed perspective on his family life. I just like Frankenstein and Lady Frankenstein at each other's throats. And I especially like that Frankenstein still pines for Lady Frankenstein even though he blew the relationship apart because she did something he did not approve of. Sure, that something was killing their only child. But it's not like she approved of that either! She didn't want that to happen! But her son begged her and, being his mother, and knowing that he was in pain due to the destruction and hurt he'd caused, and that once his moment of clarity ended he would go back to that, she killed him. For the greater good. And Frankenstein hurt her even more by not accepting that and not being there for her. Instead he decided to take out his anger and mourning on her when she most needed love and comfort. So when he asks her to return to him, she, quite rightly, tells him to fuck off. Now that's a love story I can appreciate!

The Ranking!
+1!

Superman #12

The Frankensteins are coming for dinner!

The first thing I noticed is that Lois rides a boy's bike. I get that girl's bikes were designed for skirts but we all realized as boys, fairly early on, that girl's bikes would have been preferable for boys as well. It just takes one accident where you rack yourself on the frame to realize you wished you had had the balls to buy a girl's bike before you lost them on the boy's bike. Of course, now that there isn't any stigma against a woman riding a bike like a man (meaning riding a bike like a normal person would ride a fucking bike if it weren't for social conventions created by horrible and uptight people), it's no big deal. But I still noticed it! Lois is such a man!

Even though Lois has accepted the job at the Daily Planet pretending to be Lois Lane, Lois Smith still needs a job of her own. So she's going to be working for the Hamilton Horn, Hamilton County's local paper. And she gets her first big story during the interview as Frankenstein crashes through the wall.

Frankenstein thinks the editor in chief is somebody named Outcast. He also mentions SHADE which is usually when I begin suggesting possibly reverse acronyms for it. Super Humans Against Dowdy Editors?

Lois Lane keeps one of Batman's Hellbat gloves in her backpack. I would say she stole it but if Batman has yet to reclaim it, the only reasonable assumption is that he doesn't mind Lois having it. She uses it to put down Frankenstein so she can help the editor escape. The editor must be evil because why else would Frank target her? Other than the fact she's an editor. I mean, that alone is reason enough to destroy her and send her to Hell.

I might have an irrational hatred and bias toward editors. Although maybe it's not irrational. You would probably hate people who constantly "tsk-tsked" your manuscripts as well. What do editors know about art anyway?! They look at the Chicago Manual of Style as the Mona Lisa of grammar. More like a gigantic snoozefest of boring rules and impossible to follow regulations!

Lois and Candice, the editor (can you read the word "editor" as if it's in some kind of gross, dripping font every time you see me write it? Thanks!), escape in Frank's hovercycle he brought to the scene of his attempted justicing. See that last sentence? That's pretty good, right?! Totally conveys the point I'm trying to make. But an editor (dripping font, remember!) would be all, "Justicing is not a word. Change it. It should make sense." But it does make sense! Everybody can sense the fuck out of it! Except stupid editors.

Frankenstein hops on the vehicle as Lois uses it to escape. But then Superman appears because the title of this comic book is "Superman" and not "The Adventures of Superman's Wife, Lois Smith".

Last issue, Superman fought Swamp Thing. Now he's fighting Frankenstein. Let me guess: next story, he's going to beat the shit out of Kermit the Frog!

Frank shoots Superman in the face with his magic pistol and then crushes Superman under a tractor. Then he walks away as if that's all it takes to defeat Superman. I don't think Frankenstein has been doing his SHADE homework again. Stupid Homework Always Drags Endlessly?

Guns don't kill Frankenstiens. Mobs with pitchforks and torches kill Frankensteins.

Superman returns to punch Frank in the face again but not before Frank uses his Remote Control to call back his hover vehicle. It returns with Lois still at the helm and smashes into the back of Superman's head. Hopefully it's made of technology and not magic or else Superman might have a super-concussion.

Frankenstein cuts off Candice's face revealing she's a Manhunter. Or a robot or something. You know, like I said, she's a fucking editor. They all deserve to get their faces cut off!

Candice turns out to be Kroog, some kind of alien murderer. Now Superman needs to figure out if he should stop Frankenstein or not. And Lois will have to figure out what the Frankensteins eat when she cooks them supper at the end of the next issue, after the Bride of Frankenstein arrives. I know she was on the cover of this issue but she didn't quite make it before the first part ended.

The Ranking!
+1! Come on! Frankenstein has come back! That alone is worth the cover price. But also, the editor was revealed to be a hidden monster! And guess who edits this book? Eddie Berganza! Coincidence? I think not!

Superman #9

Titano lives on Dinosaur Island? Now I'm interested!

My biggest question about a Donald Trump presidency is this: how are foreign leaders going to keep from laughing in his face, rolling their eyes, and pointing at him while looking at their assistants and saying, "Seriously? This guy?" Of course they'll probably say "Seriously? This guy?" in a different language! I mean, he'll probably get along with Theresa May. But I can't see any other foreign leaders taking him seriously! Although I don't really know any other foreign leaders being that I have the attention span and interests of a typical American. I have a vague suspicion that there must be other leaders of other countries but I can't be bothered to look into the matter. And now that Donald Trump is going to be our president, I'm too embarrassed to even Google any other leaders. As soon as I see their faces, I will simply imagine how disappointed they are in my country and I'll feel really embarrassed.

Thankfully I read comic books to help me forget about all of the terrible actions that a Republican controlled government will take to ruin the economy and social welfare of the people! Although I'm not sure a comic book about an island where dinosaurs run loose devouring anybody who can't defend themselves will be much of a help in that regard.

Superman and Superboy have discovered the home of The Losers on Dinosaur Island. Most of The Losers are dead (including Pooch as Pet Killers Tomasi and Gleason gleefully pointed out last issue). But one still lives! A one-eyed, one-legged maniac who shoots first and second and probably third and almost certainly doesn't ask questions because corpses can't talk. Although he'll have to come up with some questions this time because he's shooting first at Superman. I don't know which Loser this guy is because I don't know The Losers at all. Why would I read a comic book about losers?! I pointed out earlier that I read comic books to help me forget about my life!

The man's name is Captain Storm and he's probably going to tell a story about The Losers. If he does, it had better have Superman in it because I bought a comic book about Superman. I'll feel ripped off if the comic book is about Superman listening to a story about the actual stars of the comic book. I might even think poorly of DC Comics for about ten seconds.

Captain Storm's story doesn't take too long to tell. That's a relief! Although, to be completely transparent, I already thought the bad thoughts about DC Comics! Storm simply points out that The Loser were all killed. Although they also thought he was dead and had a grave for him already set up. So maybe they're all still alive somewhere on the island! Even if they just buried a skeleton that had been wearing Johnny Cloud's dog tags! Maybe even Pooch! Although Goldie is still dead. Assholes.

Captain Storm has a trained pterodactyl. I can already imagine Gleason and Tomasi chomping at the bit to kill it!

Captain Storm says he knows where Superman's Plot Device is. Superman needs the Plot Device to get him and Jon back to reality. In this case, reality is not a world where dinosaurs and World War II fighting men share an island. Reality is wear grown men dress up in tights, wear masks, and assume stupid monikers.

Superman discovers that the creature guarding the Plot Device is a gigantic white ape with a cybernetic eye like the one Cave Carson has. I mean, like the one the giant squid that attacked them in Issue #2 had! It probably ties in to the Watchmen, right? Creatures watching the world? It sounds like something Ozymandias would come up with.

