Wednesday, April 19, 2023

SUPERMAN: SPACE AGE #3 - Review


 

I finally got around to finishing this wacky 3 issue drop from DC. I’m not really a Superdude guy but I was intrigued by the series, Alldred’s art is always delightful and the page count was a definite bang for the buck. To be honest, I don’t know what the point of this series was and who it was necessarily targeting. It gives off a serious retro vibe and does a lot of revisionist history with its iconic characters. I’m not sure if this is an alternate reality or if Mark Russell was just tasked with the idea of just writing his take on the Supe and JLA origin story and their attempt to stop the world from being destroyed. Maybe they got wind of the Levitz “Avengers War Across Time” retro thingy and this was their response, wouldn’t be surprised.

 


First of all, the cover looks like what the costumed characters look like in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater these days in Hollywood but without the muscles. Plus, the chick in the upper right in the fishnets is eerily accurate as to what happens on the weekends there: Ho’s just be fallin from da sky upside down n shit. Who is that, Black Canary? Looks like any random Luciferian you’d run into at Bar Sinister in Hollyweird on any given night. Look at all those rips in her fishnets, why are they there?

 

Fishnets in the 80s and 90s never had rips in them, babes would parade around them in videos sexy as all get out. Now? It’s a thing to look like you just got into a fight with a mountain lion after you fell off a balcony in the hills at a late night after party. Is that supposed to be a turn on?

 

Wow, you look like you’ve been up all night doing drugs and fending off savage animals in a forest, wanna grab a coffee?

 


I have lots of questions about this book. First, I thought that Green Lantern was killed in the last issue, so why did the singer Maxwell get cast as him? Look at this dude, that’s the ‘Sumthin’ Sumthin’ guy! Did the JLA end up in a poetry slam in Brooklyn for some reason and see Maxwell perform and hire him to croon during their ‘Thursday Threesome Nights?’

 

We also get a lot of Lois and Clark living in the Fortress of Solitude raising their Super Kid. I have a lot of questions about this whole fortress of solitude situation especially once Supe brings Lois there.

 

1.  Once you bring a babe there doesn’t it immediately annul its whole ‘Fortress of Solitude’ status? Wouldn’t it turn into something like ‘The Bang-cicle’ or the ‘The North Pole Dance?’ Unless you’ve created a whole other ice house for her. Regardless, no self respecting intelligent babe is gonna wanna live in a spot called the fortress of fucking solitude. She’s changing that shit with a quickness. It’s probably going to become ‘The Palace of Communication’ or ‘The Armory of Saying Sorry and Meaning It’.

 

2.   What’s the kitchen like and how long does it take to get groceries? I would assume there’s gonna be an ice-island in the middle of the kitchen but what else? Are you just eating raw and vegan up there cuz you obviously can’t have an oven. One thing I know is that babes want to have food up in their domicile so Lois ain’t gonna be content to just get Super Banged. Plus, she’s gonna want to completely do a makeover on the kitchen. And, groceries. Clark! We’re out of butter! Like all day every day.

 

3.     What’s the coffee situation? Oh c’mon, a New York Beat Reporter? That chick drinks coffee like it’s Guinness at a pub in Dublin. Can you even heat up water in the Fortress? Iced Coffee isn’t gonna cut it and I’m telling you right now Lois without her coffee fix in the morning has gotta be a complete and utter nightmare. Supe and his “Mmm wake up to the fresh air of the Artic” ain’t gonna cut it with a caffeine addicted New Yorker who needs to feel useful and important.

 

4.     What’s the laundry situation? Holy Moly that’s huge! You can’t just sleep on the same sheets every day especially after Super Banging on them and bickering over who sleeps in the Super Wet Spot. She’s gonna feel gross and unclean and want freshly laundered sheets like every other day. Supe and his “I’ll heat them and clean them with my eye lasers”? Yeah, another ain’t gonna cut it. It’s either spin cycles or nuthin. My goodness this Fortress is turning into the worst bachelor pad in the history of the Universe.

 

5.     Now in this comic they raise a kid in the Ice Palace of Communication. Are you kidding me? You telling me a new Mom is just going to be okay without all the accoutrements that come with raising a baby?!?! Is there Super Formula? Is there a Super Baby Monitor? Just because Supes can hear every single breath of the kid doesn’t mean that Lois still wouldn’t want to make sure everything is alright in the – I dunno, where’s the kid sleeping? Is it decorated? Is there a place to change the kid’s diapers? DIAPERS! Where they getting diapers from???? Again, this is the 80s, no Prime!

