Citation Needed - The Death of Superman

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

"The Death of Superman" is a crossover story event featured in DC Comics' Superman-related publications. The crossover, which originated from editor Mike Carlin and writers Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, and Karl Kesel, began in December 1992 and lasted until October 1993. It was published in Superman, Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, Superman: The Man of Steel, Justice League America, and Green Lantern. Since its initial publication, "The Death of Superman" has been reprinted in various formats and editions. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

I can't believe you got the vaccine already. Yeah, no, Georgia's official policy is any pussy who will take one. Say, it's on their website and everything. Huh, that's right. Okay. What are you talking about? You have to wear it.

I don't wanna wear it. Well, then how is Cecil Prime gonna know which one you are? We did not settle on calling them the primes. I like the primes. Hey, why are we in the room that we just came into? Why is there a... Yeah, this is confused. Hey, why are we in the room that we just came into? Why is there a... Yeah, this is confused. Yeah, sorry about that.

You know how this week's episode is about the death of Superman? Sure. So Eli got to thinking about it and he brought back all the times that we've come back from the dead. So here we are. Here we are, yup.

Wow, there's a lot of you. Click, clop. Yeah, sorry, he's from before Cecil Madeelie stopped writing that bit. So, well, that's, that's gonna be Tom. I guess at least nobody's dying. Um, and we have enough to do a podcast, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, it could be a lot worse. Okay. Well, where is Eli anyway? I don't see him or any of his brought back to life selves anywhere. Oh, they're all in the storage closet. Fucking fucking in the closet. Gross. Yeah, you do. It looks like the end of Akira back there. Oh, Tetsuo.

Clip clop. Terri's buddy. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where you choose to subject, read a single article about on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts. Because this is the internet, that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be your comic book guy today, but I can't do this show alone, so also joining me are two guys who would definitely set their drink or piece of pizza down on your new Mutants 87, Keith and Tom. Okay, if I can destroy your retirement account

with my Buffalo wings, I can't even retire. It's like 500 Alex. I don't even know why would I set down either food or a drink. That's a good one. Is somebody to go on baby at me and my drink was warm? Like, you know, there's a question now I want to drink.

Okay, all right, that's fair. Use my holsters, obviously. It. All right, that's fair. Use my holsters. Obviously, that's done. This is gonna make sense. Also joining us tonight is the guy that wants everyone in the shop to know how bad that comic movie adaptation was and the dude that buys hen tie for the articles. Noah and Eli.

Yeah, I do, but you know, if I told everybody how bad it was, then they would just end up with the sea so cut. That would be like my original vision of how the street should have gone and the whole thing. And you know what, we have more respect for our audience as time than HBO. Yes. Like infinitely more. And when you need to know how many tentacles you can fit in your butt, don't come crying in the season. Because I know. So to see patrons, you're our amazing fantasy 15. No, if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that, I'll tell us, Noah, what person plays thing, concept phenomenon or event?

Will we be talking about today? The death of Superman. And you like, why do we, wait, why do we let him do this again? Never mind. I don't ask questions. What was the death of Superman? It is without question one of the most important events

in comic book, and I would argue cultural history. Well, at least you know it would be at arguments. And it all begins as the literary equivalent of Marmaduke's greatest hits. See, we're still in the diary. Thank you, Tom. Literary. Literary. I wasted a lot of money. Good. It's fine. You sure? See, the good and bad thing about Superman is that he is the history of comic books as we know them for Superman.

All American comics were compilations of syndicated comic strips with maybe a guest contribution or a new strip here and there. So the history of comics as we know them, pre Superman is literally shit like detective Dan secret operative number 48. That does sound terrible. I'm a detective dapper Dan man myself. Oh, there you go. I like detective pop.

I hate this a geographical oddity. But the story of Superman himself came from the minds of high school pals Jerry Seagal and Joe Schuster. Alumni of Cleveland high. The first go whatever America. It's a very it's probably racist. That's not the first attempt at Superman actually appeared in 1933 in Segal's self-published magazine called science fiction. They advanced guard of future self-revention. I have to do the rest of the episode.

