Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #961 – “Path of Doom (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Wonder Woman shows up to help fight Doomsday and she can’t do it either! So Lois and Jon Kent are urged to flee the country or state or county or planet or whatever, just do something!

That’s really it. They’ll be fighting Doomsday for another two issues and there’s nothing that any of us can do to stop it.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #961 [October, 2016]
Written by: Dan Jurgens
“Path of Doom (Part 5)”

“Metropolis. My city. Wounded. Hurt. Bleeding. Because of… DOOMSDAY.”

Final Thoughts (lol)

Lex Luthor flies down in his knockoff Superman get-up and yells at the public to listen to him, which will most assuredly not work at all. He tells the civilians to get back and get away and Doomsday was dangerous and the city got ravaged and please go somewhere else.

“CLEAR OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” Luthor says dramatically. He frowns at a wall and muses over Superman and Wonder Woman following Doomsday out of the city and leaving a big, fat mess for Lex Luthor to clean up all by his lonesome. He picks up a steel beam and props it against a leaning building. That’s a stupid idea for sure, but I’m no smarty-pants like Lex Luthor. Even broken-armed, useless Clark Kent approaches to say it’s a dumb idea. Lex tells him to cork it.

After “supporting” the leaning building, pieces of another building start crashing down on the dumb little turd people below. A blue and red streak picks up a woman and her child and flies them to safety. The blue and red streak is never actually seen in the form of a person, but the child calls her Superwoman. I’ll have to take the child’s word for it.

The mysterious robed figure watches the action on his many CSI television screens with masturbatory glee. “Curious. A Lex Luthor Superman. A human Clark Kent. And now the emergence of a super-powered Lois Lane. More players to the game.”

Yeah, the Game of Butts. Stay in your hole and don’t come out.

Clark spots a craft that may have been used to transport Doomsday. “It crashed after he jumped from it,” Clark says wisely. Luthor doesn’t recognize the technology. “I’ve worked with nearly every alloy known to man, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He fondles the craft.

Two of Metropolis’ greatest minds at work!

Meanwhile, upstate, Doomsday is ravaging a bunch of trees, a farmhouse, a pinecone, and an abandoned gas station. Wonder Woman sticks a sword straight into Doomsday’s shoulder and he doesn’t even bat an eye! Then he kicks Wonder Woman halfway across town.

Superman is extra punchy because he’s fighting to protect his family. “I won’t let you hurt them!” he screams, falling flat on his face. Lois is like “YEAH, TEAR HIS ASS UP!” and Jon is like “Uh, mom, why are we hanging out here where the Big Bad guy is fighting the Big Dad guy?”

Superman picks Doomsday up and throws him. He taunts the beast with facts like “we’re not in the city anymore” and “do your worst” and “there are no civilians around to terrorize” and “you aren’t even wearing pants!”

Doomsday grabs Superman’s head and slams him to the ground with enough force to tear Australia in half. The mysterious robed figure gets up from his chair and declares that “it is time”. “Prepare the gate,” he says to no one.

Remember Wonder Woman’s sword? I barely do! Doomsday rips it out of his shoulder and hurtles it toward Jon. Sword point right to the eyeball! That is, it would have been if Wonder Woman didn’t fuck everything up by blocking it at the last minute,

Too bad. Shish kebab sounded good tonight.

Wonder Woman calls Doomsday “formidable”, probably because she doesn’t have anything more creative to say, and then calls herself “formidable”, probably because she REALLY doesn’t have anything more creative to say. Then she lassos Doomsday up like… uh… a hog on wheels! Or something.

Superman tells Wonder Woman to catch her breath while he THOKs Doomsday in the face. Wonder Woman is gasping and wheezing on the ground like a hog on stilts. While Superman flails like a genuine dingus, Doomsday takes advantage of the situation by wrapping some of that lasso rope around Superman’s fat neck. Lois and Jon go “oh no, oh dear”.

In fact, Jon gets SO “oh no, oh dear” that his eyes light up a fiery red. “YOU LEAVE MY DAD ALONE!” he yells, shooting red lightning at the Day of Dooms man. He gets awash in some flamey-looking energy and growls in rage! His new target is the little 9-year-old shithead, which Superman finds quite upsetting. “GET AWAY FROM MY SON!” he yells, punching Doomsday into Algeria.

It’s good to see a father and son care about each other so much that they both use their superpowers against some rock monster thing. Reminds me of my own youth.

While Doomsday takes his time returning from the moon or Venus, Superman helps Wonder Woman up. She tells him that the whole Justice League needs to show up now to give this bad guy a lickin’ he’ll never forget. Superman says that shit is weak, and he needs to spend that time getting Lois and Jon to safety instead. Will you do the honors, Diana? *puts hand on her shoulder* Will you marry my wife and adopt my son?

Lois is like “Clark, you dumb goose, you’re just going to fight Doomsday alone when it didn’t work at all before?” and Superman is like “No doy.” So they kiss one last time forever and Superman gets down to a knee to talk to his little buckaroo. “I won’t lie, Jon. Beating Doomsday will be tough. But I’ll be fine.”

GREAT TALK, DAD. AND WITH TEARS IN HIS EYES, Superman flies away to get his butt pummeled into pancakes.

There’s a Denny’s on W. 81st Avenue. No one will ever find us there in a million years!

“The gate is ready,” the mysterious robed-figure’s mysterious sidekick says. “Awaiting your orders.”

“Begin.”

Superman finds Doomsday in some wasteland trying to hoist himself out of a CostCo-sized hole in the ground. Superman knows how to beat Doomsday now, heh heh, he was just playin’ before. “Lesson One: Get him away from people. Lesson Two: Don’t just go toe-to-toe with him. Have a plan. Make him do what I want. Force him to make mistakes. Change the playing field. Neutralize any advantage he has.”

How are you going to do that, buddy? By stroking his schlong? How about a real plan? Like getting him in a crowd and going toe-to-toe with him! Sorry, I wasn’t listening.

Wonder Woman had taken Lois and Jon to outer space for some reason. The Justice League Watchtower, which is in space. Doomsday can’t go into space, so the only threat is instantaneous vacuum. You’ll be just fine, Jonny Boy.

“Is there some way to see what’s happening with Clark?” Lois asks. Wonder Woman hesitates, then activates the 24-Hour Superman Channel which will show whatever Superman is doing on the monitor at any time. That’s some 1984 Big Brother shit, man. That’s not cool.

Doomsday is kicking Mr. Plan’s ass so handily that he thinks he’s going to die again at the hands of this unstoppable force. And then, suddenly, this unstoppable force gets stopped by some sort of force!

Face it, Superman. You can’t even stop a… uh… stopwatch! Yeah!

These beams of light appear out of nowhere and render the Doomsday Guy offenseless. That’s a word I just invented! Superman looks around to see who’s doing all the fancy bad-guy-stopping, and it’s a bunch of people dressed in black that he has never seen before. The group of them keeps yelling about turning up the power and pushing him toward the gate.

“Whatever this is–” Superman thinks, “–there’s something bigger at play.”

No doy.

Final Thoughts

Man, I don’t care about any of this? Where’s the part where Doomsday pounds Li’l Jon Kent into a pasty pulp? I’d rather read that than whatever shit this is.