Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #152 – “Deadline U.S.A.”!

In the previous issue of the Superman: No Limits collection, a sultry seductress named La Encantadora uses her sultry seductress skills to sell fake kryptonite to villains and goad Superman into kicking their asses while she slinks away with their money. It was a very long issue, but I just summed it up in one sentence.

In the previous issue of Superman (Vol. 2), Lois and Clark are married. A sultry seductress named Lex Luthor sold the Daily Planet back and now everything is back to normal! This seems to be the one thread of continuity that links these stories together. It’s revealed that Lois convinced Lex to sell the newspaper back in exchange for ONE story, at any time of Lex’s choosing, to be completely disregarded! If Lex says don’t write about this story, then Lois Lane will not write about this story.

Also some douche named Mongul, or at least the son of the guy named Mongul (and he’s also named Mongul) needs Superman’s help with something. It’s unclear.

Superman (Vol. 2), Issue #152 [January, 2000]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Deadline U.S.A.”

“I’m putting you DOWN, Mongul. NOW!” shouts a very poorly-drawn Superman. He looks like he has 28 extra chromosomes. Even though in the previous issue, which was presumably ten seconds ago in the sequence of events, Mongul just wanted Superman’s help. Now, however, Superman belts him across the jaw. The sound is “BRAX”, and that’s among the worst of the many, many terrible onomatopoeias I’ve come across in my comic book travels!

Superman’s inner monologue muses about “chasing one’s tail”. To his dear old hick farmer father, that would mean running around in circles going nowhere. In the newspaper business, it means finding the end of a story– often before it has even begun.

Funnily enough, in this case the end is the beginning! Isn’t that neat??

Mongul can take this punishment. It’s child’s play for a beefy, puffy Buzz Lightyear-looking individual such as himself! I mean, Superman’s only using one power at a time! What’s up with that? You can’t multitask, you piece of shit? Not very super! You should change your name to RegularMan! Get some ice for that burn.

They fight and punch and shoot searing hot blasts out of their respective orifices. Superman considers this interaction akin to playing with matches. Once the fire starts… well, he doesn’t really finish that thought. …the fire has already started? …the fire needs to be put out? …get out of the kitchen?

Says the guy hitting things with fire with reckless abandon.

Superman keeps punching this fool, hollering like a panting lunatic about not letting another world die. Mongul gets tired of this charade and tells him to cut it out, you silly goose. Superman was about to let loose a REIGN OF BLOWS with his two fat fists, but then stops exactly two millimeters from Mongul’s shoulders.

“I… almost couldn’t stop myself,” Superman says, rather embarrassed, “I… I could have killed you. I could feel it in me. My powers surging–”
“Good.”

WHAT A TWIST! Mongul is training Superman right now in the Grand Canyon! He’s the Giles to Superman’s Buffy! “You may be ready physically, but mentally, you will stop yourself,” Mongul chides at Superman’s inability to fuck anyone up to literal death. Superman don’t play that.

I suppose the beginning of this issue doesn’t take place ten seconds after the end of the previous issue after all. Flashback to the moment that Mongul shows up outside of the Daily Planet building to ask for Superman’s help. All the slack-jawed mouthbreathers are like “wow I thought Mongul was dead” and “get ‘im Superman, hyuk”, but Superman is a benevolent beast and will not harm anyone who asks for aid! Even if they’re stupid-looking or smelly or Tucker Carlson. Sometimes they can be all three at once!

Lois doesn’t want Superman to help Mongul! That’s fucking stupid! “Hello…? His father killed like a billion people, and like the expression goes– ‘like dad, like kid’.” Thank you Lois, that was very articulate. No wonder you’re the best journalist in town.

Superman is advised to knock this guy to the moon, Ralph Kramden-style, but Superman is certainly not going to do that now. BUT, since he is concerned about the safety of all the people around them, he grabs Mongul and flies away with him in a burst of rainbow-colored light.

