Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “Rocket Song” • “Baby Stepsl”! AGAIN, two stories for the price of one! In the previous installment, shit really went down. There was a battle with robots that ended with most of Metropolis disappearing into some alternate-reality alien preservation containment thing, and then I was told at the end of the story that we wouldn’t even continue with that plot until Issue #7!

So now we are apparently running in a hamster wheel for two issues, so go make yourself a snack or something.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Rocket Song”

Cover art analysis suggests that we will possibly be doing a Superman origin story at this point. At first I was going to say “uhhhhhh, why the fuck now?”, but then they did already do a flashback in Issue #3 with Krypton going kaputt and all, so it seems semi-appropriate. I guess. Harumph.

Krypton is crumbling like so much coffee cake! Superman’s parents are sad that their favorite planet of all time is facing destruction right before their very eyes. Jor-El and Lara, that’s their names, I think I knew that already. They wrap baby Superman in Jor-El’s father’s cloak, which looks like Superman’s cape. Seriously, bear with me here, I don’t know SHIT about Superman except that I really like the Superman roller coaster at Six Flags, so go to hell. Jor-El declares that they can all still get out of this alive if they escape into the Phantom Zone, which sounds like a Sonic the Hedgehog level. “This ghostly anti-universe I discovered was made a jail for Krypton’s super-criminals, but it’s our only way out.” Jor-El says in a fit of heavy-handed exposition dialogue so that dumbasses like me don’t make any more Sonic the Hedgehog jokes. As he calibrates the Phantom Zone Sega Genesis machine for teleportation, or whatever, Lara senses something weird: strange figures emerging, awful voices telebanding into her mind. You know, the usual stuff. A group of eight menacing figures talk to them through the Stargate portal thing, letting them know that they’ve been waiting for Jor-El and his family. “Do you hope to join us in this bodiless limbo where you left us to ROT?” one says. Yeesh, awkward. As the guy reaches through the portal to them (Jor-El, shocked, declares this to be impossible), the family dog bites the guy’s arm and then gets pulled into the portal, shattering it upon entry.

Something’s going haywire with the Stargate! Close the iris! The Goa’uld are fiesty!

“Oh man we’re so fucked now” Jor-El sort of tries not to think. They both go to Plan B: saving the baby instead. A tiny little ship that can only hold a tiny little baby (or an animal test subject, but they never tried that); a tiny little ship that Jor-El and Lara built together. While fucking! Ew! Tom, that’s immature! They decide to send Baby Superman alone in this ship Moses-style down some Krypton space version of the Nile River. They tell the ship to go to a planet with the following criteria: a) yellow sun, and b) weak gravity so it looks like he can fly. I see that Kryptonians have some relatable priorities here. Meanwhile, Baby Superman makes fat alien baby sounds like “kaaa” and “nna”. The ship flies away from the krumbling koffee kake Krypton! ROCKET MAN, BURNING OUT HIS FUSE UP HERE ALONE!

Surprise! The miracle of life! The stork has new methods of delivery these days.

A bunch of really stupid poetic nonsense frames the scene of Baby Superman escaping as the planet explodes. “The Blinding Gulfs of Superspace. Of Un-Time. Exquisite Calculation. The Last Son of Krypton Dreams.” None of this means A HILL OF KRYPONITE BEANS to me. The ship eventually, and by eventually I mean “like 5 panels later”, meaning it probably only took ten minutes, finds Earth. It decides to crash land in the middle of nowhere Kansas at four trillion miles per hour. In some shitty truck on the road, a couple is shivering in the cold and talking about “Bessie’s poor deformed calf” and “I lost muh baby” before they see this flaming fireball suddenly land in a field in front of them. They approach the flaming alien ship and discover no scratch whatsoever on the ship or on Baby Superman. Baby Superman says “DAB!” so the couple think he’s Russian. They scoop him up and drive away with him. At the crash site, the ship analyzes Earth and determines it to be a primitive planet of “apes with atom bombs”. “Their imbecilic machines lack voices, opinions or self-direction.” You got that right! Fuck Earth! As helicopters approach the ship, it turns on its own silent mode. I wish the ol’ ball and chain could do that! HAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAH!!!! HRWH@

We see the military attempt to test the ship by shooting their fucking guns at it a whole lot. We also see Jonathan Kent, the male individual of the hick couple, drive back to the crash site to show the military that he “reckons I found a spaceman.” It’s actually Bessie’s poor deformed calf! Puttin’ those birth defects to good use.

The timeline suddenly jumps to the future, I guess, where Adult Superman enters a room in a military facility where the ship is being kept. “Silent Mode Off. Many Greetings! He Has Returned.” declares the ship to no one in particular. The ship keeps verbally sucking Superman’s dick while Superman pets the ship and promises it that he’ll come back for it.

