Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “Superman’s Doomsday Decision” / “Meanwhile…”

* Part 7 of 8 of the Superman and the Men of Steel storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “Superman’s Doomsday Decision” • “Meanwhile…”! Yet another two-story issue, but I’m TOLD (or else) that we’re returning to the events of the main story. In the previous two installments (Issue #5 was the better of the two, Issue #6 was a dreadful abortion), we got some backstory about Superman’s sole journey from his destroyed home planet Krypton and his crash-landing on Earth. We also got a bit of backstory on Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark, Superman’s adoptive parents, and their history of infertility. There was also this whole fucking story about Superman’s ship getting its Kryptonite engine stolen and the Legion of Superheroes time travelling to help get it back that really ruined my enjoyment of life and reading and having eyeballs and I hope to never encounter such an atrocity again.

The real story, the one that is now continuing from Issue #4, involves some sort of Krypton virus thing that infiltrated Earth and corrupted a bunch of robots. There was a battle with robots that ended with most of Metropolis disappearing into some alternate-reality alien preservation containment thing. Superman is outside of this alien preservation containment thing, and Lois Lane and Lux Luthor are not, and Sam Lane wants Superman to help rescue these people (ESPECIALLY Lois Lane, being his daughter and all, not necessarily Lex Luthor, but whatever I guess, if you must).

And here’s the rest of that story.

Action Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7 [May, 2012]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Superman’s Doomsday Decision”

♫ City in a Bottle, yeah ♫♫ I’m sending out an S.O.S ♫♫ I’m sending out an S.O.S… ♫

The issue starts on the bridge, hopefully where we last left off on that particular part of the story, but this is Grant Morrison’s House of Whims and Chaotic Storytelling, who the fuck actually knows? Superman says he can see the alien spaceship that bottled up the city with his zoom vision, which Sam Lane snorts at and asks him to at least take some guns. “Guns are for sissies, General Lane” responds Superman, which gets him cancelled quicker than a *slur* on a *slur*! Sam Lane is still skeptical of Superman’s abilities and KINDLY REMINDS HIM that he can only go 600 mph anyway, and Dr. Irons estimates a needed velocity of 25,000 mph to do whatever the hell it is that he needs to do. Superman’s all “Challenge Accepted!” and starts galloping away.

As he runs at full-speed toward a make-shift launch ramp fashioned out of a flatbed dump truck, his shoes are hella falling apart, but I guess that doesn’t matter much otherwise to show the audience that he ran really, really fast. He successfully runs 42 times faster than he ever has in his life and makes it into space. He’s outfitted with a dang oxygen mask even though the rest of his body is completely exposed, which would render the mask completely pointless. But hey, I’m not the one writing this shitty comic book.

He gets absolutely fucking electrocuted on his way to the robot octopus ship, but he otherwise makes it there uneventfully. Once he’s there the robots immediately attempt to subdue and bottle him up, but Superman shoots his eyeball lasers at them. Other robots continue their battle cries of “SECURE.”, “PRESERVE.” and “COMPLETE THE COLLECTION.” while Superman looks for clues as to the whereabouts of the missing city. He wanders into a room full of giant jars with entire cities sealed and kept fresh, not a trace of botulism. That’s some nice canning.

He peers into one that houses a familiar city. “This is the place from my dream.” he says, brow furrowed like the amazing genius he appears to be and constantly proves time and time again. He has a brief glimmer of a memory about his life as a Krypton baby.

Kevin Spacey maintains his snark in even the most dire of situations. Now try it after getting #MeToo’d.

Meanwhile, in the Metropolis pickle jar, Lois Lane shakes her accusing finger at Lex Luthor. “I should have known you’d be involved in this, you bald bitch!” she should have said. Luthor remains calm and makes a snarky comment about how all the New Troy residents ended up on the streets of New Troy at the same time during a crisis. I don’t remember hearing about New Troy before but I’m sure it was name dropped 500 times over the last few issues and I was too busy drooling catatonically. One of the army soldiers that was with Luthor says “Hey, it’s just like Under the Dome or the Simpsons Movie”, so it’s nice to see that Stephen King exists in this universe. Luther tries to assess the situation, noting that he recognized the phrase “dwarf star lensing” as only being used by some smarty man named Professor Raymond Palmer during testing related to…uh…shrinkage. Luthor surmises that they have been shrunkaged. While Lane borrows Luthor’s binoculars, bowlcut Jimmy Olsen tries to point out the robot spiders that suddenly appear to be advancing on the hapless, bottled-up gang of sad-sacks. Panic ensues.

A group runs to the Glenmorgan hotel where Glen “Morgan” Glenmorgan himself is having a drink at the bar, wondering what the FUCK all the ruckus is about. Meanwhile, I don’t even care about that, I learn in this scene that his name is ALEXANDER Luthor! Are you kidding me? AHHHHAHAHA, JESUS! I never thought about that before. Luthor pulls out a phone, declaring that he has “the alien’s cellphone number on ringback”, whatever the hell that means in 2011, and Lois gets indignant and suspicious again about Luthor’s involvement in this whole dang mess.

Damnit, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter! I will double-bullshit you right back!

While Lex Luthor talks to some alien or something, Glenmorgan has a conversation with the bartender. Glenmorgan recognizes him. The bartender agrees that he should indeed recognize him. They start talking about silk ties, whatever, I don’t have time for this! Luthor argues with the alien that they had a deal: his survival in exchange for Superman. The alien argues that the deal has been honored. A robot spider breaks into the hotel; the army men shoot it with bullets from their bullet-shooting guns. Just outside the window the crew sees a giant motherfucking Superman guy. It’s Superman. Superman is peering into the bottle holding Metropolis or New Troy or Gotham City or Riverdale or who gives a shit.