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with set a tradition that would bind Superman for generations to go. That's why we're finally set it. Yeah, but at least they got the idea of over saturating one guy with way too many powers out of the gate fast. That's yeah. Yeah.

Well, they agreed with you, sensing that short fiction might not be for them, Seagal and Schuster, then tried to get into comic strips, like in the newspaper, but publishers told them that their ideas weren't sensational enough. So they revisited the Superman story. This new version of Superman still got tricked into his superpowers by a man's scientist,

but now he had super strength, bulletproof skin, and he wasn't a villainous vagrant anymore. Okay, hold on. Just the skin was bulletproof. So can you like shoot Superman in the eye and kill him? No, they're open. No, I're open. I've seen the video. Brian's saying, you're just, this is a big point of Kevin Spacey's movie.

What if you shoot him in the butthole? Oh, if he's gaping as you shoot him, right? Yeah, will it bounce around inside? Is your colon bullet proof? I didn't think so. Yeah, I don't know if the colon counts his skin. Skin has to be extra. There's a, there's a, there to be extra. There's a way.

It's a debate. Yeah. This is important stuff. Go ahead, Eli. So side note, it's very important to Jerry Sequel that you know that this second version of Superman wore a bat-like cape in some of the panels they drew. Yes. Wow.

Now, he can't show you those panels and the panels he can show you just have a fucking cape in them, but he totally did, and that means he invented Batman, because I guess literally creating the first superhero in history wasn't enough for Jerry. See, he had to, well, technically some guy invented Batman into like 1066 when the first cape happened. And that's him.

He's gonna stole it. And some guy invented Superman in 1883 too. Didn't work out as well for the Jews that time. Oh, and that's fair. That is fair. So after a series of rejection, Siga realized what was holding him back. His best friend and business partner.

Okay, before you guys get any bright ideas, remember, I am the moral center in this show. That's not good for me. So he informed Schuster that he'd be working with more successful and famous artists from then on. And Schuster told him exactly what those artists and him could do to each other and themselves. Segal pitched different versions of Superman around to popular artists, but none of them sold. So he and Schuster, I can say, fine, what if you do that in reverse, like get a line up in the other artist before burning your fridges? Yeah, so he finally sold Superman to publisher Jack Liebowitz, a lot of Jews in this story. For an upcoming ideology called action, yeah, exactly called action comics, which famously is where

Superman we know and love first appeared. It's weird that an origin story that starts with an unaccompanied minor refugee seeking asylum worked in the 30. You think they just shoved them back on the St. Louis and sent them back to Germany. You know, that's what you would do. The baby that came out was white. So that was. It's just another crashed pod with a black kid. It's pretending not to see. Oh, mother, we got a race. This one's circumcised.

I don't know. Yeah. So fun fact. No, no, mine, mine. Fun fact, Seagull didn't originally pitch Superman for action comics, but his newspaper deal fell through. So he proposed Superman at last minute as an afterthought. Is the fun fact. Exactly.

Yep. Actually, that wasn't a fun enough fact. I'd like that to be Eli's thing. Yeah, okay. Fair. For now, today. Fair. So Seagull and Schuster were paid $130 for Superman, the equivalent of $2,361 in 2019.

Why, or 24, 25 in 2021? This is a year now. Or very likely, one shiny rock and two food packets in 2022. Yeah, right. That's right. Well, a mass rock. So the following month, they signed a contract in which they gave the copyright for Superman to Leibowitz's company Detective Comics Inc.

They would spend the rest of their lives kicking themselves and suing DC Comics for Baxies in a legal battle so intense and so drawn out that it was most recently settled for the children of their children's children in the year 2000 fucking Fun fact. Yeah nice try. No, you're not gonna get me say your stupid comic book thing. It's yours Fun fact everyone was so busy fighting over that copy right that they failed to meet their renewal date for their original Copyright for the original in 1998 and so Superman as represented in action comics is due to enter the public domain in 2033 now DC is doing their absolute best to Mickey Mouse the shit out of that thing but

as long as he doesn't have heat vision or some of the stuff they added later just just 12 years. After you hear this podcast listener, you can do whatever the fuck you want. That's what ever you want. Pretty sure people are already doing that, whatever they want. So let though. Will you be able to make him an interesting character? He'll have with us. He'll have to do it.