I hope when the Watchmen do turn up (you know, after Didio and Johns can come up with an interesting and believable story about why they fucked up the DC Universe and how it is absolutely the fault of the DC readership), Rorschach is back to life. He and the Comedian were the only interesting ones and they were both killed! But the Comedian was a rapist so he can't come back to life. But what did Rorschach ever do to deserve death except stand by his ideals! Bring back Rorschach! Bring back Rorschach! Down with Trump! Down with...whoops! My chanting got out of control!

An upsetting number of pages are used for a fight with dinosaurs and monsters. I'm sure they don't upset most people because it's a comic book! What do I expect? Intellectual literature and high-minded philosophy?! Well, yeah! Didn't DC fill their quota on boring monster fights with that Monster Men story? It's possible I've outgrown comic books. It's also possible it took me twenty five years too many to come to that realization.

Superman and Jon recover the Plot Device and Superman also takes Titano's eye before the Plot Device kicks in and begins returning them to the real world. Captain Storm decides to stay behind because he knows the world has changed too much for an old soldier like him. He's much wiser than Steve Rogers! Not that Steve Rogers had a choice about joining the modern world, I guess.

After transporting back to the Fortress of Solitude, Superman discovers that the gorilla's eye and Captain Storm's wooden leg he was hanging onto have disappeared. He doesn't know where they've gone but the reader sort of gets to know! Doctor Oz(yman(hattan)dias) filched them! And he's standing in his out-of-continuity lair staring at his next creation: the New York Alien Monster Octopus Times One Million! Is he going to crash it into Earth-New-Earth so that all of the universes in the multiverse put aside their differences to face a common enemy?! Probably not. He's probably just going to give it the mind of Doomsday, strap Tim Drake to its back, and send it to Earth-New-Earth simply to cause death and destruction.

The Ranking!
0! I'm beginning to wish that this issue had been a story about The Losers! Stupid DC! Give me what I don't know I want even when I think I want the opposite of what I want and you give me what I thought I wanted! Jerks!

Superman #8

The last time Dinosaur Island appeared in a comic, Superboy and Wonder Girl had a huge fuckfight on it.

The Commentary!
• Supergirl must have given Superman permission to use her Fortress of Solitude because Superman, Superboy, and Krypto are hanging out there building a plot device. Jon saw the specifications for the plot device in a dream (which is just another plot device to get characters to the plot device that will get the characters to Dinosaur Island!) which probably means somebody radioed the designs directly into his head. Somebody who needs Superman to visit Dinosaur Island!

• The plot device works its magic and suddenly father, son, and dog are on Dinosaur Island. But at first, they think maybe it's just Crashed Battleship Island!

• It's probably too many years past Lost to get a Lost joke, right? Although if Dan Jurgens were writing this, I bet there'd be a Love Boat joke!

• Superman is swallowed by a dinosaur fish as soon as they arrive. Not that dinosaurs can be fish. I know my science and prehistoric cartoons! I was just being descriptive!

• Superman proves he's Superman by finding a way out of the fish without punching his way out of its stomach. That's Superman! He even takes into account the life of a big dumb prehistoric fish when nobody would have blamed him for turning it into sashimi. That's how he should react to every situation. Take a moment, weigh his options, and figure out a peaceful solution. Unless, of course, the fish had been full of Kryptonite. That's the only time Superman should panic! I mean, it doesn't have to be a fish full of Kryptonite to be the only time Superman should panic. It just has to be a situation that involves Kryptonite.

• Along with battleships, tanks, and Japanese fighter jets, Superman and Superboy discover some dinosaur birds! They're probably Pterosomething-or-others. I probably could have named dozens of dinosaurs when I was eight years old. Now that I'm 45, all the dinosaurs I could name have probably been tossed in the trash heap of dinosaur history.

Krypto is eaten for the second time this series! And Jon's second pet to be snatched by a big bird!

• Jon makes mention of Krypto's penchant for getting eaten. Jon doesn't seem to realize that this situation was a lot like the situation where he killed Goldie! Why doesn't anybody remember Goldie?!

• Besides dinosaurs and weapons of war, Superman and his son find a bunch of corpses of The Losers scattered about the island. They also find a message on a cave wall written to Flag warning him of something--a spirit--even larger than the dinosaurs on the island. So I guess Superman will be dealing with that next issue.

The Ranking!
0! Like most stories that take place on Dinosaur Island, it was rather tepid. It's almost as if the idea of dinosaurs is supposed to be enough to keep a reader interested. "Holy shit! Dinosaurs?! In modern times?! CRAZY!" Instead it's more like, "I didn't even give a shit about Jurassic Park."

Oh, and just so everybody knows the score, Pet Murderers Peter and Patrick make sure that everybody knows Pooch, The Loser's dog, fucking ate it too!

Superman #5

The Eradicator gives the worst happy endings.

The Commentary!
I didn't mention the sodomy going on on the cover because I've decided to repress the memory of finding it arousing.

Last issue, Superman took his family on a road trip to the moon (minus the road). He loaded them up in the camper submarine and took them to see the sights. Or is it sites? I suppose both work so get off my cases. I used the plural of case because I had two possibilities there that I didn't wanting you getting on. So, um, the first site he takes his family to sight is the American flag planted on the moon! Proof that America actually went to the moon which everybody who listens to Coast to Coast AM sorely needs (although they'll ignore anything that proves America went to the moon). Well, conspiracy radio nutjobs, check out this proof:

See? The American fla...wait a second! That's not the American flag! The stripes are all wrong! What is going on here? Why would America plant a forgery on the moon? Is it a literal clue that the moon landing was a false flag operation?! Ignore the definition of "false flag" and just believe my wordplay conspiracy!

What is the etymology of "conspiracy"? Does it mean "with piracy"? Which should mean conspiracies are all run by pirates, right?! How hard would it be to keep a lid on a conspiracy if it had to be run by pirates. The president of the United States would be all, "And here is the new head of the CIA, Mister Frank the Kidd!" Then Frank would limp up and try to shake with his left hand but misjudge the distance of the president's hand!

Everybody who read that last sentence understood I was describing a man with a peg leg and a hooked right hand who wore an eyepatch, right? If you didn't get that, maybe you should be reading easier to understand reviews like the kind they have at Comic Book Resources or Weird Science Blog. I hear they love Scott Lobdell over there! That means they have, at best, a fourth grade reading comprehension! Y'all should fit in nicely there! Arr!

I was so distracted by the US flag that I didn't notice how fucked up the Earth was! Doug Mahnke definitely failed geography. Unless that's an accurate representation of Earth. And then this might be the proper time to tell you how I did in geography! I will say this about taking geography in Junior High: I once did a fully plagiarized oral report on glaciers. I mean, why bother putting it in my own words instead of reading it directly from an encyclopedia from the fifties?! I suppose I could have stuck some great glacier jokes in my report but I hadn't honed my craft then. You may have guessed that, especially if you were thinking, "You haven't honed your craft yet!"

According to the lighting in the previous scan, half of the "dark side of the moon" should be lit up. So why not go to that part so you don't terrify your family, Clark?

I guess Superman doesn't have a choice which part of the dark side of the moon to take his family since he's taking them into Batman's secret moon base. So...um...you know. That exists now! Batman has a secret base on the moon! Alfred is going to shit when he finds out he's got another place to clean.

