Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #3 – “World Against Superman”! ACTION COMICS! ACTION, BABY! In the previous installment, Superman was held hostage at the army base like some lab rat while Lex Luthor and his team of doctors and scientists zap him with electricity and blow sarin gas in his face. Lois Lane attempts to break into the base to check up on Superman, but Superman can hold his own as it turns out! He escapes and flies away, which could’ve been done in the first six panels of the comic book. At the end, Lex Luthor speaks to some mysterious and knowledgeable anonymous contact from whom Luthor is getting help for his perverted endeavors, and there’s a goddamn tentacle space station in the sky! ACTION!

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #3 [January, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“World Against Superman”

Uh oh! If this cover art is any indication of what to expect, a lot of ugly motherfuckers and cross-eyed kids who use butter as hair product are really mad at Superman! Probably because he doesn’t get sad at his reflections in mirrors like the rest of them? I guess I’ll have to crack open this bad boy and find out!

What the heck is this now? Is this Planet Krypton? I suppose so. I’m not even going to pretend I know what anyone is talking about in this scene. Fancy-dressed socialites are saying things like, and I quote, “Didn’t Zar-La row over Jor-El over the planetary core stability findings?” Whatever, nerds! OK, I’m a science kind of guy in real life so I can tell you what’s going on here: these people are talking about the possibility of Krypton blowing up or exploding or blowing up THEN exploding. Meanwhile, baby Superman aka Kal-El is chiming in with commentary like “bda” and “zabt!” and “da!”. That last one is Russian, that I know.

“GET OUT OF KANDOR, LARA! WARN THE OTHERS! YOU MUST LEAVE NOW!” bellows some Superman-looking guy-in-charge kinda guy with a diamond-studded headband and an armor chest plate with a planet on it like he’s Chuckie from Rugrats. OK, this scene sucks. Professor Van-Da allowed alien consciousness into the network?? He also killed himself?? Well, that’s a bummer, I really liked Van-Da and- wait a minute! Who the fuck is Van-Da?? Arrgh! All the really, really hot and sexy civilians are ridiculing Jor-El’s apocalypse predictions. Lara’s teleband is feedbacking? She sees a vision of a Jor-El getting a message that the world is ending? The planet’s database has been backed up? Terminauts will preserve significant artifacts? Dwarf star lensing has commenced? Everyone starts floating away? Green lightning starts hitting people? Superman’s mother was killed, is that what’s happening?

What the FUCK are you weirdos even talking about? Professor Van-Da?? You’re just making sounds up now!

Well, I’m glad that’s over! Jesus fucking Christ that was a headache.

Clark Kent is sleeping in a shitty, tiny bed looking gross and smelly. His landlady is banging on the door while his phone rings. He puts on a smelly, shitty looking sweater and answers Jimmy’s call. As you may remember, Jimmy is Clark’s underage friend who Clark probably shouldn’t spend as much time with as he does or else people are going to start talking and the authorities will be notified. Meanwhile, Mrs. Nyxly, the landlady, is probably trying to let him know that authorities WERE notified and now they’re there at the building looking to do a little snoopy-snoop around Clark’s apartment.

The main guy in the suit is named Inspector Blake and he looks kind of like the Maître D’ from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I guess this Blake guy has a beef with Clark because he likes to constantly write about how terrible the city of Metropolis is in the Daily Planet. I imagine Clark Kent’s newspaper headlines are like “METROPOLIS SMELLS LIKE STINKY SEWAGE” or “KRYPTON WAS BETTER THAN THIS” or “I HATE METROPOLIS AND ALSO I’M SUPERMAN”. Inspector Blake makes it clear that Clark is flirting with disaster by continuing to harass Glenmorgan (he was the business fatcat that Superman dangled off a balcony in Issue #1). Blake thinks Clark Kent is some little punk from Kansas who has no business causing such a ruckus in the big city! I’m guessing Blake and Clark have some history here that I probably won’t find anything out about until I read nine million more Superman comics. This is a long-ass paragraph, I’d better start a new one.