They have a pleasant heart-to-heart in the sky. “I never trusted your father and there’s little reason to trust you. But I saw something in your eyes,” Superman tells his enemy, leaning in for a kiss, “something…unexpected. You’re afraid of something and that’s why you need my help.”

Ha! Superman’s lucky that Mongul doesn’t POUND A GIANT CRATER IN HIS FACE with his handsome knuckles. Truth be totalled, an entity more powerful than either of them flung this bastard to Earth shortly before destroying his homeworld. Warworld. Great name.

Warworld is supposed to be a big, scary, indestructible powerhouse of planet-destroying weaponry and thousands of IHOP restaurants! And it’s GONE?? Yes! Isn’t that some bullshit?

Mongul tells him to check for himself with his telescope eyeballs. Superman says that he can’t do that with Earth’s atmosphere in the way, gunking up his super-vision. Supervision. Ha, that’s funny.

Mongul says he’s a dirty liar.

Are we talking about the kissing again?

This is getting awkward! Let’s break the tension with a little LEX LUTHOR action! He comes storming through the door onto the roof CHEST A-PUFFIN’ and HEAD A-SHININ’ to tell them to knock it off on his property! You crazy kids!

“Who is this speck?” demands Mongul disre-speck-fully!
“I am this city,” says Lex, arms akimbo, looking frumpy, flaccid dick hanging out of his open fly.

Superman is like “hold on a sec” and he flies away, leaving Mongul and Lex alone together. Mongul threatens to strangle Lex with his own poop-filled intestines if he doesn’t leave. Lex doesn’t give a shit.

Superman scours the night sky with his telescope eyeballs. He is unsuccessful.

“Do you have any idea how powerful it would have to be to throw Mongul down to Earth?” Clark asks Lois later in the privacy of their own apartment. Why would Lois know that? Who cares? American Pickers is on in five minutes.

Clark is pacing around on the ceiling like an asshole.

There are about fifteen jokes you can make out of this panel. Can you spot them all??

Some internal monologue from Lois peppers these panels. She’s trying to psychoanalyze her alien husband. This is the part where she knows that he’s going to take Mongul up on his offer to help train him. This was spoiled at the beginning of the issue, but the important part here is that Lois KNOWS him. She UNDERSTANDS him! THEY WERE MADE FOR ONE ANOTHER!

Etc.

Lois is unnerved because this must really indicate that there’s something terrifying out there in big, dark universe. Something big enough to just throw a guy to another planet! Like this: *fling*

Clark had a point with his question, surprisingly. HE has hit somebody as hard as he could. Just once. He remembers it well. It was his dad and he punched that melon head clean off his body! Ha! Take that, pops! Be a supportive and kind father, will you? Hard to do that now with a neck stump, you loser.

Oh snap, I was only joking before moving onto the next page, but the story literally involves his dad! Jon is milking a cow, just tuggin’ on those udders. A young Clark, perhaps 12-years-old, approaches and asks him to teach him how to fight. There’s a big mean bully at school and he doesn’t want to bend over and take it anymore!

Good! Now go to your room and jerk yourself with it you little scamp.

So Jon teaches him how to throw a punch, and he advises him to go for the face. Just punch him right in the kisser, son. As hard as you can! You’ll make your point, he’ll back off, and you’ll walk away.

Now, I totally expected to see Clark just cave this kid’s face in. Hitting him so hard that it pushes his broken teeth through the back of his head. But he just breaks his nose, which even a normal kid could do. So that’s disappointing. Clark looks at his own knuckles with unsettled surprise. His friend asks Clark to punch the bully again! The one who’s already down on the ground clutching his face. Kick him too while you’re at it. And then poop on him.

So yeah, that’s the story! He still feels bad about it all these years later, but hey. Daddy knows best, right? He hasn’t given his full strength behind a punch since out of fear of killing someone (although at least one person per issue deserves it).

This outpouring of vulnerability leads to Lois kissing him upside-down, which predates the iconic Spider-Man upside-down kiss by two years. Someone should sue somebody.

