Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Birthright, Issue #11 – “Kneel Before…”! In the previous installment, a giant robot bug, claiming to be an invader from Krypton, starts terrorizing Metropolis. Lex Luthor spreads kryptonite radiation all over the city, preventing Superman from doing a damn thing about it! This makes him sad enough to quit his job over it.

But then some huge cocksucker named Van-Gar, who claims to be an invader from Krypton visiting in order to take over Metropolis and then Earth, starts broadcasting to the public that he is visiting in order to take over Metropolis. And then Earth.

So Clark Kent doesn’t quit his job over this. He becomes Superman and we’re going to see him try to fight something else unsuccessfully!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #11 [August, 2004]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Kneel Before…”

On the cover, they had to make sure Superman’s head was significantly enough below this dude’s crotch so that they wouldn’t get dinged by the Comics Code Authority. Leinil Francis Yu had to redraw it 46 times.

There’s a bunch of these Silver Surfer-looking mofos wearing Superman costumes terrorizing downtown Metropolis. They speak in their strange diamond alien language and they blast holes into buildings with laser arm cannons. One of them might be a water tower? It’s more like a water silo. They crack the sucker open and the streets start getting flooded.

One of them corners a damsel, and she looks quite distressed about it! The real Superman pops in at the last moment to save the fucking day. A regular white knight.

“You’re safe now, miss,” Superman says before safety is completely ensured. He’s just standing there talking before he acts; a bold move when every second counts.

“You, on the other hand–” Superman continues, referring to one of the Silver Surfer Supermen, taking his sweet time with respect to, you know, actually saving somebody from dying, “–you disgust me.”

Then the assailant, the guy who disgusts Superman, he gets shot in the chest with laser eyeballs. He’s down for the count. A good effort, sure, but that took way too long and there’s a hundred more! So way to go, good job.

Once again, I’m compelled to point out the top-notch artistry on Superman’s stupid monkey face.

Superman sees more descending from the sky. Kind of. He’s still all fucked-up and clouded from the kryptonite radiation, all scrambling his circuits and screwing up his internal compass and giving him heartburn and indigestion and very strong pedophiliac urges. He flies away and leaves the woman screaming for him to come back. All like “Superman, where are you going? Don’t leave me! SUPERMAN!” lol

High atop the Daily Planet building, Lois Lane is watching all the action through her binoculars. She thinks out loud about the sheer coincidence of these bastards showing up out of nowhere, with no warning, in ships that completely escaped detection, and suddenly news reports are flooding in about alien sightings that never happened and property damage that doesn’t actually exist. It stinks. Stinks bad. Stinks real bad. Smells like one of Lex Luthor’s big, ugly dumps.

Lois is all like “Superman, if you can hear me, please show up and let me help.”

Superman flumps onto the roof, looking wretched as hell. Real shameful shit. “Okay,” he grunts. Lois looks at him with a face that screams “ew”.

But then she leaps toward him and starts…feeling his chest for a bit. Superman stands there arms akimbo like “yeah, baby”. “My god,” Lois sobs, “what did they do to you?”

As I’ve hypothesized before, Superman probably wears boner-proof underwear so strong that it causes his boner to invert upon itself. That’s what’s happening right now as we speak. He huffs and puffs, pretending to be deeply affected by kryptonite radiation, but you and I both know that it’s because his inverted boner is tearing up his insides at the moment.

“This ‘invasion’ is mostly a hoax,” Superman pants, “It’s designed to create a fear and panic that Luthor can ‘save’ us from– and ‘prove’ that I’m never to be trusted.” I can’t help but imagine him doing air quotes with each applicable word like Dr. Evil.

Lois is like, what the SHIT are you talking about? I just saw you fight some real soldiers with mine own two eyes!

Subpar-man is like, nah bitch, these are men in crafty disguises masquerading as MERCENARIES pushing FALSE IMPERIALIST KRYPTONIAN AGENDA, employed and bribed by Lex Luthor TO FUND HIS SEX TRAFFICKING OPERATION. That’s about 10%. The other 90% is “an illusion cast by an energy web Luthor’s thrown over the city.” He using holograms and blanketing this city with sickly, green, magic hallucination gnomes.

Sounds plausible!

Lois is a few steps ahead, yo. She already figured out some of this junk, smartypants. ALSO, she knows Superman is being poisoned by something and she wants to know what it is. “It’s too dangerous a secret, Lois” Superman whines when asked, “I can’t– I shouldn’t–”

Welp, there goes yet another pair of those alleged “boner-proof” underpants.

But Lois knows how to melt that ol’ butter, amirite? After a little awww shucks from the cornfed Kryptonian Kansan, Superman starts opening up about the dangers of kryptonite and how it’s harmless to humans but dangerous to superhumans such as himself! “That’s what’s powering this entire operation. A chunk of rock no bigger than a football– and I can’t get within a city block of it.”

Lois is intrigued. A football-sized rock, eh? Sounds pretty…stealable, if you catch my drift. She opens her purse, revealing a nicely arrayed set of lockpicking tools. The kind she uses for breaking and entering to get real scoops. Let’s check the old newspapers. What year is this again? 2004? Ah, here was a juicy story! *ahem* Lockpicking tools she, for example, uses to catch Jude Law fucking his children’s nanny!

She asks where this rock is. “In his lab on the top floor,” Superman grins devilishly, “there’s a private elevator through an unmarked door off the north alley. It’s open.”