Go back to Hogwarts, you lousy outsider freak.

Blake asks Clark his opinion on Superman. Clark is all “Uh, buh, haha, yeah right Inspector Blake, or should I say, Inspector SHIT. Superman is an old wives’ tale, sir, like holding your breath when walking by a cemetery! Or 9/11!” OK, he doesn’t say that, but what he DOES yell from the balcony when the police leave the building is “YOU THINK I’M WORKING WITH SUPERMAN? BACK TO COP SCHOOL, GUYS!”, proving once again that Clark Kent is smart as a whip! Mrs. Nyxly asks him if he’s from outer space, and Clark is taken aback.

PENIS MIGHTIER! PENIS MIGHTER! AROO AROO AROO!

The scene shifts to a mall food court where over-age Clark Kent is hanging out with his consensual “friend”, underage Jimmy Olsen. Clark is wringing his hands about the media portraying Superman as some space villain who came from space to destroy Earth with his space breath, but as Clark Kent he’s worried that Glenmorgan is diverting attention away from his corruption by spreading the Superman story. Of course, if Superman hadn’t dangled the douchebag over a building Michael Jackson-style then maybe he wouldn’t have as much to worry about. Plus, why does he care? He can just beat everyone up. Jesus. They catch a rabid Glenmorgan on TV fuming about how Superman whipped his ass and how he intends to expose the truth that Superman is an alien.

Later, Clark gets a call from his anonymous informant (probably the same anonymous informant who is helping Lex Luthor; calling it now). The informant tells him that Glenmorgan rigged the train to crash in order to kill Grundig AND start an initiative to replace the city’s bullet train system with his own line of “robot subways”. Clark thinks this news isn’t worth writing about! The informant then says “ok, how about a bunch of photos of Jeff Goldblum pooping his pants?” Ha! In your dreams! The informant actually tells him this is some good shit and that he should write about it before the whole World is Against Superman. Hey, like the title!

At some undisclosed later time, Superman saves a girl from being hit by a truck while trying to catch her cat stuck in a tree. He saves the cat too. The girl screams, and we see a raging mob suddenly appear to pelt Superman with bottles and bricks. That’s an LOL from me. This whole disgraceful event causes Clark Kent to reconsider his informant’s opinions.

Clark heads to Glenmorgan’s robot factory so that he can be a jerk reporter to the foreman on the factory floor, who gets mad. Clark learns that Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane are already there also reporting. Scenes like this really take the wind out of the sails of my “Jimmy Olsen is a minor that Clark is boning” bit. Sigh. As Lois looks like she’s about to slug Clark right in the ol’ kisser, the sound of a transmission is heard elsewhere on the floor. It’s the same message about backing up Krypton’s database that we saw at the beginning. They find an area with robots relaying this message; even the foreman’s fat face shows bafflement.

Ohh shit, the Transformers are acting up again. They’re more than meets the eye, you know.

Oh dags, I completely forgot about this whole Steel Soldier thing. Looks like Sargeant Mustache John Corben is getting outfitted in this stupid metal suit. The scientists are plugging him into the suit with some cords, saying stuff like “you may feel some discomfort, sir”, and Corben is all like “TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!” The scientists applaud Corben’s bravery, lavishing him with dick-sucking yes-man stuff like “you’re our last line of defense” and “all praise the Dear Leader”. Corben is all like “I’M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!”. He doesn’t have a mustache anymore. Once he’s plugged in and the juice goes on, he starts speaking like the Krypton computer. “I AM THE VOICE OF THE COLONY OF THE COLLECTOR OF WORLDS.” says the Corben robot (this is actually a real thing he says this time, not something I made up). Lex Luthor pops in, fashionably late as usual, to welcome Steel Soldier and lets him know that they made a deal. Steel Soldier says “THEN WHERE! IS! SUPERMAN?”

Final Thoughts

ACTION! ACTION ACTION ACTION! ACCCTTTIIIIIOOOOOOON!!!!!! ACTION!