Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #962 – “Path of Doom (Part 6)”! In the previous installment, Wonder Woman takes Lois and Jon Kent to the Justice League’s secret outer space hideout where the can watch Superman kick Doomsday’s ass with 200 watts of Dolby sound on a 72” TV.

The robed guy who has been watching the action himself decides to wait until Superman is fighting within an inch of his life to intervene. People dressed in black show up to push Doomsday toward a gateway via powerful energies!

So Doomsday’s going to be sent to another dimension altogether and I’m going to finally be done with this sad-ass storyline. Superman sucks.

Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #962 [October, 2016]
Written by: Dan Jurgens
“Path of Doom (Part 6)”

Lois narrates. Wonder Woman took her and her son to the Watchtower in the middle of dang ol’ space in order to keep an eye on them. Lois knows what’s up: this Watchtower diversion is a diversion! There’s a lot of shit going down on Earth, man. It’s some real heinous business.

Jon Kent, though, the little scoundrel, is like “Ooooooh, wow! Ahhhhhh, eeeeee!” about the Watchtower. Lois grabs Wonder Woman’s attention and shows her the footage of guys in black helping Superman take down the Doomsday guy. “It would be unwise for anyone to presume they can control Doomsday’s power. But if someone were able to harness it…” Wonder Woman ponders. “He’d be the ultimate weapon.”

Meanwhile, the ultimate weapon goes “GHRARR!” while he gets blasted with mysterious energies. All they have to do is push him to the portal gate so they can beam him to the holding facility, where he will assuredly get all the snacks and Internet he could want. Closer… closer… ok, that’s too close… never mind, here we go, into the portal with you!

At the last second, Doomsday shoves a spiky knee right through the ninja dude’s stomach. Whoops, this isn’t working! The others scream as Doomsday pushes himself back out of the portal. Then he stomps heads and crushes skulls and is a general pain in the rumpus. “My forces are proving… insufficient,” says the robed puppet master watching the action on his many screens. He sees Lois on a screen asking Wonder Woman if she’s out of her mind that someone would want to use Doomsday as an ultimate weapon. The robed guy is like… “I’m not out of my mind :[ “

All the robed guy wants to do is determine what Superman is really capable of. That’s it. That’s all. No biggie.

Superman thinks (I know, right) hard (ha) about Phase Two of his plan. Phase One was “get the monster away from the big city” and now Phase Two will be “share a donut”. Superman blasts this guy backward over and over again, pushing him back a mile at a time. Lots of “GUH!” and “RAHHR!” and “BRAGHH!” and “GRUH!” coming from the big, manly rock dude. Then, when he reaches a forest, Superman flies away so abruptly that Jon wonders if his dad is running away.

(Again, where are these magic cameras that are shooting the action? Someone please tell me.)

He’s not running, son. He’s luring. Luring the beast!

Quiet, you.

Wonder Woman hopes that Superman can lure Doomsday single-handedly to wherever it is that he’s luring him to. She basically says nothing, is what I’m saying. Lois wonders if Wonder Woman is the best person to keep an eye on them. Probably because she’s a woman, right Lois? You misogynist.

Once Doomsday catches up with Superman, he grabs the beast and throws him in the other direction as far as he possibly can. “Drop him right where I want him,” Superman says as Doomsday falls into a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese.

Doomsday hits the side of a mountain on the other side of the world. “Perfect,” Superman thinks. “All I have to do is open the door.”

Ah, it’s his fortress, but not that fortress. Another fortress. As Lois explains it, it’s a different fortress that Clark built with his own hands. Basically, it’s a plot hole fortress.

Kelex is in the fortress waiting for his master to give him orders like “clean my floor.” That, and activate the Doomsday defense protocol. It’s merely three cannons that shoot missiles. The guy in the robe is watching this and finding it an interesting turn of events! He’s also picking his nose and eating his boogers.

Next is a full-load particle beam, which shoots Doomsday with blue-ass light and makes him go “HRK”, which was my least favorite character from The Wire. Then there are more blasts and more explosions that are of no consequence, and Doomsday just gets madder. And Superman gets more buttfrustrated.

