Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Rebirth #1!

I’m getting a little tired of the New 52, yet I don’t want to stick entirely to the past, so I’m going to jump ahead to hit a few DC Rebirth series to get those comic book juices flowing again! Whatever that means! Those juices never left!

Superman has been more miss than hit, but I hear this is ok. Before we kick off into the 2016 Superman reboot proper, here’s the one-shot that will ease us into it. Off we go.

SUPERMAN REBIRTH! DUN DUN DUUUUN DUH DUH DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUNNNN!!! What kind of wacky hijinks will this stupid, weak asshole get into today?

Superman: Rebirth, Issue #1 [August, 2016]
Written by: Peter Tomasi / Patrick Gleason
“Superman: Rebirth”

Some sort of dark, but good, version of Superman has a monologue about how he was trying to save Real Superman. He tried to help him while he was too busy saving others instead of himself. Then he died in Metropolis? “There was so much I wanted to say – so much I wanted to hear – but then you were gone… and buried here in Metropolis.

Dark But Good Superman looks at Regular Ol’ Superman’s memorial. It’s a huge, HUGE, base for an eventual statue that will likely be 40 feet tall and a hazard for airplanes.

But then Dark But Good Superman sees something… odd… “Hmm?” he says. This is how I know he sees something odd!

Meanwhile, in the underground access tunnel (of what, I don’t know), a redheaded woman with a ponytail attempts to break open a seal on the wall shaped like Superman’s insignia. The one he keeps on his chest. You know the one! The “S”! See, Rebirth hasn’t changed too much, has it?

Suddenly, she hears the sound of footsteps behind her. “Who’s there?” she gasps. It’s Superman. Not Dead Superman. “CLARK!” she yells so loudly his eardrums burst, and then runs to give him a giant hug. “You’re alive!”

This is Lana Lang, and she confused Dark But Good Superman with Regular Superman. “…I’m afraid I’m not who you think I am,” he tells her. She gives him the eyebrows of consternation. Then she jabs a finger in this imposter’s chest and gives him the Business.

Fucked up if true, sir. Beards always mean evil, you know.

“How do you know my name,” she asks him, the guy, the one who knows her name somehow.

“It’s a long story that I’m not able to talk about for a variety of… personal reasons.”

WHAT A COP OUT! I don’t like this guy at all! Very suspicious! Tremendously, even! Lana recognized him as the guy who was there. You know. There. As in, he hoisted Clark’s bulk back to Earth and “laid him down in front of them”. And then he left! Took off! Flew the fuckin’ coop! And again, it was for personal reasons. Diarrhea, mostly.

“Okay, how about answering me one simple question: What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For your Superman to come back.”

“Come back to what?”

“To life.”

How very mysterious! This guy is just a beacon of riddles. A fountain of intrigue. Lana continues her pissy hissy fit, telling this guy that Clark is dead. Dead is dead, and he’s not coming back to life. “Rawr!” she says. “Rawr!” But Not-Superman says he has faith. Like that’s going to help at all whatsoever.

Not-Superman changes the subject and points out Lana’s array of interesting devices. She responds that she’s an engineer and that she makes things to do things (Tom’s note: I’m an engineer too and I don’t know how to make or do shit). When Not-Superman asks her what she’s doing down her, Lana tells him that she’s keeping a promise. She intends to steal Clark’s corpse and bury him next to his dead-ass parents back in Kansas. Not-Superman advises her to stop what she’s doing and be patient; he’s going to come back to life and whatnot.

Oh man, Superman is going to screw up his own Rebirth, isn’t he?

How does Not-Superman know that rebirthing is hard? Because he died once, don’tcha know? Doomsday killed him! Lana says, yeah, they had to deal with Doomsday too. And then Not-Superman slaps her right across her mouth and goes “mine was worse”.

Not-Superman explains that Doomsday came out of nowhere and severely injured some Justice League members. No rhyme or reason to his appearance and his wake of death of destruction. Not-Superman got cocky, thought he could beat Doomsday with the ol’ one-two-buckle-my-shoe, but not at all. “His bony protrusions somehow tore through my skin,” he says. He actually says this, I didn’t make this up this time.

And for the first time, he was scared.

Then all of Smallville was killed, I guess. He’s talking like he’s Real Superman, but I know the harsh truth.

“To stop him, I had to be every bit as ferocious and unrelenting as I could. Doomsday wasn’t getting past me no matter what the cost. There was no holding back. I put everything I had left into one last punch.”

Pow.

And then Doomsday hit him back, and, well…

They both died?

Then a small circle of light appeared and he was Rebirthed?

Doomsday wasn’t even the bad guy! He has a boss and his boss is named fuckin’ Mongul. I remember that guy from earlier times. I read a lot of comic books now.

Mongul killed Smallville. Now it’s Metropolis time! This is why Rebirthed Not-Superman is back, baby. And Regular Superman came back, too. For real. He means it.

Lana Lang doesn’t believe one word of his cockamamie story, but he knows why he’s here. We wants to steal Clark’s skeleton bones, too. He wants to keep them somewhere safe.

Because Clark calls it his “Jerkin’-Off Hut”.

Not-Superman talks about how he intends to respect Regular Superman’s privacy and not go find his Fortress of Solitude for some reason. Unless absolutely necessary. Now it’s too late anyway, because he can’t find it anyway with following Superman. Who’s dead. Keep up.

WELL, LANA LANG KNOWS WHERE IT IS! She was there once to watch episodes of Sons of Anarchy. Not-Superman lasers the plaque on the wall, and Lana tells him that she’ll show him where it is if he takes her and Clark’s remains with her. Leverage, bitch. Upper hand, son!

They travel to the Arctic, somehow. It doesn’t show them how, they’re just automatically there. I’m guessing blimp. Not-Superman zaps something and the Fortress lets him in. It doesn’t look cozy at all. A couple of robot eyeballs float in to ask how then can help, and Not-Superman needs to find the Regeneration Matrix (lamp-shaped toaster). How convenient that they can just shoot this Regeneration Matrix laser or whatever at Clark’s rotting corpse and it will bring him back from the dead. Fantastic.

The robots can’t detect the Regeneration Matrix. “No such artifact exists within the confines of the Fortress,” they say unhelpfully. Lana Lang stares at a Kryptonian crystal and stuff happens.

Just kidding! I’m a hilarious little crystal, aren’t I??

A hologram of Superman shows up like Tupac. “If these crystals have been activated, it means I’m dead, Kara. Like we spoke about last time we were here together… you’re the last Kryptonian, our beautiful and fragile adoptive home world needs you now more than ever…”

Superman knows a lot of women, huh? Very suspicious.

“…it needs it’s Supergirl to be ready.”

Meh.

Not-Superman gets kind of choked up. “The Superman of this world is dead. And I can’t bring him back.” Well, that settles that! Let’s bring him back to Smallville and throw his decrepit bones in the fucking garbage can. I mean creek. I mean, bury him by his stinky parents.

Lana Lang grabs a shovel and intends to dig a giant hole, which would usually take hours but we don’t have that kind of time. So she digs it in maybe five minutes while Not-Superman smiles and says touching words and sniffs and burbles.

“All that tomorrow is missing…” he says importantly, “…is Superman.”

Final Thoughts

Stupid.