Superman quotes Sun Tzu because The Art of War is totally the book I expect Superman to worship. Although the quote he says, "He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight," seems like some common sense shit that he could have pointed out without having to quote somebody. People who rely on quotes are generally boring assholes. I think even without the quoting of Sun Tzu, a lot of people might agree that Superman is a boring asshole. I don't think he is and I don't want him to be! But more often than not, writers can't seem to figure him out. So he quotes Sun Tzu instead of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Thankfully, this Lois Lane is much more Lois Lane than the Lois Lane in Justice League. Superman is all, "Jon, I don't want to have to deal with you using your powers and being in the Junior Justice League!" And Lois is all, "Are you fucking kid, Clark? He needs to learn! Get him out there fighting Doomsday and yanking gigantic gravitational balls out of the Earth's core!" Meanwhile Batman is probably watching all of this on his Batcomputer on Earth (or in the Moon Base's Pantry) and thinking, "So! The little twerp has super powers, does he?! I can't wait to casually let Clark know that I know!"

The Eradicator arrives and says, "Did your precious Sun Tzu say anything about surprise entrances?!" Although that line might come back to haunt him when he's surprise sodomized by Batman in the Hellbat armor.

Superman must have read some Sun Tzu that said, "Fight stupidly, stupid!", because Superman throws a bunch of crappy punches and then gets inhaled into Eradicator's Phantom Zone gullet. Well, at least Krypto will now have company.

Eradicator begins chasing Jon around the Bat-moon-cave while Lois begins digging through Batman's personal belongings.

Oh! The cover is Lois sodomizing the Eradicator! I suddenly don't feel any shame for being aroused by it!

The way Lois looks at and handles that item in the first panel means it must be a used butt plug.

Why doesn't Lois use her super powers to save Jon? She doesn't need to don Batman's unwashed fetish armor! But she dons it anyway and precedes to kick the Eradicator's ass while quoting Sarah Palin. At least I like to believe that she's quoting Sarah Palin. While Lois and Jon keep The Eradicator backpedaling all over the Bat-Moon-Cave, Superman works out a new deal with the souls of the Kryptonians while in The Phantom Zone. Hopefully he first asked them where his dog was. And maybe did they have a cat and a horse and a monkey too?

Superman absorbs all of the souls of Krypton himself and fights his way back up Eradicator's throat. That means next issue is yet another round of fisting! I mean fist fighting!

The Review!
I suppose it's cool to see Lois Lane get inside the Hellbat armor and kick some ass. But is it cool enough to destroy everything a fan believes about the DC Universe?! Aren't I supposed to believe Lois Lane has superpowers? Why did she need the armor? Was she more worried about revealing her powers to her son than saving her son's life? And, let us face some very sober facts, Batman would never allow his Hellbat Armor to be used by another person. It would probably work like a fingerprint or eyeball reader but it would be a full body reader! He probably has to get in the suit naked and the suit reads every wrinkle of his skin to make sure it is Batman. Only after confirmation will it come online! Unless maybe Bruce put in a "The current woman I'm trying to bang can try it out which will totally seal the deal" Mode. You know what? I've convinced myself that that's why Lois can use it. The Hellbat Armor was all, "Beep beep beep. Soft tush. Perky breasts. Pleasant woman funk. Switching modes. Ready for sexy battle."

Wow. I just realized that the whole Hellbat Armor ridiculousness made me completely forget about the other ridiculousness: Batman has a base on the moon! Holy Mare Vespertilionem, Batman!

Superman Rebirth #1

I guess Preboot Superman left his underwear in another Earth.

The Review!
This issue exists as the period on New 52 Superman's death. It's a big, heavy period that is meant to finalize his death and reassure everybody that he is not going to come back in some surprise twist like last time. Don't even think New 52 Superman is coming back because he isn't! He's totally dead! Completely dead. Dead dead dead dead. Super dead. Not even Flash can ruin time by bringing him back to life dead. Well, okay, maybe that one can still happen in a few years when DC fucks up this whole surprise twist where the Watchmen installed a glory hole into the DC Universe and fucked it raw. I get that DC wants everybody to know for certain that New 52 Superman is gone and the universe is definitely changing but I don't know if this DC Press Release was really worth paying $2.99 for. Aren't they usually free?! I mean free in that I don't have to pay for them. I don't mean free in getting the release without Comic Book Resources spraying their jizzy opinions all over whatever DC says. That's a kind of free I generally avoid.

The Commentary!
Now can we learn the name of Superman and Lois's cat? I'm getting really fucking upset about the lack of cat details in this comic book!

The issue begins with Preboot Superman thinking, "'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' I live and breathe that quote with all my heart. I bet you did, too." My reaction was to scoff at first and think, "Great! You expect me to lift a finger to stop evil? Get out of here!" Then when he said, "I bet you did, too," I got super annoyed and yelled at a fictional character before I realized he's addressing Dead Superman. Speaking of stopping evil, I would actually prefer that good men do nothing because most men who believe they're good are fucking holier-than-thou assholes. I'm throwing my lot in with the evil people.

Preboot Superman is currently visiting Dead Superman's grave and he suspects that Dead Superman is actually Regaining Power While In A Krypton Healing Coma Superman. I don't think it works the same way on this Earth as it worked on the old Earth that existed back in 1992. Who needs New 52 Superman coming back to life when we've got plenty of other choices now? New 52 Superman was a dick.

Preboot Superman finds Lana Lang robbing Superman's crypt because he wanted his body...er, I mean, his pile of dust buried next to his parents in Smallville Cemetary [sic]. But Preboot Superman is all, "Hold on there, little lady! Give the man some time to return to life the way I did after Doomsday punched me to death in the most improbable death ever. Sure, he punched me a lot of times which is probably why I died. But he punched Booster Gold once too! Why didn't his head fly off?! Even with his stupid lousy forcefield? In case you didn't know, being from this different Earthand all, Doomsday was a monster who wore biker shorts. Oh, I know what you're saying. Anybody who wears biker shorts is a monster! You might be right, miss."

Apparently Preboot Superman was also visiting Superman's grave to steal his pile of dust. This comic is kind of morbid! They break into Supergirl's Fortress of Solitude and discover New 52 Superman never possessed the Kryptonian artifacts needed to bring him back to life. That's probably because he didn't have as many adventures as Preboot Superman had. Plus most of his adventures were with Toymaster and Lana Lang. He really should have gotten out more.

That wasn't meant to be as kinky as it sounds, was it?

Oh, that's basically it! Good bye!

Batman Loves Superman #32

This has "international incident" written all over it.

The Review!
See that number five on the cover of this book? Just take a black marker and cross it out. Then take your copy of Action Comics #52 and, using your black marker, replace the six with a five. Because you don't need to read this comic book. You don't want to read this comic book. The only thing it accomplished for me was making me hate Superman and Wonder Woman. They act like entitled children in their visit to China (which, I suppose, makes them no worse than most America tourists). The only thing you need to know from this story is that there is now a Chinese Superman flying around China. That's it. Nothing else in this story matters. Although looking at the cover and seeing that the entire Great Ten are on it while only seven of the Great Ten appear in the book makes me wonder about one of the worst lines in the entire book. It's when Wonder Woman first responds to the Great Ten telling the heroes to leave China. She haughtily proclaims that they can't count because there are only seven of them. Why put all ten on the cover and then just bring seven to the battle so that Wonder Woman can be a dick about it? I'm going to blame this bullshit on Eddie Berganza. He probably decided ten were too many characters to throw in the mix and then added Wonder Woman's shitty line to the script to address the missing members. Whatever is happening in this comic book, it's all horrible. Maybe Tomasi should just stick to writing Alfred, Bruce, and Damian. Working under Berganza is making him look like a shitty writer.

The Commentary!
For most of you, Superman has either already died or been miraculously saved because you've read the Superman #52. I won't be reading it for another two weeks or so because I'm so busy that I'm falling behind reading my comic books. Never mind what I've been busy doing! Curing cancer and playing video games can both be described as "being busy!" Also, in the immortal words of Rush, "If you choose to do nothing, you're still busy doing nothing." So suck it, judgmental nerds! Is this a case of protesting too much?

