The Curse of the Superman

[arbre_rieur]

ACTION COMICS 9 brings us a tale of parallel Earths...

Comments

[superfangirl1]

I hope it's not the same little superman from Superman/Batman #51. :(

[icon_uk]

Agreed, but let's face it, who else COULD they be meaning.

The little Superman and co were fun and light hearted and goofily adorable, so of course they became fodder for the DCnU.

[darkknightjrk]

Well, to be fair, that is kind-of the point of this evil Superman (I think he was called Superdoom somewhere)--he is a corruption of the Superman archtype who only twists and distorts and destroys all that's good and decent. Hopefully that means that this crew of Superman and Lois will team-up with our Superman and some others to whoop Superdoom's ass and fix those broken worlds.

[arbre_rieur]

Yeah, he represents the very idea of the 90s anti-hero, that specific distorted sub-class of the archetypal hero, and how the same mentality behind it insists on stamping out light-heartedness and innocent fun.

"They had 500 experts lined up, thinking in harmony to streamline the Superman brand for maximum cross-spectrum, wide platform appeal. They built a violent, troubled, faceless anti-hero..." It's all very meta.

[baihu]

Well the design isn't really that marketable to be honest. I mean, he doesn't even look human enough to identify with, looks even vaguely like a mecha or an EVA suit at best, I'm not seeing that design to be marketable.

When they said brooding hero, I definitely envisioned at least someone sleek.

[cainofdreaming]

But the Superman in that picture looks like Rocket Raccoon wearing Kal's suit. Or are my eyes just playing tricks on me again?

[his_spiffynesss]

I think that's just what's left of him.

[brooms]

omg this is adorable :3 the fluffy flying things :3

but wait, little ppl. they're NOT kids, then, it is a world filled with chibi persons? :3

[darkknightjrk]

Yep. They were introduced during Michael Green and Mike Johnson's run on Superman/Batman.

[icon_uk]

Yes, it's a very chibi world, where there's no death, no sorrow, no loss (Superman flies home to Krypton to see his folks regularly, and the Waynes recovered from their traumatic experience of being pushed over when Bruce was a lad)

[brooms]

lmao are the fluffy angry things supposed to be chibi!batman's robins?

I'M IN LOVE

but wow at chibi batman missing his nap. no time for naps in this world :(( goshdarnit.

[icon_uk]

No, chibi-Robin shows up some time later after they've returned to their own world (He's baffled by chibi-Batman trying to explain how grim the DCU was)

[big_daddy_d]

..I miss the little DC.

[darkknightjrk]

...Well, that wasn't what I was expecting at all. I think I might want to reread it again to make sure I didn't miss anything, but that was intense and interesting. I really thought this universe's Luthor was hilarious. "I'm not racist! I just hate everything ELSE about you!" :D

[espanolbot]

My word, a creator's rights dispute resulting in the villain in a Superman story? Suprising that got through, but it would have been even more likely to exist in some form over in Marvel.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah--I tend to expect a little twinge of meta from Morrison, but DAMN. :O

[atom_punk]

Hmm. Morrison's off-the-rocker-ness seems to have died down since I last read one of his stories. This issue looks like a rehash of his old ideas.

1) Looks like not!Obama Superman from Final Crisis made a reappearance. Morrison did write that as well so I guess he's got carte blanche on that end.

2) Morrison also brought back the idea that sound vibrations can be used to warp reality, again like in Final Crisis when Superman sings a note of opposing frequency to that of Darkseid to destroy him once and for all.

3) Similar idea of creating a Superman as in All-Star Superman with P.R.O.J.E.C.T. and Leo Quintum being entrusted with Superman's DNA to make a new Superman after the first one sacrifices himself to repair the sun.

Overall reaction: "Meh"

Although as an engineer i question the necessity of giving a robot teeth or what looks like a bandolier

[darkknightjrk]

Makes sense--I remember reading a story a while back where you can literally read every time Morrison's ever written Superman and make them all fit into it's own, unique continuity.

[cleome45]

Original Recipe Crisis also had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it alternate Earth where Kal and Kara were Black.

[nemryn]

Hell, even 'evil Superman from a parallel universe that kills other superheroes' goes all the way back to Animal Man.

[silicondream]

Yep, meh. This reads like Morrison wrote it in five minutes before his morning coffee. He's rehashing Hexxus from Marvel Boy too.

Nothing about the Superdoom guy makes sense. As Baihu points out upthread, why would the world's most compelling corporate mascot be a giant evil faceless robot beast with no backstory? Corporations themselves are giant and faceless and frequently evil; that's why they invent guys like Ronald McDonald for the public to interact with. Superdoom doesn't even seem very marketable within the story; every named character who encounters him reacts with fear and loathing. As a brand, what good is he?

