Okay, Internet - we need to talk about Superior (or "Why I'm done with Mark Millar's creator-owned works") - Part 3b

Start where I was actually trying to make a point in Part 1 here.

Continued from a false Part 3 here

I've been distracted the past week and using that as an excuse to put this off, but I may as well bite the bullet and get this over with.

 

Previously, in an increasingly stupid Superior...
So when we last left this book and tried incredibly hard to forget it through both alcohol and blunt force trauma, the space monkey demon Ormon wants disabled Simon's soul. In return, he'll turn Simon into the superhero Superior. When Simon refuses, Ormon turns the bully Sharpie into a supervillain for free because he's an idiot. Sharpie appears on TV as Abraxas, hoping to draw Simon out by causing mayhem.

Now that we're up to speed -- Superior #7...

So we open with what looks like an army-escorted evacuation of Simon's neighborhood. Simon is questioned by his father when he starts heading in the opposite direction, and Simon snarks back, "Where does it look like?" like a snot. Also, do Simon's parents know he's Superior? We never really saw any of their interaction once he got home, as the whole "Simon was kidnapped" subplot pretty much wasn't. It's mentioned maybe three times throughout the series like Millar realized, "Oh yeah, his parents probably care that their kid's been missing for a week."

"I thought groceries were cheaper this week."

Cut to Ormon, who announces that Simon's taken the deal. He then pats himself on the back for finally purchasing a soul after 500 years. Now here's a question: What is a soul? What are they used for? Why does Satan need them? Are they currency? A source of power?

This is important to the logic of the story. Ormon is displaying a great deal of power here. He's granting not one, but two, of the most insane wishes of all time in exchange for one measly soul. Ormon himself admits to Simon that this is the most elaborate wish since the dawn of man, and he goes ahead and grants it again for Sharpie, only this time for free. In fact, Sharpie seems more likely to give up his soul without more incentive than Simon.

So what's worth all of this pizazz? If souls are a power source, then let's say one soul is worth two extravagant wishes. If they're worth more, then more wishes like Simon's would easily be granted. There has to be a reason for the restrictions. If they're power, then Ormon's sure burning a lot of it to possibly break even. And if souls and wish power don't correlate, then I'm sure more demons would be willing to grant larger wishes if it's more likely guaranteeing them a soul. Ormon can't be the only desperate demon here. And the soul is apparently going straight to Satan. So does Ormon have this power on loan? He's going to have a hard time paying that back.

If souls are a currency in Hell, then this isn't a bad advertisement for Demon Deals Inc., but he's also running the risk of flooding the market. If he only needs one soul every 500 years, then it's safe to assume they're a rarity. And if everyone is offering up their soul for the powers of a god, then pretty soon their value plummets dramatically. It'll be like the post-90s with comics, with a bunch of demons sitting around with soul dollar bins.

Several just handed their soul over for more pouches.

Not to mention that after sealing the deal and having nothing more to gain, Ormon allows (and later joins with) Sharpraxis to continue killing random people.

You know, all those potential future clients. I'm pretty Satan won't be happy either way.

A thousand Ormons with a thousand typewriters couldn't even produce a chapter of Twilight.

Anyway, the most obvious pointless fakeout wastes three pages when Tad Scott, who plays Superior in the movies, shows up to stop Sharpraxis. No one even falls for it, so I have no idea why it occured. Tad's barely even a minor character in the book, working out much like Simon's parents as another "oh, I guess this should be addressed" plot point.

Simon-perior appears just in time to stop Sharpraxis from killing Tad. He also keeps the book's classy tone by telling the villain to "eat s***, Sharpie."

The two fight and Simonperior is obviously winning, until Ormon announces that he turned himself into "The Annihilator. From Superiors Two and Five." Because he's an idiot. Like I said, he's just burning power right now, because he rented three-wishes-worth of magic for a week and he's going to use it, god damn it! Also, why does he feel the need to announce what movies this character is from? It's so goofy to me. It's like instead of collecting souls, he just sat around in Hell watching a 500-year marathon of Superior movies.