Okay, so Superman is dying. But he isn't concerned with finding a cure. He never read that poem about not going gentle into a perfectly reasonable night which totally proves that life is worth living or something. Although I wrote a poem called "Rage, Rage Against the Person Raging Against the Dying of the Light" which totally proves that it's better to just shut up and die and stop bothering everybody else with your problems. So, you know. I'm just as great as that Dylan Thomas guy! What else did he write anyway? Like anybody knows him for anything else! That'll teach him for writing one thing that was so much better than everything else! Or, if not better than other things he wrote, at least it was mercifully short. Nobody has time to read your stupid plays, Thomas!

It's cases like Dylan Thomas's that move me to write tons and tons of mediocre bullshit. That way nothing I write can ever outshine the rest of what I write and nobody will remember me for only the one thing! Instead they'll say things like "Grunion who?" and "Tess ate what? What the fuck are you talking about?" and "People who waste time reading comic books are probably stupid fucking assholes who never get laid." The imaginary people of the future are hurtful.

Why wasn't Bruce Wayne prescribed Dionesium years ago?!

Why doesn't Batman tell Superman about this thing called Dionesium that can cure even death? Does he not want his friend to live? I'm sure Superman can tunnel down under Gotham and find whatever's left of the stuff, right? I bet Batman is selfishly hoarding it just in case any more of his sidekicks die.

Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are currently headed into China to investigate the person who hacked the Fortress of Solitude and sent Chinese Zodiac monsters after Superman. That means they're going to ignore international borders because they don't have time to go through the proper legal channels like everybody else who wants to visit China. It must be nice living a life where you think the laws don't apply to you. Oh, you know what? It is nice! I'm one of those people! Although I think we're all really those people. If there's a law that's inconveniencing us at the moment, most of us will simply ignore it because, at the moment, it's obviously so stupid that it should never have been a law in the first place and we're modern day Henry David Thoreaus! We're taking a stand against injustice! Plus I really just needed to get across the street and am an adult and don't need a properly designated crossing to tell me when it's safe to cross! I'm a rebel! Plus I remember that thing where you look one way and then the other and then the other way before proceeding!

The Great American Trinity cross into China and are immediately brought down by some kind of force power. They're greeted by August General in Iron and the rest of the Chinese National Superhero Group, The Great Ten. Wonder Woman decides being told by another hero that she isn't allowed to cross international borders willy-nilly is the best time to point out a person's poor counting skills. It seems to me the American heroes should be apologizing profusely and explaining themselves rather than acting like they own the entire fucking world.

Christ. I'm American and now I hate Americans too! I think American tourists are worse for the United State's image than their atrocious foreign policy and imperialist attitude toward solving world problems!

Wonder Woman is from Themyscira and now lives in London so I'd understand if somebody wanted to argue that she's not American. But she's representing America by wearing the flag as a leotard and being an abrasive asshole, so I'm going to go ahead and continue to claim her as one of ours. That whole living in London to distance yourself from America isn't fooling anybody, Madonna! I mean Wonder Woman!

So apparently it's okay to beat the shit out of people enforcing their international border if they tell you that you should not be crossing illegally into their country. How dare they?! Maybe if I draw some Starros on Superman and Wonder Woman's faces in that previous scene, I'd be more inclined to buy their attitude. If Superman hadn't been so jovial in the opening scene, I might also chalk his attitude up to being desperately in a hurry because he's dying. But he doesn't really seem all that bothered by dying. I think he's just in the mood to kick some Chinese ass because he's upset about the trade disparity. America! When things don't go our way, we knock the Monopoly board on the floor and blame everybody else for ruining the game.

You never even tried to ask them anything! You just started mouthing off and acting like you owned the place, you asshole! How should they have reacted? With obsequiousness?

I guess if Tomasi wanted to write a story which made me hate Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, he's succeeded! What makes this worse is that Batman worked with August General in Iron in Justice League International. You'd think Batman would have kept that line of communication open just for these moments when he needed to be in China at a moment's notice. If Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman actually wanted to ask questions, they could have gotten in contact with August General in Iron. And since they didn't do that, I have to assume they really did just want to physically prove themselves superior to the Chinese heroes.

To prove that they're indeed friends and have come in peace, Batman puts the August General in Iron's life at risk so that Superman can save it. Everybody knows that that's the point where the opposition says something like, "You...you...you saved me life? Why?!" Then the heroes can be all, "Because we're heroes and we didn't want to fight you! But you were all, 'We're going to fight you!' So we had to be all, 'Oh yeah?! Well we're defending ourselves!' And so we had to fight!" And the opposition usually doesn't say but probably always thinks, "But that's not how it happened at all! Not at all!"

So now that the entire misunderstanding has been straightened out by the brusque, obnoxious assholes having proven that they're actually good people and not the dickfart frat jerks they first presented themselves as being, the Chinese and American heroes can discuss the situation rationally. At this point, I really don't fucking care if this Superman dies. And he may as well take Wonder Woman with him. Assholes.

No, August General in Iron, it does not. Do not allow these assholes to get away with their behavior! Do not compliment him on saving your life when he and his friends first endangered it! They could have approached politely and had this discussion instead of being insulting and aggressive.

The Great Ten escort the Big Three to Doctor Omen's lab where they discover she's created her own Chinese Superman by collecting Superman's FWASH power particulates or something. It's all quite scientific and inscrutable. Doctor Omen isn't a fan of being questioned by Americans so she frees Chinese Superman and he flies off to do whatever Chinese superheroes are taught to do. I'm not even going to speculate because I'll invariably say something insensitive or racist like how he's probably off to pee in Cokes. No way I'll be tricked into typing something like that!

The Great Ten explain that they will deal with Chinese Superman as long as he's in China and then kick the Americans out. August General in Iron does agree to remain in contact with Superman even though he never stayed in contact with Batman. I'll just assume that was Batman's fault. Although Batman isn't the type of guy to lose contacts or burn bridges. He plans for every possibility! Like the possibility that one day he'd need to enter China to deal with something and having a powerful Chinese ally like August General in Iron is something Batman wouldn't just toss out like a smeg-covered egg salad sandwich from a stranger.

Meanwhile, Impostor Superman has decided to visit Lois Lane at her apartment. Maybe Lois will get the scoop on this guy since that's what she does.

Batman Loves Superman #31

I wonder what Batman is singing here?

The Review
Even though this story is about Superman dying, it's raised the quality of this comic substantially! That's probably because Eddie Berganza is keeping his gropey mitts off of this series and letting Tomasi tell the story all himself. That's why Tomasi is writing both Superman and Batman Loves Superman right now. I don't know if he's also writing Action Comics and still on Superman Loves Wonder Woman until this story is over. Probably! It's really the way to go because whenever you have a story controlled by Group Editor Eddie Wanderinghandza and written by several writers, the quality always suffers. Because the story is always as bad as the worst writer helping out. Plus when you've got a clod like Berganza conducting, you're guaranteed cacophony.

The Commentary
My favorite thing about the Superman books now being numbered so readers know in which order to read them is that you know, one day, DC Comics is going to publish them out of order. I can't wait for that day so I can openly mock them! "Losers!" I'll say! "Do your job right! How am I supposed to read these in the correct order? Build a time machine?! Jerks! Poor business people! Lousy organizers!" Oh man, that was fun. I guess I don't have to wait for that day! I can mock them any time I want to by just pretending they fucked something up! Just like everybody else on the internet!