 

6.     So Daddy Supes is there all the time albeit as a algorithmic AI hologram, but still, no way Lois is just gonna be fine with Magic Daddy all up in their business 24/7. During one of their knockdown no punches pulled fights about the coffee situation Holo Daddy would probably float in and offer some sage advice which would only drive Lois crazier about there being no coffee. Seriously, Holo Daddy is getting unplugged within a week tops.

 

Yeah, I call serrrriouuuuss bullshit on the entire fortress scenario. Lois would like be down for a weekend getaway here and there but no way is she getting her homemaker vibe on Mr. Freezemeister’s vacation home.

 

There’s a whole Lex Luthor corporate takeover subplot which is neither here nor there. Basically it all comes down to something called The Anti-Monitor, who looks like a bunch of rejects from the Galaga video game, that is coming to devour the Universe of the Earth. So the fate of the world rests in the hands of these people:

 


Who's the Cat Dude??? There's a Cat Dude hero in the DC Universe? You know the Cat Dude is the guy who shows up uninvited to a Halloween Party with his cat mask and proceeds to drink himself into a stupor while grabbing the asses of all the taken women in the party before leaving. Then while everyone's upset and wondering who violated their wives/girlfriends someone pipes up 'It was a dude with a Cat Mask on, he was drinkin' and grabbin' mad ass and then just bounced'

 

I mean, can we just accept the fact that in the 60s or 70s the creators of DC got super high on weed and acid and wandered down from their comic book making offices one day and stumbled upon the Pride Parade in the West Village? Their eyes, and probably some of their crotches, bulged and they probably raced back to their offices to come up with all the costumes of the entire DC Universe. Look at them! That’s major pride vibe right there. Plus, you’ve got your token sad drunk babe who goes to gay bars to drown her sorrow over her cheating boyfriend, that’s Black Canary in the lower left corner. And! You also have your basic Drama Chick in the top hat who everybody in the cast of the Lower East Side play she’s in can’t figure out if she’s straight or not, that’s Zatanna. Zatanna, jeez, even sounds like the hottest girl in a cast who nobody even gets close to figuring out or smooching. Like, she’s either a rich dude’s girl that he’s letting have her fun slumming with the poor artist types or she’s a deviant who’s trying to play it off like she’s normal but she runs an S&M dungeon on the weeknights and sticks her heels in the earholes of Wall Street losers for oodles of cash.

 

So the world gets destroyed but Supes was able to collect the DNA of every human on the planet by offering them the cure for all the diseases on the planet by being able to diagnose and cure everything based on their DNA. Let me tell you something, I’d give my DNA to Superman okay? But under no circumstances would I give my DNA to annnnyyy of these Ancestor Family Tree Bogus DNA kits. I can’t believe people fell for this nonsense. 

 

 

Evil DNA Dude 1: Hmm, how can we collect everybody’s DNA and put it into a database so we decide how to kill any and everyone whenever we so choose.

 

Evil DNA Dude 2: Hmm, I know! Tell them if they do we’ll show them how they were related to a Cherokee Chief or  like a, I dunno, a Welsh playwright in the 1700s.

 

Evil DNA Dude 1: Yeah! Then we can just connect them with random people in rural areas that nobody ever talks to and tell them that they’re related, brilliant!

 

 

Unbelievable. You know that people have submitted DNA to the same or different companies and almost always get back different results every time? You’re not related to Sitting Bull okay? You’re still related to your creepy drunk possibly pedo uncle who runs a sportsbook out of Linden, NJ.

 

Supes then takes the shards with all the DNA of humanity and enters some alternate universe created by the Brainiac crew and creates a new Universe with an Earth in it. The real Superman dies but there's a new Earth that gets created with a new Superman and a bunch of mostly white people in head to toe white outfits that have a bunch of pets at their feet.


So now it's clear to me that the entire creative team of this book was baked out of their minds. I'm cool with that. I mean, if DC heads start doing acid like they did in the 60s and 70s and they start putting out quality shit who am I to judge? Clearly all that Marvisney is doing is strapping all of their writers and artists into a chair, peeling all of their eyelids back a la 'Clockwork Orange' and forcing them to watch 'Pink Flamingos' on repeat for weeks on end before they're allowed to commence on their work.


I don't know what to make of this whole 'DC Space Age' experience that I just had. I mean, it happened, I got it, it was goofy, I didn't feel anything but in some weird way I enjoyed it and appreciated the writing a lot, like, yeah, it was really well written. Well, now I have a good icebreaker for my next date whenever the hell that is. Literally, an icebreaker. I can ask my date what she thinks of the whole 'Fortress of Solitude' Situation and then sit back and watch her go on a rant for an hour.


Rating: 8.0

Verdict: Get it, it's, umm, it's pretty good! I think?

 

 

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