Don't judge. This is totally you.

What follows are way too many pages of a long fight scene between Simonperior, Sharpraxis, and ....Ormonilator? I don't know. I dug my own grave when I started this name thing. I'm going to stop now.

So Simon and Sharpie fight, and then Sharpie threatens to kill Simon's mom in front of him. This leads Simon to explode Sharpie's head somehow because he "shouldn't have mentioned [his] mom, dickhead." Upon seeing this, some random guy in the background yells, "Get ready for the final smackdown, bitch!" and it is so awkward to me. Hey, idiot. Run for your life. Don't taunt the super powers.

He then of course gets vaporized by Ormon.

Real burns for the sick burn.

I'd like to again point out that Ormon has no reason to do any of this. He has what he wanted. He and Sharpie trade stereotypical comic villain dialogue as they form a plan to split up and destroy a power station as well as East Village, and I don't know why. Ormon gains nothing from this, and, like I said before, it most likely will cause him more problems than anything. I just can't get into a story when I don't understand character motivations. Is it to mess with Simon? Is Ormon really so petty? The story that advertised itself as a new take on the superhero story has now become the embodiment of every bad stereotype found in superhero stories. I can't really say any more than it just doesn't make any sense. It's action for action's sake.

But I digress. Simon flies Sharpie into space and punches his face in, then slams his body into Ormon. But right before this Ormon declares, "Nothing on God's good Earth is going to stop me doing what I've got planned." What does he have planned? He already did what he planned. He has nothing more to gain and everything to lose.

What's more insane is that on the following page, Ormon proceeds to say everything I just said. He's already won. It's "five to midnight" (Whether that's literal or a reference to the Doomsday Clock, I don't care. He needed the soul by that night and it's the middle of the goddamn day. Look at the f***ing sky) and he has that soul. He can't lose.

Also, the body of the Annihilator is in pieces everywhere, so apparently he drove it like a mech, rather than turned himself into it. That's just a funny image to me.

Also hilarious? "Monkey cockpit".

Then Ormon proceeds to expound upon us the most ridiculous logic I've ever heard in any media ever. Remember my question about the soul? Ormon tries to answer it and fails horribly. According to the demon space monkey: "A human soul is the most precious thing in the universe. It's worth a billion lives. A hundred billion lives."

Let's go over that again:

"A human soul is the most precious thing in the universe. It's worth a billion lives. A hundred billion lives."

And one last time:

"A human soul is...worth a billion lives. A hundred billion lives."

I'm sorry...what?

It's true. Cats are ignorant when it comes to arithmetic.

How is a soul possibly worth so much? Each of those lives has a soul, right? I mean, isn't the pro-life argument that even an unborn fetus has a soul? So, logically, we should all have souls, right? Therefore, every life has a soul. So one life equals one soul, and vice versa. How can one soul be worth billions of what are, essentially, other souls? Ormon doesn't say anything about pure souls, in which case I could argue they're at least more rare. But I'm sure there are more people at least as pure as Simon is (especially with that language he keeps using throughout the series). It is by far the dumbest statement I've ever seen or heard. It was a throwaway line to justify the pointless actions of Ormon, but instead makes them even more ridiculous because it means nothing.

I just can't believe anyone would type those words and say, "Yeah, that's worth publishing in my $5 comic."

HELP ME, CAT.

Soon after this stupidity, Maddie shows up, giving Ormon no time to think about what he just said. She claims he can't have Simon's soul, because, as Simonperior, he can't die. And if he can't die, Ormon can't cash in the soul. As soon as he realizes his mistake, Hell opens up in the middle of New York and demons drag Ormon down, one of whom looks incredibly indifferent about it.

"It doesn't matter. We're all just dust in the end."

Now, I'm going to over-analyze here, again (I know -- big surprise). How do they know for certain Superior can never die? Is it explicitly said in the comics or movies? Because then where's the tension in a story where the hero can't be harmed, let alone killed? Yes, we know the hero always makes it through, but a good story makes us worry for him. If Superior really is immortal, wouldn't Ormon have learned that after he watched the movies back to back?

