So who wants to hear me recap Superior, issue by issue?
Okay, well who wants to see me slowly type my way into madness, and make bets on whether I can make it to my actual breakdown of #7 before I gut myself and eat my own entrails?
You are all terrible, terrible people.
Let's begin. Just to let you know, I'm not going to draw anything for a little bit so I can get through these as quickly as possible, and it starts off fairly tame. Stick with it, though. Sh*t gets weird by issue 3, and #6 is where I lose my mind.
#1: So the story begins with our protagonist Simon and his friend Chris watching "Superior 5" in a theater. Superior in this world is a popular fictional superhero much like Superman, but he somehow has a movie franchise popular enough to make at least 5 films with the same lead actor for 25 years (I did not make that ridiculous number up). Upon leaving the theater, the boys are harassed by a bully named Sharpie, who is a cliché in every sense and picks on Simon for having MS. That night, after a completely nonsensical "MAGNIFY" scene that makes no sense once the actual plot is revealed, Simon wakes up to find a monkey in a spacesuit on his bed. Simon swears a bunch and the monkey, named Ormon, gives him a magic wish. Simon then becomes SUPERIOR, WWE belt and all, and promptly yells the F-word. Ormon tells him he'll be back in a week with an explanation. Then Simon-perior wakes up to learn he's been missing for a day, then flies to Chris's house to swear some more.
#2: We open with Chris screaming the F-word. Neat. Simon-perior has to convince Chris he's not a pedophile (yes, really), and since Mark Millar couldn't think of a good reason why a kid would believe some dude dressed like a wrestler in gloves and a cape is really his magic-wish-enhanced best friend, he just skips that part. Seriously, the narrator basically just says, "I don't know what convinced him, but I guess he just accepted it so the plot could move forward." And move forward it does, after we take some time to watch Simon-perior learn his new powers. I won't lie, this is actually fairly well-done, as Millar splices his super-training with flashbacks to him learning to adapt to his disability through MS. It would actually warm my cold, black heart...if it weren't for the constant swearing. There's even a nice reference to the original Superman when Simon-perior admits that he got to Chris's house by jumping rather than flying that is promptly ruined by Simon's first word's after levitation being, "Holy sh*t!" He then repeats that two more times with an "oh, Jesus!" thrown in for good measure. When Simon finally does gain his composure in the air, we begin to drift back to the heartwarming feeling as the narrator tells us the thing Simon enjoyed most about being Superior was not the powers, but being able to wiggle his toes. Then Simon-perior finds a damaged space station and ends the issue with "What...the...F***?" Classy.
#3: So Simon-perior (man, is that as obnoxious to read as it is to type? Actually, I don't care. It's too late to turn back now) saves the crashing space station. We also, almost halfway through the series, finally meet the narrator, and I have no idea what her point is in that role. She's a reporter named Maddy and basically exists to tell us either what Simon was thinking or exposition about events from a future perspective. Why is she such a problem? Well, we'll hit that in issue 7. So we watch Simon-perior stop several disasters, and Maddie explains that he moves so quickly that for a while no one knew what was saving them. He's finally seen when he drags a submarine onto a beach. Right before this are two panels that are hilarious to me. The first is a large beach page, filled with several cheesecake shots of women standing in ridiculous underwear model poses, but in the middle there's this huge fat lady in water wings just standing there. And I don't mean she's just somewhere hidden in the scene. She's standing there, facing the reader, not doing anything, arms at her sides. It's followed two panels later by a panel of a wrinkly old man rubbing lotion on his wrinkly old wife's back. I don't know if it was in Millar's script or not, but I like to imagine Millar asked for a whole bunch of sexy women on this beach and Leinil Yu felt ashamed and threw those in to make us all feel dirty.Then comes the sequence that made me realize this book was spiraling out of control. Simon-perior is chillaxing in Chris's room and tells him his theory that Ormon was an angel because he prayed to be cured of MS and his mom prayed that "America would get fixed". Okay, I don't know why he decided the best way to do this was to pose as a space monkey, but sure. Then we move outside to see Ormon perched on a rooftop as he tells us he's a demon. Complete with black eyes and way too many teeth. I showed this page to everyone. It was too ridiculous not to share. Now, at the time, Superior had just been picked up for a movie. I was certain that Millar wrote this cliffhanger and laughed as the movie struggled to adapt this ridiculous turn of events.