Beginning to think Superman’s fuckin’ the ship.

GREETINGS, STAR CHILD. YOU MUST BE PAUL STANLEY. PUT ON YOUR KISS MAKEUP, IT’S TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL ALL NIGHT. AND, TO A LESSER EXTENT, PARTY EVERY DAY.

We jump in the timeline again back to the bridge where robots and men in steel suits were fighting Superman while Lex Luthor cavorted around in an army truck. The ship is narrating something about the collector of worlds and upgrading Level 3 planets to Level 4 planets and other such hoser shenanigans. And then we jump to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, where some entities time traveled to a point before Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was able to protect itself against time travelers. Well, why didn’t you fucking think of THAT you fucking idiot, Superman? No shit, of course time travelers could take advantage of that easily. Jesus Christ.

These spiky blue lights have been biding their time for years, planning their spiky blue revenge!

So I’ve lost the thread of the story at this point. In the Fortress of Solitude Where Superman Jerks Off, off-panel humans and spiky blue lights are talking about Kryptonian sunstones and green Kryptonite, which is the flavor of Kryptonite that can harm Superman because, I don’t know, he hates lime jello. As they keep blah-blah-blahing about Synthi-K and “joining the tesseract”, they get engulfed by some purple thing. Then something happens. Then another thing happens. Then someone says “Not again! The ultimate break-in! And we couldn’t do anything to prevent it!” Then the ship narrates obliquely again. Then something happens. Then someone says something about shields being put up around events that’s even beyond the time trapper. Ugh. Then the green Kryptonite engine disappears! Ok! And now it’s in the hands of the Anti-Superman Army! Sure! Then the ship moans and wails about needing the green Kryptonite engine! Fine! And if the ship doesn’t get it, the ship is doomed and so is Earth! Groovy!

Keywords only, or Google Analytics will be confused! Leev soopa-zerOs 2 Me? What the FUCK is that? That’s garbage!

Fucking fuck this, man. It makes me wish I was reading more Alias instead; Jessica Jones never talks about “joining the tesseract” unless it’s a euphemism for boning Luke “Nic” Cage. I have a headache now and I don’t care.

“Baby Steps”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

We’re not done yet! There’s another story to cleanse the palate of the awful taste Grant Morrison unloaded into all of our mouths! Sholly Fisch is going to bring us inside the backstory of hick couple Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark that no one asked for!

They get married.

After the marriage Jonathan Kent’s like “I’m glad that you enjoyed marrying me because now we’re married.” I mean, that’s very close to what he actually says, goddamn. Before they even drive away in their “Just Married” pickup truck with the dang cans rattling behind them, they talk about having kids. It’s like they just met or something. These people seem boring.

Nice foreshadowing from the Dull Duo.

Fast forward to the couple’s well-kept little hick house. Martha peed on her 900th pregnancy test and got negative results, and she’s crying for some reason I can’t fathom! Martha begins to think that conception will be impossible at this point after trying for two years, but Jonny-Boy says “NONSENSE, POOPYPANTS” and assures her that they’ll go see a doctor.

The bowtied, cross-eyed doctor has bad news: BOTH of them are sterile! LOL! “What about them test tube babies…” Jonathan drawls, but the doc tells them they can’t fucking afford that shit and it doesn’t work most of the time anyway! LOOL! They start hormone therapy, but a year later there’s still nothing! LOOOL! Then they go to the church where they got married to ask the priest why God is punishing them! LOOOOL! He quotes a bible verse at them! That’s helpful! Lmao!

Then he tells some bible story about some old broad who had a kid at 90 years old, and it livens their spirits. The priest assures them that God has a plan for everyone yadda yadda yadda. Satisfied, they start saving up for in vitro fertilization.

Now they’re at the adoption services office pleading their case. By now Martha miscarried her very expensive test tube baby, but the agent warns them that the adoption process is very long and very expensive as well. Unphased, the couple stays optimistic and plans to start saving up again. As they discuss this in the truck, Jonathan proposes selling the farm to get the money. “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID YOU DUMB HILLBILLY” Martha kind of says to him, to which he responds “yeah” with a big smile on his face.

Unbeknownst to them, Baby Superman is floating near the Earth’s atmosphere.

HERE I COME TO RUIN YOUR LIFE! YEE-HAW!

Final Thoughts

I think Jonathan and Martha are both dumb and they should’ve given up a long time ago! I think Superman is dumb for crashing-landing on Earth in the first place, there must be trillions of better planets that shitty ol’ Earth! Other than that I have no fucking goddamn idea what the hell is going on and I’m looking forward to trying to keep track of all these characters named things like “Vzxxyx” and “Mtlvtl”.