Author: Clark Kent, though my friends call me “Super”
Mood: Incredulous (Note: Not “incredible”, which for me is more of a state of being than a mood.)
Listening to: Mo Money, Mo Problems, by Notorious B.I.G.
Hey guys,
I gotta tell you about something that happened to me today, because people can be unbelievable sometimes, and I just gotta vent for a second.
As many of you know, I’ve been taking some time off from Metropolis the past few weeks. I’ve been walking around the country, helping regular people with regular problems. It’s like Teach for America, but without all the eggheads. No one ever saved the planet by teaching Darkseid into submission.
Obviously I’m not walking across the entire country. The Supe isn’t Forrest Gump, and there are a lot of long, empty roads in the Midwest. As far as I’m concerned, every state is a fly-over state, but some states really deserve the title, and their names rhyme with Shmindiana and Fest Dirginia.
Anywho, walking the earth has been great. It’s given me a chance to be among the people, and remind you norms that in some ways, I’m just like you. Not in any of the important ways, of course, because I’m not Normalman. But every time someone asks me for an autograph, I joke that I left my pen in my other cape. You guys are suckers for the “Superheroes - they’re just like us” bit. (Thanks for the idea, US Weekly.)
The only people my little vacay might not be good for is the citizens of Metropolis, but whatever - the tough love will be good for them in the long run. I warned them that I wouldn’t always be around to catch every runaway train, and it’s about time the MTA made room in the budget for “brakes.”
So yeah, I’ve been going around, solving normal problems for normal people. There are some dudes bullying you? The Supe’s got your back. Need your appendix removed? Dr. Supe won’t charge you a co-pay. Need help with your taxes? Call the Atom. The Supe don’t do numbers.
Everything was going great... until today. First I met this cute chick who told me about a guy who had been stalking her. I wish I hadn’t been giving her an X-ray vision once over when she mentioned the stalking part, but it’s not like she knew what I was doing, and whatever - I could have been checking her for a concealed weapon or something. I found the guy she was talking about, and I told him to knock it off. Naturally, he listened to me. I can be very persuasive to people when I’m holding them upside-down, fifty feet in the air, and I’ve got the high school debate club trophies to prove it.
Suddenly, Batman’s standing next to me. I still don’t know how Bruce and all his kids do that, though I’ve gotten a lot better over the years at keeping a straight face and telling him that I heard him coming.
He asked me how we were going to play “good cop, bad cop” any more if I kept behaving the way I was. Oooh... good one. That’s super-sarcasm, in case you didn’t get it. (Don’t feel bad - even my subtext can move at nearly the speed of light.) So I was like, “We can play Bad Cop, Psycho Cop - guess which one are.” Boom, bitch. That’s right - there are two ways the Supe can burn you: heat vision AND repartee.
Besides, all I was doing was threatening to drop the guy. Now all of a sudden THAT’S “bad cop”??? Back when Bruce was Batman, that kind of stunt wasn’t “bad cop”, it was “hello.” What the hell does good cop do- give suspects a grilled cheese sandwich and a blowjob???
Then Dick told me to stop my walking tour. He thinks I’m doing this out of some kind of escapist urge to forget how New Krypton went all, “second verse; same as the first” when it comes to blowing up and killing my entire species. He even had the nerve to say that I’m having an emotional breakdown. Is that not the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? It’s like he forgot who he was talking to. The Supe. SuperMAN. I mean... an emotional breakdown? For that to even be possible you’d need some kind of, like, emotional Kryptonite or something.
Was the New Krytpon thing a bummer? Sure. Have I been drinking a bit more than usual lately? Maybe a little, but what - the Supe can’t relax? I’m fine. Better than fine, even. I mean, I wish there were some word to describe how much better than normal I am... OH WAIT. THERE IS. AND IT’S SUPER. If I drink two handles of Stoli every night before bed, it’s not because I’m trying to numb myself - it’s because I have a super-tolerance. Duh.
Plus, even if I was trying to get away for a little bit, it’d be understandable. Lois has been on my case a lot, lately. She wants to know why I’m spending so much time away from home; first on New Krypton, and now with me walking around the country. The way she talks about it, you’d think I was on some kind of intergalactic pussy safari. I’m working, okay? This is what I do. She knew what she was getting into when she married me. Don’t hate the hero - hate the morons who keep falling out of skyscrapers. Speaking of which, would it kill people to show a little gratitude once in a while? For someone who can hear honeybees copulating, I sure don’t hear the words “thank you” very often.
For instance: after the Batman thing, I flew to this small town outside of Cleveland, where some meteorites landed yesterday. They may have come from New Krypton, so I wanted to check it out and make sure people weren’t in danger. I was chatting it up with this lady-cop (after checking her for concealed weapons) when this drunk dude comes up, talks some trash, then punches me. No rhyme or reason to it - just punches me.
Most people would come away from that experience questioning their recent choices in life while shopping for velcro shoes, but somehow this guy knocked me on my ass. (Only because I wasn’t ready.) He had powers just like mine. They only lasted for about an hour or so, but in that time, we messed up the town quite a bit.
And somehow this is my fault.
Seriously, everyone is blaming me, even though the guy punched me first. And even though I made sure no one was injured in the fight, and I’m seeing to it that everything gets repaired, the townspeople are going on the news and saying that this is my fault, because none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been here in the first place.
What do I have to do for you people? It’s not enough that I’ve saved the planet twenty or thirty times over? You’d all be dead if it wasn’t for me. Dead. That, or slaving away in an Apokolips fire pit, or shrunken in one of Brainiac’s bottle cities, or any one of a hundred different horrible fates that I prevented. What more does it take? I leave my wife for days and weeks at a time. I’m willing to put my marriage in jeopardy for you, not to mention my life. But now I’m a bad guy for having the temerity to get punched through your house? MY BAD. (More super-sarcasm.)
Why can’t you people love me? Yes! That’s right! I want to be loved! I want to be accepted! Is that wrong, Batman!?! Lots of people cry themselves to sleep! Is it an “emotional breakdown,” just because I haven’t showered for days and I’m eating hot dogs straight out of the package!
I... I’m sorry for that outburst. I don’t know what came over me back there, but I stepped away for a couple hours, wrote some poems, and I’m feeling much better now. I suppose I could delete those last couple paragraphs, but I’m not going to. I write this blog because I want you guys to know what it’s like to be Superman, both the good and the bad. And if certain cave-dwelling, moldy-smelling superheroes think that this is a great opportunity to poke a little fun at the Supe, they should probably have thought to stash their collection of Catwoman-themed erotica in a lead box where I couldn’t see it. We all have our weaknesses.
I’m off to take a bubble bath with a case of Merlot. To the citizens of St. Louis: I’m coming to you next. You might want to roll out the welcome mat a bit better than Cleveland, or the Mississippi River might make a sudden right turn.
-The Supe
This issue of the Superhero Diaries was brought to you by Superman #703, by J. Michael Straczynski. Big thumbs up on the work he’s doing on this book. Our only concern is that the “Grounded” storyline is going to last six issues too long. Call us old-fashioned, but sooner or later Superman has to punch some robots or aliens. We read comics to escape our mundane lives, not to see how a flying alien would confront them. Read our review of Superman #703!