Nope! Never mind! Sounds too complicated to me! Can’t I just grab any rock I find off the ground instead? Come on, now.

Well, at any rate, Lois has to skedaddle ASAP. The vague sounds of diamondy language are heard by Superman from over yonder. She takes her leave. Superman grunts and groans and forces himself to do more Superman stuff now.

A group of these so-called hired thugs and mercenaries are terrorizing a crowd. One of them lifts up a baby and threatens to eat it, or something. Before they do that, though, they open fire on the crowd with some real-ass bullets.

Superman lumbers in, hoisting his heft, to barely save the day again by blocking the rounds. Problem is, this time it looks like he isn’t entirely impervious to the bullets. He’s weaving and heaving, smoldering and moldering!

Hey, who farted?! Heh heh!

“People, listen to me,” Superman wheezes, eyes all bloodshot and droopy, looking a lot like everyone’s boozy Uncle Jack at Thanksgiving before he says something incredibly racist and takes a dump on the carpet, “you’re being lied to. Tell them the truth, ‘Van-Gar’–or whatever your name is! Your men are actors working for Luthor!”

And Van-Gar, lookin’ sheepish, is all “I dunno what you’re talking about, weirdo.”

Superman starts trundling toward him in a manner that suggests he, and the rest of Metropolis, are going to try taking him on? Yeah, that’ll work great.

“I don’t know what’s brought on this sudden bout of of insubordination, soldier–” Van-Gar bellows while holding Superman in place with just one arm, “but why don’t you ask these delicate little sparrows you say will ‘fight’ us?”

Van-Gar motions toward the sorry looking lot that is the civilian people. Just a bunch of shaggy, overweight men and empty-headed children. And women with underbites.

“How ‘empty’ does this threat look?” Van-Gar asks as a very large alien tank rolls in, then he gets right up close to Superman’s tender ear and whispers these sweet nothings: “My men aren’t doing this for the money. We’re backing Luthor because he’s right. You’re the fraud, and we’re on to you.”

Van-Gar tears the spandex right off of Superman’s oily, hairy chest and throws his ass to the ground, son.

“It’s only a matter of time before you turn on anyone weaker than you. That’s how it works.”

Well, that part really burns his biscuits crispy-like. Fuck you for ever suggesting that Superman would pick on someone weaker than him! Get over here right now, weakling!

I don’t want any crying kids in my new world order!

Nope, the tank starts revving up and blasting through the crowd. The weakened kryptonite-smeared Superman tries to carry people out of the way quickly. Jimmy the Ginger-Faced Photographer pushes his way up to the action for some photographs and notices the tank blast gun pointed right at a crying kid. He screams for Superman’s attention. He gets the kid out of the way and blocks the blast with a giant ‘S’ shield he tore off the vehicle.

Jimmy calls Perry White to let him know he has another humdinger of a photo. Jimmy’s making a “look how important I am” face while doing it, too. Like “Rrrrrr, I’m gonna win a Pulitzer!”

And indeed, the photo gets uploaded and spread all over Internet Land. I’m not gonna post the photo here! You’re gonna have to pick up SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT! ISSUE #11! at your local 7-Eleven.

Lex is angry that the photo exists. “DAMN IT!” he yells, not very Christianly.

“Lexcorp’s Earth-First Security Force is fully armed, ready and eager to engage the invaders, sir,” radios in a decked-to-the-nines military man general! And his military crew. Whatsitcalled. Army. And, oh yeah, Lex is ready all right. He’s been edging himself in his chair waiting for it. But instructs the army general to hold fast in order to give Commander Van-Gar McDougle another minute for the opportunity to “break Superman’s spine”.

Van-Gar puts a little more pepper in his punches. The crowd gathers to watch Superman get his ass handed to him EVEN THOUGH he’s yelling at them all to stay back.

Is it because his voice sounds like this?: “Ehehheehheehe heehEHE deee deee deee dddeeeeeeeEEE”

Nobody listens to Superman because he’s predictable. That’s what Van-Gar says, at least. I don’t think that really answers the correct question.

But, all the same, Van-Gar blasts him a few more times.

“I’ve been waiting all day to say this, Superman: Your ‘S’ is mine,” Van-Gar cracks.

GRRROOAAN. Fucking groan, dude. Fuck off, Mark Waid. To anyone reading this, don’t forget to Google a picture of him and snicker at it. His short-sleeved plaid button-down shirts look like they reek of Hormel chili and inhaler medicine.

“Back off,” sneers Jimmy, surrounded by a throng of other sneering Metropolis citizens, “He’s with us.” Ooooh, how very intimidating. A bunch of dorks with makeshift club weapons. There’s even an old woman with saggy titties holding a spoon.

Lex Luthor is preparing the army general to advance. Lois Lane has finally made her way, in a clandestine fashion, into Luthor’s quarters…

“You’d think Luthor would have the courtesy to label his death machines,” she whispers to herself as she peruses the lab.

Eventually, she finds the pointy green shard of scary glowing rock.

“If you can hear me, I’ve got it. We’ve won,” Lois whispers.

Yeah, look out behind you, there’s a grinning bald doofus that’s about to roofie your shit.

Final Thoughts

THE THRILLING CONCLUSION IS NEXT! Who knew a 12-part limited series would have this many parts?!