All right, next scene! Jimmy Freckle-Face Olsen is pulling an all-nighter at the office trying to crop his photos correctly. Sounds like a job for MSPaint! They had that in the year 2000 and it was immaculate! He tells Lois to come on over and look at something on the screen. It’s a photo of Superman and Mongul holding hands, and Superman has a wedding ring on! A wedding ring! He’s married! To a person!

Lois stares at the screen in disbelief. Why the fuck is he wearing that thing as Superman? Are you kidding? And now Jimmy Olsen is going to run with this story? Fantastic. This twerp got lucky.

I will smack your little butt ruddy, young man!

BUT, good ol’ moral Jimmy Olsen, he’s afraid that this might out Superman as having a personal connection that someone could exploit. He doesn’t want to put anyone in danger. Maybe his spouse isn’t Super! That would be bad. However, uugghh, all the other photos really stink and THIS ONE is the best one! Hmmm, perhaps he could just Photoshop the ring out of the picture, putting his career in jeopardy by tampering with photos and especially for having Photoshop installed on his work computer without IT’s permission! Maybe.

Jimmy deliberates, but he takes too long. Perry White BURSTS into the room like Angry Kramer and tells the kid that there are deadlines to consider! This ain’t the newspaper in Toad Suck, Arkansas, son! This is the real deal! Shake a leg!

He decides to edit out the ring, musing on the notion that he’s helping Superman. Good work, lad. I’m sure he really appreciates that. *jerkoff motion*

Lois does a lot more soliloquy blah blah blab blab blaaahhhb. She wants to confront Clark about the wedding ring situation, as if that was important at all. If I were Clark, I’d just chuck the thing in the trash. BYE BYE! You won’t have to worry about it anymore, Lois!

But then she’s like “sure, it’s important to help save the universe and everything, but muh marriage…”

Meanwhile, Mongul and Superman are wrestling and hugging underwater amongst the fishies and the octopussies. The struggle looks real. Aquaman HIMSELF gallivants through on his majestic seahorse. “Need any help?” he asks, looking simultaneously uninterested in actually helping and unable to help whatsoever even if he wanted to.

“I’ve got it under control, Aquaman. Mongul is helping me increase my lung capacity…” Superman blubs and sputters. Aquaman raises an eyebrow. Really? Mongul? Helping you? The mean dude over there? He frowns under his blonde pornstache. “If you say so.”

…ok…blink twice if you’re in trouble. That’s too fast, blink slower. No, too slow. Ugh, forget it.

A lightbulb goes off in Superman’s head. There is something Aquaman can do for him after all! Please, do him a favor and kindly go fuck yourself! Ha!

The next morning, Lois and Jimmy peer at the front page of their cute little newspaper. “STRANGE BEDFELLOWS” reads the headline, showing Jimmy’s photo of Superman and Mongul holding hands. Jimmy prides himself on being able to edit out the wedding ring so seamlessly that even HE doesn’t even know it was there and HE was the one who edited it out!

“OLSEN! Get in here!” screams the emotionally abusive, purple-faced boss man.
“Just a tip, Jim. Don’t bet against Perry as to whether or not he can tell,” Lois advises.

GULP! GULP!

Jimmy enters his boss’ office. He thinks he’s going to get totally reamed for tampering with the photo, but he’s not even close!

While the Daily Planet is running some stupid puff piece about Puffy Mongul and Puffy Superman hugging, the Daily Star ran a story about Superman’s wedding ring! “WHO IS MRS. SUPERMAN?” screams the very loud, ear-shattering headline.

“Explain to me how we missed the biggest story of the year?!” Perry bellows, having a heart-attack.

GULP!

Final Thoughts

HOW DO WE KNOW IT’S A MRS. SUPERMAN? Not very progressive, Superman Comics circa 2000.

What a bunch of all-over-the-place nonsense! Let’s focus on the things that matter. I still want to know if Superman wears special underwear that doesn’t tear if he gets an erection.