And why is he hunting Lois and Clark and Jimmy across universes, and fighting alternate Supermen? Why is he doing anything, really? If the whole point of his existence is marketing and corporate promotion, shouldn't he just fly around his Earth 24/7 being entertaining and inspirational?

And why is Lois acting like her Earth is completely destroyed and she can never go back? It's pretty much fine. Sure, it's currently being run as a fascist dystopia, and the people there apparently eat nothing but hamburgers, but these are not insurmountable problems in a superhero comic. The lady's just hooked up with the Justice League, Superman's about to resurrect her friends from the dead and she helped invent a machine that turns thoughts into reality. You'd think she'd be a little more optimistic at this point.

Also, while I'm grousing, I wish at least one of the female Leaguers didn't have their hair relaxed. Nubia in particular.

[auggie18]

They killed adorable Superman?



...SIGH.

[arbre_rieur]

Wasn't he already dead at the end of that Superman/Batman story?

[atom_punk]

I believe so. That was a shock to the chibi!JLA cause death is unheard of in their universe. Big existential moment for them all.

But apparently he was resurrected to be cannon fodder. :(

[icon_uk]

They thought so, but when they took him back to his own world he recovered. Killing him so badly he's dead in his own world would perhaps be enough.

[jlbarnett]

or he'd wake up as soon as Superdoom left. I think I'll believe that.

[silicondream]

Yeah, given that Superman-23 is already talking about resurrecting dead guys in his lab, I don't think we're meant to expect Chibi-Supes to be permanently dead. His world can just have a Reign of the Bitty Supermen now or something.

[randyripoff]

I really enjoyed this, albeit the backup story more than the opener.

[darkknightjrk]

I like how it kinda addresses how morally ambiguious it is for this Superman to have a secret identity AND be President--especially since in that back-up he uses both personas to basically strip a country of it's nuclear capability.

[darkknightjrk]

What I find interesting about this story is that, yes, it's an obvious comparison to Siegel and Schuster, Morrison's actual opinion of it, as he says in Supergods, can see both sides of it; that while Siegel and Schuster's contributions to then-National and to pop culture and the world in general was worth way more then the check they were given, but them relishing their rights to it was more or less what allowed Superman to become a well-known symbol in the first place.

[blueprintstyles]

if morrison mentioned them odds are they'll end up some pivitol figure in a grand scheme, and chibi-superman we'll br brought back by the thought machine.

[glprime]

I GET IT!

THE SUPERMAN LOGO IS LIKE A NAZI SWASTIKA!

SUBTLETY!

[lascoden]

I have to say, I really liked this story. Especially the back-up, since it raised a few interesting question.
Few things, though: Anyone else find it odd that they did they did the same thing for the rest of League, changing from white to black, except for Batman?
Also: I half expected them to make Cyborg white, just to keep the theme up.
Also also: why no Flash on the team?

[arbre_rieur]

Probably because there's no canonical black Flash. All the Earth-23 Leaguers are pre-existing characters. Their Wonder Woman's Nubia, a black Amazon who was somehow Diana's sister or something along those lines; the Green Lantern's presumably John Stewart; and Steel, the Manhattan Guardian, Vixen, and Cyborg are already black.

[lascoden]

Huh, I did not know that. I figured they were using new characters for the slots, since Superman was new. Except for Cyborg and Vixen. I didn't notice Steel was there until just now. I guess they just used regular Bruce Wayne Batman, then.

[thanekos]

The Little Man on Earth-Superdoom has hair like an awkwardly designed helm prop, from the back. It looks less neat than it's been before.

[ravenous_raven]

Man, don't you think that the eerie green light, goatee, and widow's peak would have tipped these people off that he was The Bad Guy? Gotta know your tropes!

[benuben]

They built a troubled, violent, faceless ANTI-HERO, concealing tragic secret life, a global marketing icon."

They really had to say it out loud, did they?

[thosefew]

"He used it to articulate a code of ethics so pure and simple and good we all wept."

Unfortunately, none of us thought to bring some sort of recording device into the experiment so...*shrugs*

[endis_ni]

Not even such expensive, rare and precious technology as a biro, apparently.

[jlroberson]

This is wonderful. This is the part of Morrison that did ALL-STAR protesting. This is Grant slipping a knife into DC's back in broad daylight, and in the current DC regime, only he coulda got away with it.

[jlroberson]

PS also, I kind of like this idea building of Mxy now being partly like the Lliogor and partly like Hexus, this thing that takes and owns others' realities. It's...especially a lovely metaphor here.

[eyz]

Obama-Chan!!

[big_daddy_d]

I enjoyed this..and seriously..Black Justice League! How awesome was that?!

[gerardotejada]

Awsomesauce, that awsome