Ordinary Man

Since the San Diego Comicon is going on right now it’s a good time to mention that Superman comics have sucked for the past year. Issues #700-713 have been absolute garbage. To recap the year-spanning saga: Superman has been walking across America. Not in the manner of Forrest Gump, mind you, as Forrest Gump ran across America. Also, he coined the, “Shit happens,” catch phrase while doing it. Superman has done nothing but bum around and be racist. They even pulled an issue because it was too “controversial.” The controversy was a flashback to Superman helping a young Muslim boy use his powers for good. So in addition to being boring, it’s also racist. Superman comics would be more exciting right now if instead of fighting crime with super powers, he sat at home eating chips, because at least then a whacky neighbour could show up and it could deviate into a hit sitcom. Supergirl comics are more exciting right now. I shit you not. She’s going to college and fighting psychic genetic clones in disguise that are allegories for the Facebook creator.

Nothing that’s happened in Superman: Grounded, has made any sense up until this point. Nothing. First of all, he comes back to an anti-Kryptonian Earth after New Krypton is destroyed and get spat on by a woman who tells him he could have miraculously cured her husband’s brain tumour had he been on Earth, and met her husband at random out of the 6.8 billion people on Earth, and used his X-Ray vision on her husband by pure happenstance and given him his very unprofessional diagnosis, then used some hitherto unknown super power to remove it. It’s probably the most WTF moment ever in Superman. It’s supposed to be humanizing for him, but really, it just makes the woman look like a psycho bitch of epic proportions. Of all the people should could have blamed for a brain tumour, Superman is pretty low on that list, especially since she just established he’s been away from Earth for a whole year. Instead of hitting her so fast that the punch would be invisible, and thus Superman, standing in front of a crowd of witnesses who could testify he never even flinched, could never be found responsible for the gaping hole in her chest, he sulks away, then decides to walk across America to get back in touch with your Average Joe.

The Average Joe sucks, though. That’s why the comic is supposed to be about Superman. He’s the opposite of the Average Joe. Also, he has super hearing and super telescopic vision. If he wants to see what’s going down with America, he can take a microsecond and look. He doesn’t have to walk down every street and shake your hand. There’s millions of police officers, fire fighters, and hospital workers trained to take care of people in cases of emergency. No one needs to call Superman when their cat’s stuck in a tree.

“Here you go, Sally, but If I have to come back and rescue this cat one more time, I’m going to leave him at Chinese restaurant… in China.”

Superman exists to punch space robots in their metal faces, so the whole universe knows not to fuck with Earth. Exactly zero seconds should be spent rationalizing why Superman does what he does. He’s Superman. If you’d never heard of Superman before, you’d know what his deal was the second he showed up wearing tights and a cape and started blowing out forest fires with his damn mouth.

Yet, they’ve spent a whole year on this ridiculous plot line where he just travels around like a damn hippie. Who wants that? At one point there looked like there was going to be a secret reveal involving a subplot about a woman invading his nightmares, but that hasn’t played out after thirteen issues.

This is literally worse than any of the Superman movies. I’m not just talking about the Richard Pryor vehicle, I’m talking about Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. Plus, it feels like it’s gone on longer than Smallville, and with fewer results.

This is why DC needs the reboot, because of shit like this. Somehow the series got up it’s own ass and they forgot how to draw space monsters. Horseshit.