This week marks the release of Action Comics #900, a blockbuster issue filled to the brim with guest talent from all corners of the world of Superman adaptations, from David Goyer, the writer behind Man of Steel and Batman Begins; to Richard Donner, director behind the 1978 Superman movie; to a LOST co-creator; to the team behind DC Universe Online.
The issue features a number of different stories, including one with a pizza party, and one where Superman encounters a nigh-omnipotent being wracked with guilt over the the worlds he created and was too selfish to save. But what’s the kicker? The guaranteed plot hook that had us bracing for the inevitable weird media backlash?
In Action Comics #900, Superman renounces his United States citizenship.
In the issue, Superman gets in some hot water with the president’s National Security Advisor for showing up in Tehran in support of Iranian protesters. Just showing up, non-violently. Since Superman is an American hero, Iran’s Government construes his actions as being with the tacit permission of the US Government. This desire to remain autonomous from whatever administration exists in Washington is what motivates the Man of Steel’s decision (panels above). Controversial comics stuff, treating superheroes like they exist in greater world full of regular human beings and their governments! …if you’re Superman in 2011 and not, to pick one example, The Authority in 1999.
Fox News, or, at least, Fox Nation, the conservative blog attached to the news network, has risen to the task. Then again, their post about the issue is kind of… well. Disappointing. In that it is a bare recitation of the facts that doesn’t even make a slightly larger molehill out of a molehill.
Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship in Action Comics’ record-breaking 900th issue. But that’s not all the benevolent alien refugee does in the sprawling special issue, which hits stores Wednesday.
The Man of Steel throws down in outer space against a continually misguided Lex Luthor, who’s finally rewarded for his boundless ambition by becoming a petulant god. Supes also throws a pizza party with Lois Lane for his Kryptonian pals, who crowd his couch while chowing grub and chewing scenery. He talks cosmology and philosophy with an interstellar deity beset by guilt over civilizations he was perhaps too selfish to save, and goes head-to-head with a one-time pro athlete who’s become a superheroic show-off.
So I guess I’ll just have to make up for it.
I find myself  agreeing with presidential candidate, mogul, and alternate hairstyle wearer Lex Luthor. Are we are expected to believe that Martha and Jonathan Kent, after a series of miscarriages, finally managed to bring a baby to term alone in a farmhouse while coincidentally isolated for months by heavy Kansas snowfall? I demand to see Superman’s birth certificate in order to certify that he even has a U.S. Citizenship to renounce!
And then there’s the discrepancy between his birthdate and the Kents announcement of it! Where was he: on a rocketship? How fast was the rocketship travelling, anyway? Could he be that he has a much older twin somewhere else in the universe?
(That’s right, I just brought relativistic time into this, punk.)
Why is it that the only other Kryptonians we’ve ever met are either his relatives or convicted criminals? Why do we never see liberal media darlings like Lois Lane cover this vital issue? Are they in bed with the Kryptonian menace as well?
And while we’re on this subject, where was Bruce Wayne, really, during his teenage years? What are we to make of the pictures that have surfaced of him in studying in a terrorist school?
But I digress. This is clearly just a long term, highly improbable and illogical attempt by an alien menace to have his half-alien child become President of the United States.
PS: I really did try to work Bizarro into this, I’m sorry.
Oh, and just in case you were worried about the Big Blue Boyscout and where he’s going to, like, vote and pay his taxes, Scans Daily reminds us that he’s actually got a lot of options, because in 1974 every member country of the UN granted him honorary citizenship.
