Hey, everybody, look who it is:
It's the Superman Family!!!
It's
Superman and
Supergirl and
Superboy (well, OK, in this particular issue it's
Superbaby, but same idea) and
Krypto and
Jimmy Olsen and
Lois Lane and hordes of
Silver Agey goodness.
And the state of the Superman Family
today?
You might want to usher any small children out of the room right now. Or those with weak stomachs. Or those who have any emotional connections with these characters.
Because--and I'm not making this up--here's the cover of next March's
Supergirl #29:
I wish I
were making this up.
Yes, that's Supergirl, as a
Red Lantern,
throwing up blood all over her opponent, while wearing a pretty butt-ugly costume.
Because
DC believes that this is the
Kara Zor-El that you want to see, to buy. The Supergirl that you deserve.
And to quote from the solicitation:
She’s done with hope, faith and acceptance. Now, all that’s left is
rage. And she’ll burn the universe down before she lets another person
tell her who she should be.
Of course. Why the hell would we want one of the iconic heroes in our cultural history to have hope or faith or acceptance? Why
wouldn't we want the
Maid Of Might to burn down the universe?
Things aren't a lot better on the cover of
Red Lanterns #29 (although there is less blood-vomiting):
Well, if she's done with hope, I guess destroying the "
S" is a logical step. And not disturbing at all.
Hey, what about
Superboy? Surely there's some lightness and joy there?
Oh.
See, this isn't
Conner/Kon-El, the clone of Superman (and other various parties). No, this is the "
new" Superboy, the time-traveling
Jon Lane Kent, son of Superman and Lois from an alternate (
?) future. Yes, that makes my head hurt, too.
I should note that this is the
second Superboy cover of 2014 to show our new Superboy standing over a pile of bloodied bodies. Because that's how we like our Superboy, apparently.
You see, this Superboy is
EVIL.
Marv Wolfman delights in the fact that he's writing a villain!! And, as our solicit says, EVIL Superboy and his crew are searching for...
a chance at changing the world into their own perverted image of a perfect world.
Because nothing goes together in my mind like "
Superboy" and "
perverted."
And Superman himself? While, in some of his books, at least, he's overcome his rocky
nu52 start, and is starting to seem like Superman should. But, even in
Action Comics and
Superman Unchained,
Greg Pak and
Scott Snyder have him primarily engaged with fighting the U.S. military, have him as somebody the government wants to stop and destroy. Because why fight super-villains when you can fight our troops?!?
I guess that when your creative leadership is convinced that villains are more interesting, more necessary, than heroes; convinced that their comics should strive to recreate the look and ethos of
Marvel and
Image in the
1990s; and convinced that none of their comics except
Teen Titans Go! will (or should) ever be read by children; I guess when you proceed from those premises, this
slow-motion ritual desecration of the Superman Family makes a certain sort of sense, maybe.
Or maybe I'm wrong, and everyone
does want to see Supergirl throwing up on someone.