This issue is called "The Final Days of Superman" because the bitch is dying. He flew too close to the sun and now he's paying the price! No wait. I guess that whole Icarus analogy can't be used willy-nilly on anybody! Because if Superman flies too close to the sun, he gets stronger. Oh! You know what would make the Icarus myth better! If Daedalus was knocked out of the air by a plummeting Icarus and as he too crashes to the ground, he could have yelled, "Arg! I flew too close to the son!"

Superman has decided to go tell Batman he loves him. What better way to end your life than making Batman feel awkward and uncomfortable? Batman is currently busy fighting crime.

Or shooting a porno.

Superman hasn't actually come to hug Batman at all. He wants the use of Batman's detective skills to find Supergirl. Well, it's about time! My theory is that she finally met somebody in the universe who didn't approve of being punched in the face as a greeting and locked her up somewhere. And wherever she's locked up, it's strong enough to withstand her vagina exploding FWASH power. I don't know if Superman knows it but Supergirl once survived Chronic Kryptonite Poisoning herself! She might be able to help save him if she can remember how she got better. I can't remember. I think it had something to do with Cyborg Superman and some people called I'noxians.

Superman meets Titus and Batcow but Alfred Pennyworth the Cat smells Krypto all over him and decides to remain in the shadows. Before Superman leaves, Alfred says thank you to him and I almost lose it. It's weird because I generally don't feel like I care about most of these fictional characters. I've got a pretty thick callous of cynicism coating my brain and yet fucking Tomasi always knows how to write Alfred in just the right way to break through the armor. Maybe he catches me off-guard by writing a scene where I open the emotional gates to let the anger out because Alfred Pennyworth the Cat didn't get to meet Superman and so I write some glib excuse for why the cat didn't make the cut and then BOOM! Alfred thanks Superman and leaves it at that and I'm left thinking, "How did my anger turn to melancholy so quickly?!"

Meanwhile in Metropolis, that escaped convict is still going around thinking he's Superman. I mean, he doesn't think he's Superman when he's not all Superman'd up. But then he pushes a kid off of a roof and the kid is about to die and he transforms and suddenly he's Superman and he's thinking like Superman and he has Superman's powers and he has to save the kid. I'm sure it's nothing. Probably just a side story that will never go anywhere. Unless Tomasi writes Superman differently than Scott Lobdell did.

Superman saves a bunch of lives while Batman does the detective thing. When Superman returns to Gotham, Batman tells Superman that Kara seems to have gone to some mysterious place called National City. That must be the Washington, DC, of the DC Youniverse. For several reasons! First of all, Gotham and Metropolis are both the fictional New Yorks of the DC Youniverse even though there's still a New York City in the DC Youniverse. So National City is probably the fictional Washington, DC, of the DC Youniverse even though there's already a Washington, DC. But even more apt is that DC Comics used to be National Comics. So they're being clever! Also I don't think any political shit really goes down in National City. Maybe a few baseball games or something, but that's about it.

Before Batman can say more, they're attacked by a number of Chinese New Year Animals. I bet it's the work of the new and improved Calendar Man! This gimmick is way better than whatever his gimmick was before!

Well la dee da! Batman just knows fucking everything, doesn't he?!

The Zodiac creatures were probably sent by the evil Doctor Omen who recently hacked the Fortress of Solitude. Unless that's a racist assumption to make because she was Chinese and these are Chinese Zodiac animals. But it's not like Doctor Light has appeared in this comic book! So why would I think she was behind it. Also she's Japanese so that was racist.

Before the creatures destroy themselves, the dragon slices Superman's neck and makes him bleed. Well, now The Coming of the Supermen #3 cover makes sense! Except it was on the wrong comic book!

Instead of figuring out what the attack was about, Superman decides it's time to rush off to National City where Supergirl is currently sealed in some kind of Anti-Bum machinery. It's the worst because I can't see her bum!

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #27

From what I've heard about Ben Affleck, this cover should have him coming up behind Henry Cavill and putting his balls on his neck.

Rating: No change.

I like these special Batman Loves Superman: Dawn of Just Us covers because they come with special inserts on which you can draw your own cover! So maybe I'll draw the Ben's balls thing later. I have to schedule enough time to also masturbate while drawing it because it's definitely going to make me horny.

So at the end of Action Comics #50, Superman got his powers back. He didn't just get his powers back though! No, he was killed and returned to life just like a proper savior should be! I guess technically he was never quite dead but he had given up on living as he fell into the Fortress of Solitude. And the title of the story was "Resurrection" just in case anybody missed the whole Christ analogy. Not that there was much of one. Although I have to wonder at the decision to give a story a name which spoils the ending of the story. Comic books love doing that and then they place the title and the credits after the story so as not to decrease the impact of the ending. My thought would be to maybe name the story something else. It's like asking somebody if they've heard a joke and describing the joke with the punch line.

You know what? I don't know why I ever think anybody in the comic book industry thinks anything through completely. Why do I even bother pondering any of their decisions?

Last issue, Vandal Savage made it explicit that villains and heroes should have plans rather than relying on punching everything. So this issue begins with his son doing this:

If you really wanted to make your father proud, Tiny-head Savage, you'd be sitting at a library desk with a nice desk lamp lighting up your legal pad full of ideas to bring down Superman. Although the librarian might take umbrage with you screaming "For father!" in the library.

Wonder Woman's plan to combat this oaf is the same thing she asks of Superman during fuck sessions: "fast and furious." Great advice, Diana! I mean, in the bedroom, spot on. You say "fast and furious" and I know to pull a hamstring pounding you into the recliner from behind. But when you pull out that command in a punch-off, don't you think Superman's going to get a little confused? And I'm fairly certain it's a bit difficult to fight while concealing a boner. Especially when you're wearing Kryptonian Lycra.

The title of this story is "Slam Bang" which only has me even more confused and erect. Shouldn't Tomasi have saved the title for the last page because now the whole issue is spoiled! Well, almost spoiled. Definitely one of two things is about to happen and I'm hoping it's not a fist fight with Vandal Savage's children.

Here's Clark's reaction to Wonder Woman's advice:

Batman was right in Action Comics #50. It's a good thing you have friends, Superman, because your plans are shit.

The first nine pages of this issue are nearly all splash pages. Technically they aren't but fuck technically. This is just a big ass brawl. It's a good thing Superman got his powers back since this is the only method of conflict resolution he's capable of.

By the way, Hal Jordan is along to help. Why wasn't he here earlier to stop the comet? Vandal's whole thirty thousand year old plan would have went to shit in twenty seconds! It's possible Hal was also captured with the rest of the Justice League even if that makes no sense because he hasn't really been a part of the League for years now.

During the brawl, Vandal Savage straps on an improvised jet pack and flies off to become Super Vandal Savage by visiting his comet. I suppose that's for the battle that will take place in Superman #50. I hope Vandal has a better plan than "get super powerful and punch Superman to death" because I may have to call him a hypocrite if that happens. Or an unthinking plebe? How about a run-of-the-mill American?

Superman flies after Vandal while Vandal's kids all explode. Whoops! Maybe Vandal should have stuck around to make sure his kids survived being irradiated by the comet. But Superman will save him! I mean beat him! I mean save him! I mean...well shit. I don't know what I mean. I think there will be a lot of punching though.

I'm obsessed with the amount of punching in Superman comic books now! I mean, I've been obsessed with it for a long time. I'm constantly pointing out how Superman stories have basically become a huge physical threat attacks and punches Superman. Superman says something like "I actually felt that!" so that readers know how strong the threat is. Then Superman punches the threat into submission anyway. Afterward he waits for the next biggest physical threat to ever threaten the galaxy to attack. I guess if, taking into account all space and time, it's an infinite universe then that means there are infinite threats each stronger than the last! Superman isn't the strongest person in the universe at all! He's just got more heart! That reminds me. I hope he gave Metallo his Kryptonite heart back.

