Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

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Um, okay. Here goes. So we open with The President of the United States. Turns out he’s secretly Superman, because we’re actually on an alternate (aka parallel) Earth. (Or are we?? Right, Obamaniacs?) Anyways, this Superman is summoned to join a whole heap of other kick-ass superheroes (plus The Question) from a whole heap of different universes to go save the multiverse. Or some damn thing. He flies off with them, leaving others to sell his financial bailout package.

So, where’s our Supes? Well, he’s off to see Darkseid about a certain Batman he murdered last issue. “Totally uncalled for,” declares Supes. They squabble about this (and other!) matters for a bit until the Flashes, bored silly with this scene, show up. They are being pursued by one of those annoying Death Gods. Luckily, the Death God in question doesn’t have the stamina he had in his youth so, instead of killing the Flashes he says ‘screw it’ and kills Darkseid instead. Supes celebrates by singing a song that prevents the multiverse from collapsing (presumably Funky Town). Because, hey, he’s Superman! He can do anything. Right, kids? As an encore, he builds the Miracle Machine, which can turn wishes into reality and plain girls into supermodels.

Captain Carrot is here, space vampire. You totally screwed now.

This doesn’t totally fix matters, because it turns out there’s some kind of space vampire who has taken umbrage at Supes’ Seventh Issue Sing-A-Long Extravaganza. And this space vampire (‘Mandrakk’, apparently), despite totally skulking off-panel for the entire story so far, is even totally worse than Darkseid, ‘kay? “For fuck’s sake,” says Supes, a bit fed up now. Can’t a Kryptonian just belt out some kickin’ 80s tunes without freakin’ cosmic undead monsters ragging on him? Anyway, all the heroes from the opening scene show up, along with (awesometastically!) Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew and they kick the ass of Mandrakk. Because, really, enough already. And that’s that. Everybody slaps one another on the back and says ‘kudos to you’, ‘no, kudos to you’, ‘kudos to all of us’ and readers everywhere shake their heads and the entire internet explodes in debate over what in DC’s name just happened?

MVP: Bats. Totally not dead at all, according to the epilogue. Colour me staggered.

(Recommended other links: Geoff Klock’s review of this issue – in which Geoff also salutes the awesomeness of the Zoo Crew)

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