“Need more time to get the device ready,” Superman thinks as he headbutts Doomsday at precisely 1,000,000 mph. This sends Doomsday flying into the wall with a WHUDD. “Need just a few… more… seconds…” Superman is whupping this rockface all over the room, and Lois is getting really fucking nervous. “GO! HELP HIM!” she screams at Wonder Woman, who responds with “But I don’t wanna.”

Unless he needs help getting the cum out of his balls, pipsqueak, I ain’t doin’ nothin’.

Lois begs Wonder Woman to help even though the response is a whole bunch of “I gotta keep y’all safe.” Jon finally convinces Wonder Woman with his puppy dog eyes to help his dad. Wonder Woman smiles confidently like “yes, yes, I am Wonder Woman.”

Meanwhile, Doomsday is punching the spleen out of Superman as he grunts and groans. He’s losing the battle, and he won’t be able to do the thing he wanted more time to do, whatever the hell that was. It’s very unclear. “Clark,” chirps a voice from above. “I have this.” Wonder Woman bashes a shield into Doomsday’s neck. It’s very effective! “Whatever plan you have in mind, get busy!”

OK, good! So, Superman is jiggling his joystick trying to stop the Space Invaders from—oh wait, the plan… “Step aside, Diana! I haven’t had a chance to test this, so I’m not sure it’ll work. We might not be able to put this monster down–”

Just fucking do it already, nimrod.

“–but that doesn’t mean we can’t send him where he can’t do any harm.”

Superman shines a giant searchlight on America’s Favorite Enemy. “Enjoy the Phantom Zone, Doomsday!”

Jon leaps for joy thinking that he disintegrated Doomsday, but Lois is a Phantom Zone knowitall and womansplains to her son the implications of such a zone. “Think of it as the most incredible prison in the whole universe,” she says, bringing to mind, like, capitalism. “All right! Go Dad!” Jon jubilates.

Superman and Wonder Woman fist bump. A job done well is a job well done! And so forth.

Meanwhile, Metropolis looks like trash. Upended cars, broken buildings, a bald guy who thinks he’s the next Superman. It’s like Detroit, but with a bald guy. Mortal Clark runs around like a doofus assuring civilians that everything is going to be ok. Or not ok, as the case may be. Mortal Clark is lacking in bedside manner.

Baba Booey!

Superman shows up and demands a friendly chat with Lex Luthor. “I understand you own the Daily Planet now,” he says as they both overlook the city from the top of the Daily Planet building that Superman understands Lex Luthor owns now. “Indeed,” Lex responds.

Lex asks Superman for proof that he might be a shitty murderer rapist Donald Trump kind of person. Just a swamp turd from the bowels of shit. Superman, having no proof whatsoever, makes a dumb face and everyone moves on.

“Why do you wear his symbol and cape?” Superman asks. Lex says some claptrap about the cape and shield being inspiring to people and, obviously, self-servingly, Lex wants to be associated with that level of inspiration. “Recent events make it clear that this city cannot survive when the two of us are against each other. I suppose that would make us…” The word tastes like acid cum on his tongue. “…allies.”

Superman doesn’t like that either, so he disagrees until further notice. Perhaps some contracts need to be drafted up and notarized first. He flies away while Lex is like “COME BACK THIS INSTANT SO I CAN ASK YOU QUESTIONS AND THEN YELL AT YOU.”

It’s space where Superman is flying, most notably the part of space that has that one space station where Lois and Jon are hanging out safe from Doomsday. “CLARK!” Lois screeches when he hubby shows up looking smelly in his unwashed costume. Time to head home, fam! There’s a big rotisserie chicken with our names on it waiting on the kitchen table! It’s been sitting there for four days!

Doomsday is in the Phantom Zone, which is most assuredly not the same zone that they are currently in, so that’s good news. “Can we go there?” Jon asks stupidly.

The mysterious robed figure agrees that Jon is stupid. He talks to himself about how the Phantom Zone is a great place for Doomsday to hang out and think about what he’s done. “Sound, well-conceived strategy,” the robed man says. “Though ultimately futile… since I have intercepted the projection.”

Doomsday comes out of a portal all “RRAAGHHH!”

“Finally. Doomsday is mine.”

Eek. Oh no.

Final Thoughts

WHO CARES? Who fucking cares? This was such a fucking slog to get through, holy shit. Why does Superman have to be the worst comic book character in existence.

This won’t stop me from reading Superman comics, of course. Because I’m a colossal dingus.