This issue ends with Superman and Vandal punching each other in space while Vandal's comet crashes down around them. So next issue? Superman punches Vandal Savage into submission! And if that plan fails, don't worry! Because he's got friends!

Action Comics #50

I got the special Ruin the Original Cover With Adverts Variant!

Action Comics #50 Rating: No change.

Twitter would be better if it didn't allow people to comment on other people's tweets. Fully 95% of people should just stop having opinions because their opinions are boring, uninteresting, and poorly thought out. Most Reply Jokes on Twitter are just people restating the original joke in an unsubtle way and thinking that they're fucking hilarious. But I guess replying to people is the entire point of Twitter anyway. Nobody really fucking cares what anybody else has to say anyway. They just want a forum to spew their narcissistic thoughts to the other narcissists who aren't listening anyway. We know this is true because anybody who follows more than around fifty people can't be paying any attention to what the people they're following are tweeting. People who follow hundreds or thousands of other people on Twitter may as well be following nobody because their Twitter feed is now just white noise from the thousands of posts scrolling through their feed every minute.

Tumblr would be better if most of the people using Tumblr didn't exist. Fully 95% of the people on Tumblr are cats willingly walking into a room full of people in rocking chairs trying to get their tails under one of the rails so they can scream and hiss at the person having a lovely day rocking. They're people desperate to have a condition in the DSM to use as armor against any kind of criticism while at the same time moaning about how the DSM has now labeled their cognitive state as a disorder. They're kids rushing toward androgyny so that they can spit in the face of anybody who honestly misgenders them with no malice intended. They're a generation who seem to believe the greatest power they can wield is crushing free speech by ridiculing those who actually understand why it's important. You guys, they literally believe the word literally makes everything literally more literal.

Facebook would be better if it just didn't exist. Do I really need to know how many of my relatives are mean-spirited racist assholes or easily hurt downers with a mental state more fragile than their collection of crystal unicorns? How many hours of inner contemplation and self-betterment are lost to shitty games with Saga or Ville in the title? A little piece of my metaphorical soul dies every time I see any "news" story on the Trending Sidebar. And what is Facebook really used for anyway? It's pretty much just Birth Announcements and Pet Obituaries.

Blogs would be better if the people running the blogs stopped writing them as if they're speaking to an audience. Because--let's face the horribly unjust facts of my life--nobody is reading anything on the internet unless it's so they can reply with their own opinions on the topic of the blog. Nobody is entertained by other people's thoughts anymore. They just want a forum to spew forth their unwanted and probably unwashed opinions. Which is why I'm going to stop offering any and all opinions on everything. Because nobody fucking gives a shit. They just look at the title of the post and scroll down to the Comments section where they can tell me what they thought of the comic in the title. One of first people who began commenting on my blog eventually became somebody that I was glad to see commenting and with whom I eventually enjoyed interacting. But when he first began commenting? I was fucking annoyed with him! He began by simply posting his own reviews of the comic books in the comments section! I'd rather have people swinging by calling me "Lead Twat" and then getting super pissed off at me for "personal attacks" when I shot back at them and called them a dum-dum! But that's part of the problem as well! People who do actually react to my "reviews" might take them personally and then personally attack me in the comments because they feel justified. So they tend to think I fired the first shot when I can hardly even remember what stupid shit I typed the day after I typed it!

None of this has anything to do with Action Comics. But then, most of what I've written in my "comic book reviews" has very little to do with the actual comic! If you want a real review, there are plenty of shit people writing dishonest reviews because they're so afraid of pissing off any of the creators they may have once met at a con and now think of as a personal friend. Here's a quote from the Weird Science blog's Telos #6 Review to show I did the least amount of research as possible to back up my point: "I hate saying all of this because Jeff King could possibly be the nicest dude in the world and if not the nicest, he's definitely in the running......... I just don't like this series." Why does that guy use so many periods? Doesn't he know there are kids in Africa who can't end their sentences without sounding too excited or unsure because of his waste?

Regarding that last paragraph, I suppose that wasn't a dishonest review. But you can see the writer's trepidation in voicing an honest opinion because he didn't want to hurt Jeff King's feelings. Look, Eric (I think that was his name)! Don't worry about hurting a creator's feelings! They received a nice paycheck to compensate them for the amount of internet shit they're going to get over every single stupid thing they write. You know why I don't mind calling Scott Lobdell the poster child for the dangers of unsafe sex? Because he's fucking swimming in X-men cash! He doesn't give a shit what I have to say because he's got the greatest shield in the world: scads and scads of money! If he really cared about criticism, he'd stop writing garbage, right?! The only writing he really fucking seems to care about is when he's endorsing his checks at the bank. And even then, I bet his signature is mostly a line. Wait! I can actually verify that! Let me see. Where is the Big Book of First Issues he unwittingly signed for me as I stood there thinking, "You write shit, mate." Oh! Here it is beside me. Let me have a look . . . yep. Mostly a line. He can't even be bothered with his own name!

All of this is to say nothing because here I am writing a blog on the internet, posting on Tumblr, linking it to Twitter, and, occasionally, sending it over to Facebook so my friends and family can think, "What the fuck is this asshole doing with his life?" Here are my shit opinions on what is primarily shit pop culture, internet! Suck it!

A lot of the worst New 52/DC You material has just been ideas cobbled from Young Justice episodes but done much worse.

It's not that Young Justice didn't take ideas from pre-existing DC Comic book stories as well. It's just that they incorporated previous DC History into a show that took the DC Universe in its own direction (you know, an interesting one). So they took the Glorious Godfrey idea of turning the masses against the heroes and they took the whole metagene Bloodlines thing and they threw them in the Young Justice slow cooker as part of the big story. But I can't help feeling that this whole House of Dawn thing is a bit too reminiscent of Young Justice: Invasion where Vandal Savage and a host of other baddies created a secret society to turn a bunch of humans into superbeings whom they could control in an effort to take over the world. The bad guys even have a similar name for the group since in the cartoon it's The Light and here it's Dawn Command. Or Savage Dawn. Or Dawn of the Dum-Dums.

Luckily for those people who haven't been writing a blog about comic books to help them remember everything that has been going on in every monthly title DC puts out, Vandal Savage recounts the events of the Superman titles across the last year. He doesn't tie them together as neatly as he should because they don't really tie together that neatly. When all the events are mentioned quickly in the space of a couple of pages though, it sounds sort of like he had a plan that made sense. The gist of it is that Superman lost his powers and Vandal Savage drained them. With the power he stole from Superman that he could have just taken directly from the sun and in bigger quantities although that story would have been boring shit, Vandal has merged the JLA Watchtower with the Fortress of Solitude with The Eye of the Storm to create a comet magnet. Now he's going to capture the comet that gave him his powers so that he can have more power than even the power he stole from Superman or could have taken directly from the sun. And he's captured the entire Justice League so nobody can stop him now!

I mean, Superman will probably stop him. But probably not in this issue. That will probably happen in Superman #50.

Just fucking use solar power already! Stop bothering with the negligible amount of energy in Lex Luthor's fat cells. He got all of that energy from the sun to begin with!

I've never understood power as the motivation for being an evil villain. Why would anybody want to bother? Vandal Savage is immortal and has the resources to live any kind of unfettered life he'd like to live. But he'd rather spend his time causing all of this drama? I guess the power of the comet is like super-heroin.