Superman loudly demands to know who these alien entities are. They explain to him that they are colony of the Collector of Worlds are known as different names on different worlds: Yod-Colu -> C.O.M.P.U.T.O., Noma -> Pneumenoid, Bryak -> Mind2, Krypton -> Brainiac 1.0, Earth -> The Internet. Wuzza wuzza WHAAA?! They shove Superman into the side of the Metropolis/New Troy bottle, shaking the bejesus out of it. Superman asks what they want from him, and they simply say that the collection is incomplete without him. And, apparently, when these internet aliens tell him that he was born on Krypton, Superman is flabbergasted. I guess he doesn’t know this yet? Even I know this and I don’t know nuthin’! Keep up, smartypants.

The aliens refer to Superman as a “Level 8 Cuckoo raised on alien soil by Level 3 primitives”, which I think gives Earthlings too much credit. As an experiment of nature vs. nurture, the aliens decide to cut off life support for both the Kandor bottle and the Metropolis bottle, and instruct Superman to decide which one he’s more loyal to and wants to save. Kind of funny, you know, considering that all these aliens want to do is preserve these communities and now they’re playing some passive-aggressive game with Superman with them instead. Seems dumb. But hey, as I said before, I’m not the one writing this shitty comic book.

Superman gets all desperately high and mighty, refusing to choose. The aliens dangle the pros and cons in his face. If he saves the Kryptonian city, maybe someday he can restore the city, mingle among his people, and no longer be alone. If he saves the Earth city, ehhhhhh, I guess the people that are scared of him can continue being scared of him, making shitty weapons that don’t work to try to kill him all the time!

Stay tuned for more Feral Superman after these messages.

Since all the yokels in the Metropolis bottle can hear this conversation, they start manipulating this Level 8 Cuckoo by chanting his name over and over again. Personally, I’d smash that Earth bottle right then and there, but Superman is pretty stupid like a Level 1 Bog Beast and starts to feel slightly bad for all of them. Then he spots his beloved ship in the army truck in the bottle. “Okay. I made my choice.” Superman declares. The bottled-up Metropolis shitheads start getting mad thinking that Superman’s choosing Krypton-Bottle, but then Superman starts stripping and tells the aliens that bringing him onto their ship was akin to swallowing poison to see how it tastes. He’s still mad that these aliens were endangering lives to prove a point, so I’m guessing Superman’s going to start Hulking out or something. He takes the indestructible Superman suit that the aliens were holding onto, but I don’t remember that happening! I’ll take this issue’s word for it!

Luthor is still yelling into his phone. The alien informs him that both Krypton and Earth are doomed and their respective bottle cities are slated for permanent microstasis. Superman announces that he will be fighting for the honor of both worlds, and both cities have to go back to where they came from if he wins! The Level 2 Slugface is informed that the worlds are fucking gone, idiot. Well, Krypton is. Earth is not really fucking gone yet, but it’s getting there. Any second now. Yep…yeah…

Hold on, it’s happening…

Wait for it…

OK, in the next issue I guess.

“Meanwhile…”
Written by: Sholly Fisch

Ha, “Meanwhile”. Even Sholly Fisch is like “this is taking too goddamn long, it’s my turn again”.

Right away I’m thankful that Fisch explains to me what New Troy is. The heart of Metropolis! The center of business! The center of entertainment! Home to millions of people. MILLIONS! I’m new at comics, Grant Morrison, you gotta spoon-feed it to me instead of, you know, throwing characters at me named things like “Vxrpt” and “Kpl” while telling stories out of order.

This story is recapping the sudden disappearance of New Troy and Superman launching himself into space. While Superman is fucking around in space, there’s still stuff going down on Earth, and DR. JOHN HENRY IRONS takes this opportunity to start horning in on the superhero action! STEEL, baby. The DC Comics version of Iron Man, a literal ripoff who first appeared 30 years after Iron Man first appeared. Sad!

But, at this time, Steel doesn’t actually have a superhero name yet. He tells a guy on the bridge to call him “John”.

“There’s just one problem with suspension bridges: they start to fall apart when there’s nothing to suspend them.” he narrates, smartly.

As he’s avoiding falling debris trying to hold the bridge up — helmetless — he says he needs a helmet.

I promise I won’t drop it from thirty feet off the ground! Heh heh. Whoops! Uh.

When people approach the destroyed bridge trying to get into New Troy to see their families, that reminds “John” that he wants to call his family. He borrows someone’s phone and calls his niece. He spends a minute profoundly confusing her over the phone and then says “gotta go”.

As water starts flooding the hole left by the emptiness of New Troy’s disappearance, a ferry is caught up in the rushing waters. “John” uses the power of physics to push the ferry and redirect its course out of the way of the hole. “Who says you don’t need physics in the real world?” he says, like an asshole.

He realizes that there’s too much to do and being a superhero is hard. “Is this how Superman feels?” asks the guy who has been a self-labelled superhero for 15 minutes.

He sees the people of Metropolis pitching in to help each other out, which buoys his spirits. One guy is making a “what the fuck are you looking at?” face at him.

He concludes that it doesn’t take one hero. It takes millions!

I’m fucking puking right now.