#4: First off, this is such an obnoxious cheesecake cover. Inside, we see that Tad Scott, who has played Superior in the movies for twenty-five years, is dealing with the media attention he's had since Simon-perior showed up. We also stop in at Simon's house for a page to see his parents get informed bluntly that the cops think Simon's being molested because, oh yeah, that's a plot point that we'll see again (no we won't). Then Maddie drives her car off a dock to get Simon-perior's attention because she's a tough-as-nails reporter, god damn it. Then two seconds in she loses her sh*t and starts screaming. Also, her license plate says "KICK-ASS", which is annoying. Anyway, Simon-perior saves her and she repays him by promptly barfing at his feet and then telling him he got punk'd into an interview. She proceeds to learn absolutely nothing from him and then he flies away. Then she tells us the history of the fictional character from the comics and movies and throws in a line about his powers so Millar can point to it at the end and say, "See? I planned it all along!" Then we see Chris get beat up Sharpie and his stereotypical bully cliché clones. Remember Sharpie, who appeared in like 2 pages at the beginning of issue 1? We'll he's about to become "relevant" to the plot, so he's back, three issues later. Simon-perior finds out about this and threatens Sharpie to leave Chris alone. Then he goes to see the President, so that we can finally lead into the story that was advertised in the teasers.At the issues conclusion, we hit an even more ridiculous cliffhanger than last. Sharpie throws a tantrum, repeating "F*** this guy" over and over, when Ormon shows up and says the goofiest thing ever. I'm just going to quote it (emphasis is from the issue): "I can give you anything you want...as long as you pay homage to my dark and eternal master." When Sharpie says he doesn't understand, we get a full page of Orman in his face saying (again, real quotes): "Just say you love Satan."
Utter. Insanity.
The series went on hiatus for a brief while here, with something like a 9-month break before #5 hit. Part of me hoped it wouldn't. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to have nice things. That's why Batman: Brave and the Bold got canceled.
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| I wept like a baby during the finale. |
#5: I've already briefly brought up this issue and how it is the only issue that really deals with the originally advertised premise. This issue also had a plot summary to refresh your memory from the hiatus and, man, it does not even need my dry sarcasm and bad attitude to sound goofy. Anyway, Simon-perior heads to Afghanistan in a plane. If he flew there himself with his exposition he'd have to carry along a soldier for the exposition. That or the narrator could do her stupid job. Simon-perior manages to drive Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and there are a bunch of goofy reaction shots from people in the middle of eating and one dude rubbing his belly. He solves several other crises around the world and then he gets rewarded, because good karma is the payment choice of chumps. There's also a panel of Simon's parents when they see "Superior" high-fiving Chris on TV. This doesn't play into diddly. Then we meet Sharpie's parents, who, fitting with Sharpie's bully stereotype, are terrible lazy assholes. Sharpie also has a poster of the Abraxas, the villain from the Superior movie in #1, in his room, and it is HUGE. It's just a boring picture of Abraxas standing there with a plain white background, and it's several feet taller than Sharpie. If anyone has a poster like that that is not custom-made, I want to see it. Anyway, Simon-perior shows up at Maddie's for a date, showing off his gigantic WWE belt, but while Maddie conveniently leaves to get a coat, Orman shows up. It's been a week and he wants to know if Simon is happy as Superior. When Simon says yes, he turns him back into a kid and teleports him to Hell, demanding his soul while uncomfortably caressing his face.
#6: (I'm breaking this one up into paragraphs, 'cause it is long.) So "Ormon" tells Simon about his ordeal and it. Is. Ridiculous. He's a demon on the bottom of Hell's food chain and he sucks at his job, as he hasn't gathered a soul in 500 years. He decided to give Simon a taste of the good life and then take it away, so he'd be desperate for it back. Not a bad plan. Except he decided to grant, as he puts it, "the most outrageous wish since the dawn of man".Dude, Ormon. Aren't there some kind of rules or restrictions for wish-granting? I mean, if they could have insane super powers, I think most people would be willing to deal. Hell, you can have my soul right now. I'm writing a blog complaining about comics. I'm certainly not using the damn thing. He complains people are too worried about damnation nowadays, but really? I think people are far less worried about that now than they ever were. Just find the guy who gave this series the green flag.