Meanwhile, Superman is now powered by Kryptonite. It's a comic book so it doesn't have to make sense. All a comic book has to do is present an idea while raising its eyebrows and going, "Hunh? Hunh? Never thought of that before, did you?!" The idea this time is "What if Superman used Kryptonite as chemotherapy?!?!?!?!?!" I had to add all of the extra punctuation because that's how I imagine the idea was presented at the yearly "What the fuck kind of stupid ass stories are we going to put Superman in this year?" corporate board meeting.

Vandal Savage shoots Superman out of the sky while Kal is using his new Kryptonite Flight Power which works differently than his Yellow Sun Flight Power.

Batman finishes the "more importantly" statement with "he always has friends" and I sprain my wrist doing a jerking off motion.

So basically Superman's plan is to have friends. Is that really a solid plan? I currently have a friend on Facebook asking her friends for help moving and apparently nobody is responding because she sent out the second message after the plea for help which is always the "shame on you all for not helping me" message. I bet that really got everybody running to the door to help out! I suppose I could have volunteered to help but my plan is not to have friends. My plan is to do everything myself and only interact with other people when I absolutely have to.

Yeah because that would have been a dick thing to say! "Hey, friends! You're my back-up plan! But know this: there's no chance you're going to be able to do anything if me and the Justice League couldn't! Pathetic B-List losers!"

Superman's plan to have friends means he has to save his friends. So that might be a bit of a flaw in his plan. It's why he had a secret identity! So his friends don't get in the way of his plans! But now Vandal Savage has to punch Superman a whole bunch of times because Vandal's plan is to distract Superman with punches until the next part of the plan takes place. The next part is when the comet is close enough to Earth to turn all of Savage's offspring into super assholes.

All of Superman's friends ask themselves, "What would Superman do?" And the answer to that is "throw his life away by relying on friends instead of making plans." So they all stick around Metropolis as the Eye of the Storm begins crashing into it. If I were one of Superman's friends, I'd ask myself, "Which one of us can stop that fucking comet since that's Vandal's main plan? Shouldn't Green Lantern be stopping it or something instead of just battling Vandal on his ship? I mean, if you stop the comet, you stop his plans. So, um, you know. Someone? Zatanna maybe? She can say "Comet be gone!" backwards, right?"

Vandal begins to show compassion for his children this issue because it mirrors Superman's feelings for his friends. But Vandal is just using them for his own ends while Superman . . . well, Superman is technically using his friends for his own ends too. Except his ends aren't selfish so it's okay to manipulate people towards his goals. I mean, not that he's manipulating them! He's, um, inspiring them! Inspiring them to be great enough to throw their lives away! If I were Jimmy Olsen, I would be inspired to call Green Lantern to stop that comet.

Vandal sends his children on a shuttle towards the comet to see if he'll survive close proximity to it. He and Superman are also on the shuttle. I mean, they're literally on the shuttle and not in it like the passengers are. Vandal shoots Superman and kills him while Vandal hops off the shuttle to land on the ground in a broken, immortal heap. I'm sure he'll be fine by Superman #50. Superman, meanwhile, falls into the Fortress of Solitude which finally recognizes him and restores him to greatness. So that's all he needed to get his powers back? Find somebody who could lift that stupid oversized key to unlock the Fortress and let him in?

Now that Superman has his powers back, he doesn't need his friends because he can just punch his way through all of his problems. And now that Vandal's children have become super children thanks to the comet, their plan is to punch their way through the problem (which is Superman). So even with all the talk of needing plans to win, it's all going to come down to a slugfest anyway. Oh comic books. Don't ever change. And by that I mean change. Fucking just change already. I'm tired of your shit.

Batman Loves Superman #27

Red Hood is a dandy shooter.

I just ragequit the Origins Magic the Gathering game on the Xbox One because fuck you, Wizards of the Coast. You completely ruined the fucking game with this expansion. When I'm defeated by a deck and you give me the option to replay the deck or play a new opponent, don't you think the new opponent should have a different fucking deck?! Apparently you don't because the artificial intelligence in your expansion only uses about 15% of the new cards. In ever fucking deck it plays against me. It's fucking boring. I guess I'll just never play your stupid nerdy game again and go play something cool. Like Bloodbowl! Seriously, the new Bloodbowl game is pretty fucking terrific. Good job, um, whoever made it! It takes me right back to the days when no female would let me get my unclothed dick near them!

So, Batman Loves Superman, right? It's such a terrible comic book!

This is how you start a proper review! I'm putting my cards right out there on the table for everybody to see. Don't think I'm one of those intellectuals who claim they're reviewing comic books in as unbiased a manner as possible to keep fans informed. No, I'm pretty biased. To be fair, it's experiential bias! I'm not just hating Batman Loves Superman because I see Greg Pak's name on the cover (although that's part of it!). It's just that when you've been kicked in the balls every time you pick up a comic book with Greg Pak's name on the cover, you start to become weary of picking up comic books with Greg Pak's name on the cover! At least most people do. Apparently I have a thing for figuratively getting kicked in the balls.

Since Superman is going through a bullshit phase right now (he goes through them every ten to fifteen years. Usually when the editor on his comic book is the smelliest piece of shit in the dog park) so it's time for a flashback! The flashback is all, "Hey guys! Remember when Superman was heroic! Remember when people loved Superman? Wouldn't you rather be reading that comic book?! Well, here's a brief glimpse of what this comic book could be but isn't because Eddie Berganza is a douchfart." Gordon is having the flashback and narrating it for the imaginary audience he and every other fucking comic book character constantly speak to. They're all weird fucking idiots. The only normal ones are Deadpool and Ambush Bug because at least they're talking to the actual audience! Gordon is just thinking in his head as if he's narrating a biopic about his boring life as a Commissioner of Gotham.

He knew Jimmy Olsen was in trouble because Jimmy Olsen is always in fucking trouble! Also super-hearing, probably.

Batman also makes an appearance in the flashback. Not Commissioner Batman! The real Batman! The one everybody misses! Well, not everybody. Some people are still pouting and writing nasty notes about The New 52 on the insides of bathroom stalls. Some people have prematurely aged into disgruntled old farts who can't stand change because boo-hoo! I miss my fucking characters I grew up with! Why can't everything always remain the same?! Cry babies.

Gordon was having the memory so he could realize that he and Superman don't trust each other. He also wanted to point out that Superman is currently a huge loser.

I hope "threated" means "promised everyone lots of candy."

Don't think I'm going to let the above scan off the hook with a simple slap on the back of the typo! I think we owe it to ourselves to have a good chuckle over Greg Pak's science! Vandal Savage stole an artificial sun to power a Nazi Super Weapon. But he needs uranium to power the sun! Ha ha! Why would a sun need a power source other than the hydrogen and helium burning within it? Uranium is star waste material, not star fuel! Fusion is different than fission! I'm not even a scientist and I know this scenario is stupid!

Unless not being a scientist means that I've completely misunderstood the scenario which means somebody else is stupid.

Yeah, but it's a small star. And it's powered by uranium. Mister...um...Grayson?

Superman happens to continue Gordon's memory because that's how thoughts work. They spread from one person to the other like herpes. Haven't you ever begun to whistle the same song as a person near you without any explanation for how it happened except for maybe because the song was playing on the radio in the car you were both in and it had just got to the part where the singer starts to whistle? Spooky!

Superman is all, "Trust! It's this thing I used to have with Batman! But I don't have it anymore with RoboBatman! And my hair looks awful! Last time I get it cut at Bishop's!"

Superman and Commissioner Batman are all, "We have to trust each...jinx! You owe me a Coke!"

