Well, we've spent the morning examining World's Finest #241 (1976). And we've seen that, while a group of astronauts was in deep space, the Earth blew up!!
Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were part of the crew (don't ask--Haney!!), and they pretended to commit suicide to make the crew feel better (really). Then they showed up as Batman and Superman, and built them an entire new full size duplicate of Earth (double really!)
But, sadly, the last surviving humans were so petty, so venal, so frakking annoying, that Bats and Supes had enough, and flew off, leaving them to their fate.
And that fate? A friendly alien shows up, wanting to see if they'll share this big old empty planet of theirs. The humans' reaction?
But then, a real nasty alien shows up!
They all get back on the ship, and are such losers that they decide to abandon their new home rather than fight:
The friendly alien is having none of that!
But his fight doesn't go so well:
His sacrifice opens the astronauts' eyes, and band together to battle the cyclops. Superman and batman return to finish off the beast.
Which means, it's time for all the last-page revelations and convolutions. #1:
Huh?
What?
WTF??
You know, that's a pretty insane experiment. After two of the crew apparently kill themselves, you don't call it off? You keep going? Are you waiting for more suicides, or some murders and rapes? WTF?!?
Of course, since Dr. Travis couldn't have known Superman and Batman would be on the trip, he couldn't have known the astronauts would get a brand new planet. And so he couldn't have known he'd need an alien disguise to pretend to want to share the planet...so...oh, my head hurts.
Still, the experiment works, and we even get a Goldfinger moment:
Yeah, right. Odds are, they moment you guys get back to Earth...total dickweeds again.
Hey, wait a minute--Superman had gone to check earlier. He'd seen that Earth wasn't there anymore!! What gives?!?
WHAT??????? Anger...rising...
Hey, wait a minute again--how are they going to explain the suicides of Wayne and Kent when they get home??
"Bent the truth"?? BENT THE TRUTH??!?
Rage...growing....HANEY!!!!!
Not only that, but Supes and Bats bailed out.... and left that fake alien as the xenophobic humans' prisoner without breaking him free???? Looks like those human astronauts weren't the ONLY dickweeds in this story.
ReplyDeleteWow. That was joyfully, staggeringly, awesomely bad. I think I will go read some Bendis Avengers talking to the camera and thank my great good stars that I live in a more enlightened time. Or..or my new Action #1! What..wait...why is Superman brutalizing a guy for a confession while threatening to toss him off a building? Oh drat...what has changed...?
ReplyDeleteWait...where did the cyclops come from? Didn't Superman cobble the planet together from some asteroids???
ReplyDeleteMock--the cyclops? "That beast must've been trapped inside a chunk of the space debris Superman made this world from."
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
ReplyDelete