There's also a part where the other demons, that look like dinosaurs with skull-heads, tell him to show his true form, but Ormon says he gains nothing by frightening Simon. Dude, you dragged the kid to Hell and then stood on top of his chest with glowing red eyes, demanding his soul. If a monkey did that to me, I'd sh*t my pants - goofy spacesuit or not.
Ormon then sends Simon back to Maddie's apartment, just as she walks in with her coat. No explanation for why when he's in Hell long enough to make a wordless wish and leave, a day passed in real time, but when Ormon dances on his chest and tells him his life story like a Bond villain, he's back on Earth two seconds later. So Maddie walks in on Simon appearing in a flash of light, and it takes her a ridiculously long time to realize he was Superior. It's only two pages, but this woman is supposed to be a talented investigative reporter. If Superior disappears in a flash of light and is replaced by a kid shouting, "You're not supposed to see me like this!", I think you should be able to put two and two together without chasing the kid with crutches down the hall, shouting "Where's Superior?"
So after she draws up a flowchart and consults some of her peers, she realizes this kid must be Superior and makes him some pancakes. Simon tells her his story and everything is told to us through her weird narrations, which had been absent for a while. She suddenly realizes they have a "connection" when she watches him pee. So she takes him to a hospice and tells him how she used to have leukemia, but she gained a desire to be a writer, teaching Simon a lesson about not selling your soul so you can drive your car off a dock for the "big scoop" one day. Then Simon goes back home, where his mom answers the door. But that whole subplot about him maybe being kidnapped? Ignored. We don't even get to hear how he explains it. She just hugs him and then the plot moves on.
Maddie also tells her boss that Superior left the planet. Chris finds out when this shows up in the newspaper, and runs to Simon's house. Simon apparently was too busy convincing his parents off-panel that some creepy dude wasn't diddling for a week to call him. "Mom, for the last time: I can't show you on the doll where the bad man touched me because I was a superhero! There was a deal with a demon space monkey and everything!"
Okay, so then we go back to Sharpieland, where Sharpie and Ormon (still a space monkey) are chillaxin' and watching the Superior movies. We learn Ormon chose the monkey form from a space monkey named Ormon in the third Superior movie.
Wait, what? You're telling me you picked a form from one of the Superior movies to appeal to Simon? I'm assuming since he apparently loves Superior? But he didn't recognize it? I mean, I don't memorize every character that passes across the screen in a movie I enjoy (although with how many times I've seen The Iron Giant, I probably could), but I'm pretty sure a monkey in a space suit would be something I'd remember. Especially when he has several speaking lines and appears to be mildly important to the plot (his planet was destroyed by the same creature as Superior's).
Oh also, Sharpie thinks the Superior movies are "totally lame", yet has a gigantic custom-made poster of the villain hanging in his room. I bet he's a closet brony, too.
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| I mean, I have a poster that big of Pinky Pie, but at least there's a rainbow in the background. |
Then demon Ormon offers Sharpie a wish for free, since giving him this wish will ensure Simon's (who he keeps referring to as Superior as if he's a real person - it's weird, is what I'm saying) soul. This stupid, stupid logic will come into play later.
Oh, and they killed Sharpie's parents and hung them on the wall in their undies like a cross. 'Cause they're EVILLL.
So what's this deal? Sharpie gets to become Abraxas (Sharp-raxis?) and goes on a murder spree until Simon takes the deal for his soul. Cliffhanger!
Oh man, you guys. Now we get to talk about the final, double-sized issue. And guys? It is nuts. I have never yelled at a comic more in my life. I couldn't form sentences for a solid hour after I read it. I tried to order at the drive-thru at Burger King on my way home from the comic shop and started foaming at the mouth and passed out on the horn.
So anyway, Superior #7 - here we g
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