In fact, back in the first issue we see the latest of these movies. In it, Abraxis claims that Superior is dead and he killed him. He's revealed to be wrong, of course, and Superior claims that "our atmosphere" makes him invincible. But "invincible" and "immortal" are two different things, and one of them still involves the possibility of dying (both, if you're the Highlander). But still, take him out of "our atmosphere" -- like, y'know, when Simonperior flew Sharpraxis into space -- and you have a chance at killing him.

Plus, how did this wish work? Did Simon become Superior based on his idea of the character, or Ormon's? Because Ormon obviously believed he'd die one day, and he's the one holding all the cards. Simon didn't even know all the powers he had at first. Ormon could easily flub the wish and make him mortal. Or he could have, if he didn't spend his remaining wish power dicking around.

Also, did Ormon need that soul right at the stroke of midnight (or whenever his time was up)? Because the way he'd been stating and gloating before, all he needed was a sealed contract by then. I mean, he even states a few pages earlier that he doesn't need to kill Simon. So if Simon doesn't need to be dead by midnight, then the soul doesn't need to be in Ormon's hands by then, either. He just needs the guarantee that the soul will be his upon Simon's passing, however far away that may be. The only evidence he really has that Simonperior will never die ever is the word by two people who don't want to give up Simon's soul. If souls are so damn precious, you'd think Hell would be willing to take the chance that Simonperior, like all living things, will die one day. I mean, Ormon had to assume the kid would have a longer-than-average lifespan when he put his master plan into motion.

Now I know people are going to say I'm being too critical, but you can't base your story in the "real world" (and use that as part of the premise to sell your story) and then expect me to ignore the fact that everything starts to crumble with the slightest application of real world logic. It's the same reason no one lets me talk about Harry Potter with them.

Be reasonable and enjoy stories about a guy running on rooftops dressed like Dracula!

With Ormon now sucked into Hell on an easily-protested technicality, Simon reverts back to his normal self, still in his pajamas. He tells Maddie that "this is exactly what [he] wanted." No, it isn't. I understand what it's going for, but it's not achieving that. Simon doesn't decide to not become Superior because he learns that he's great just the way he is. He remains Simon because he doesn't want to sell his soul. He doesn't learn to make the best of life with MS. He learns that the price for an MS-free life is too high. That's an awful message. It's heartbreaking. I am not saying Simon doesn't have worth as a kid with MS, because he certainly does. But nothing in the story tells him this. There's no uplifting message about life. And since at the beginning of the series he was feeling depressed and, as Ormon tells us, he was desperate, you'd think it would try and put a good message of self-worth. But no, the moral is that you best learn to deal with whatever life gives you, because the price of improvement is too damn high.

In the aftermath, Superior is worshiped as a god, Simon lives life as normal, and Tad Scott makes tons of money off of Superior movies. Maddie doesn't publish her article on Simon, which is apparently the narrations we've been reading (which really bothers me, but now that I'm at the end, I just want to be done). She interrupts her typing to tell us she's taking Simon to the new Superior movie premier (which they made insanely fast, unless she waited several years to start typing and Simon didn't age). There's also a really obnoxious dialogue exchange where one of Simon's friends gawks at Maddie's ass and asks if Simon is "banging that chick", to which his other friend replies, "Totally." Had to throw in one last offense before we were done, eh Marky?

Finally, there's actually a really nice sequence of panels as the filmgoers watch as Superior winks and flies away.

So that's Superior #7. I hate it.

There will be a quiz.

• Superior is a terrible series.
• It doesn't deliver on the promise all of its advertisements made.
• Hell doesn't believe in technicalities, even in its own favor.
• Life will always suck until you're willing to pony up a soul.
• I'm incredibly unfair when it comes to logic in a comic book.
• Mark Millar doesn't understand how math works.

That's all for today. Check in this weekend for my pull list reviews.

And thanks for letting me rant.