Superman's plan was not to attract Vandal Savage's attention because then he'd kill them. But I guess he has a new plan because he and Batman use Vandal's teleporter to attack him on his ship, The Valkyrie.

Friends? What friends? Who said anything about friends?! The only other person I see is Commissioner Batman and they certainly aren't friends! I learned that from the flashback sequences!

Over the next few pages, I count thirteen words that end in -oom! That means a fight is taking place! It's super -oomy!

Apparently the plan was to destroy the Navigation and Engine Rooms on Vandal's ship. I don't know how they knew the teleporter went to a ship or where they got the layout of The Valkyrie to help with their sabotage but it probably had something to do with Batgirl. When Vandal -ooms them one too many times, they escape through the teleporter while leaving a grenade behind to blow it up. I suppose they could have blown up the teleporter in Siberia but then we would have missed out on all of the -ooms.

Vandal arrives to find the miners have killed Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. I guess I'll cancel my subscriptions to Grayson and Red Hood Loves Arsenal on Wednesday. Vandal's men, using technology that they somehow know how to operate even though they're thousands of years old and they probably don't even know which way to put batteries into gadgets, discover Clark and Gordon are hiding in the ice a few miles away. Time to fuel up the sun by shoving uranium into it so that they can fire the Nazi gun and kill Superman and Batman!

The real plan was to trick Vandal into sitting in the Nazi Super Weapon and firing the gun which has been rewired to the engines because that's a funny prank! Vandal goes shooting off into space where he would never harm anybody ever again and probably meet Lobo and fall in love. Except for the one flaw in the plan which everybody thought of but nobody mentioned because they didn't want to jinx it. Vandal Savage, having super strength, breaks out of the hull to escape. Instead of escaping safely though, the ship -ooms him into little bits. Theoretically! Obviously he really just flew off into a snowbank where he'll freeze until he's ready for another story arc. Unless he isn't finished with this story arc? I figure this one has about three more issues since Action Comics and Superman have that many too, right?

He's not dead because he's immortal. And he didn't teleport because Superman blew up the teleporter. He's probably in the Phantom Zone.

Commissioner Batman realizes that everybody is tired of Batman and Superman bickering so he takes off his helmet and introduces himself to Clark. Then he says loudly, "Well, I have to go now! I'm going to drop in on a surprise visit to my daughter in Gotham!" Then Batgirl shits herself because it takes a long time to swing home from Siberia.

Batman does not fight for vengeance! You take that back! That's Midnighter you're thinking of! And also Batman written by shitty writers who really wanted to write Punisher stories.

Batman Loves Superman #27 Rating: No change. This issue wasn't horrible even if I was laughing at how stupid it was! Did I just contradict myself? Oh, who the fuck cares! It was better than some others but still filled with stupid plot elements. And the art was mostly poo.

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #23

When you're sliding down the hall and your balls hit the wall! That's Corruption!

Last issue, Superman and Wonder Woman were working through some relationship problems. Superman told Wonder Woman he wanted to breakup and Wonder Woman told Superman to stop being a fucking baby and start doing his Goddamned job! Then they kidnapped Parasite to use as a marital aid. See, since they're both so invulnerable, they can't really feel intimacy between them. They usually just go through the motions with Superman saying "Do you feel anything?" and Wonder Woman lying like all women who are tired of being passive-aggressively accused of being the fault for not having an orgasm and saying, "Oh. Yes. That was definitely a job for Superman." Then Superman, who couldn't feel anything either because of that invulnerability, pretends to finish, pulls out his limp cock, rolls over, and falls asleep. That's when Wonder Woman takes out the special polearm Hephaestus made for her. But with Parasite draining their powers, they can both enjoy coitus! Or they can all enjoy coitus because wouldn't Parasite also drain sexual energy and eventually spray his purple jizz all over the rutting superheroes?

That point is called "orgasm."

Superman offers to let Parasite go if he does what Superman says. That seems a little irresponsible of Superman! He's putting a lot of people's lives in danger! I bet he's going to go back on his deal but in a way which keeps his dignity intact. Does Superman have any dignity left? Maybe it doesn't matter if after Parasite tracks down Dr. Bendy, Superman just throws him back into Belle Reve. I have a feeling Superman will just tell Amanda Waller where she can pick up her filthy pet when he's done abusing it.

Countdown to fucking!

My favorite song to fuck to is Public Enemy's "54321...Boom!" True story (implying the previous sentence was utter bullshit (and not really confirming in any meaningful way that what follows will not be bullshit)): I have both fucked and cried desperately throughout The Cure's entire album "Disintegration." Not at the same time. Probably. Although trying to sexily please your partner with the lyrics "The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight" sometimes takes an awkward turn. I wonder if anybody has yet approached The Cure to do a "Mamma Mia"-esque Broadway show to their music? Maybe call it "Let's Go To Bed" although in this current climate of fear, hate, and racism, maybe "Killing An Arab" will draw in more people? People who don't realize they're all in for a lesson to be learned, right?!

Meanwhile Angle Man and Vandal Savage speak to each other as if they're somehow equals. Just by the name "Angle Man," you can tell the guy is C-list all the way! Angle Man uses some kind of magic protractor to open up portals and to maybe even time travel. Perhaps that's how he knows Vandal Savage and why they have some kind of six hundred year old plan. I can't figure out how else they've been planning on killing Superman for six hundred years. Does this mean Clark Kent is about to travel back through time for a few years? Maybe depowered Superman will be more interesting if he's a member of the Demon Knights!

Oh! Well, that explains some of that then! I think. Sometimes I just like to scan a page and say, "Oh! I get it now!" That way people don't think I'm too stupid to understand a comic book plot.

Angle Man's real plan is to kill Vandal Savage and take over the world for himself. That's probably also Wrath and Hordr_root's plans as well! Maybe Superman can lure them all back to this secret chamber they plan their world conquering inside of and trick them into all killing each other.

Parasite leads Superman and Wonder Woman to Angle Man's underground lair. He lives in the bunker from Lost where he's keeping Firestorm imprisoned to power his Mystic Protractor. Do you think Angle Man will say something witty like how he's looked at things from every angle? Or how the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides? Did I get that right?

Christ, Angle Man! Telling them about the implants is such a C-list villain move! Why not just tell them that all of your power comes from your geometry tools!

A huge battle ensues while Angle Man watches from the safety of his monitor room saying things like "I'll 'sine' your death warrant!" and "Try to look at it from my angle, Superman!" and "Our two lives were bound to intersect at this point!" and "If two parallel lines are cut by a transversal, then alternate interior angles are congruent! Ah ha ha ha!" It's so super nerdy I almost went out and purchased a compass.

When the battle seems about won, a huge suit of power armor rises out of the pond in the middle of the room and puts itself onto Wonder Woman.

Of course Superman and Wonder Woman are going to have to fight! How else will Clark remember how much he loves and pretends to cherish Diana?!

Superman Loves Wonder Woman #23 Rating: No change. I really wish superheroes would stop falling under the control of the villains. If the villain's only real tactic is taking over a superhero's mind so that the superheroes now have to battle each other then that villain isn't really worth much as an antagonist. The villain simply becomes a tool to get superheroes to battle which is apparently what either comic book fans really want or what comic book companies think comic book fans really want. I really don't know since I know I'm sort of a comic book fan and I hate when heroes fight. But I don't know if other comic book fans love when heroes fight because I don't like interacting with other comic book fans! You're all too nerdy without the proper amount of sardonic distance from the source material with which I pretend to be filled so that the normies still accept me into their arms which have had sex more than the one imaginary time at camp. You nerds get what I'm saying, right? No offense!