Superman ruins everything. Yeah, he's, every story so stupid. You could start by giving them a bat like tape. Yeah, I'm gonna step spoilers. So on April 18th of 1938, action comics number one hit shelves and was a tremendous success. Imitators and straight up copycats followed and the comics industry as we know it today was born.

Okay, Liza, how did Superman die or did you tell him the story and he died of boredom? I am getting there. All right. Well, we tie Eli down to make sure there's a there to get to take a quick break for some apropos of nothing. I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, I'm not a human, Not so fast dark star super mad and me his best friend Batman. Sorry We're in the justice league together. We're best friends. Oh Batman. I'm also here to fight you so you better man Batman. Yeah, what's up? What's up super man? Yeah, can we?

He's my best friend. Hey, can we, um, Yeah, he's my best friend, by the way. Can we talk just for a second? Sure, absolutely, what's up? Sorry, Darkstar one second, just give us... No, no, I get it. Do your thing. I, I mean, I think it's best that I probably take this guy down on my own. You sure?

Yeah, he's a big planet destroying monster in a big metal suit and you're just a guy. I'm a rich guy. Right, yes. And, and, and I know karate. You do, you do. It's just that he's a monster covered in metal. I don't know how much karate is gonna help here. I see, I see.

Well, most of the world's greatest detective. Maybe I could use my detective powers to find his weakness. Sure, you could absolutely do that, but I have a hunch. His weakness is gonna be my super strong punches. Right, probably that. Or my laser vision or my ice breath, any of those. Sure, okay, so I'll just, I'll just wait here then. Sounds great, thanks, man.

Hey, a superman. Hey, hey Superman. Yeah Batman, what's up? Do you think there's a better use of my time and billions of dollars than trying to fist fight the threats to Earth that I'm almost never able to handle? Yeah man, probably. Ah, probably. Ah, bands. ["Fantastic Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky Funky F Superman existed so Either this episode's gonna be really short or really fucking long what happened next

Okay, so by the time Superman dies it's 1992 I'm five years old Cecil and Laura 40 and Superman has not held up well to the ravages of time neither most 40 year-old So yeah, yeah, especially the 16 year-old ones already your own. So yeah, yeah, especially the 16 year old ones. The first problem as we have hinted at gently in this essay is the character of Superman himself. He's too powerful. He's an invulnerable alien god who chooses to work at a newspaper and report on all the genocide. He's not stopping. He's kind of like Christian God, but he has a job.

Right. He's a painfully employed on top of being like Christian God. That character was fine for people in 1938. I mean, you could convince those assholes who were in a wheelchair by covering your legs with a blanket. In the 1990s, people were a little bored of, you know, perfect, super strong guy who just wants to love his best gal, something, something, letting rapes happen.

So the 80s also gave rise to some of comics' most interesting anti-heroes, characters like the Punisher and Wolverine who are in with complexity. I mean, these characters didn't always do the right thing and they struggled with that. Meanwhile, Superman was still, I don't know, fucking fly a little, ladies across the street and shit. And on top of that, in 1985, DC launched the crossover event, crisis on the infinite earths. And we've proven that humans can't deal with a crisis on a singular earth.

So that would be an interesting phrase. Okay, anybody else get the feeling that this is what post-coital conversation with Elias like, Doesn't make any sense. I'm not crying. Now, I don't want to go into detail on the plot of crisis on Infinite Earth. Oh, thank you, God. But the end result was that the entire DC universe was essentially rebooted.

While this allowed the other DC comics to do some interesting stuff with their IPs, Superman pretty much had the same boring origin story about farmers who find a super strung baby who never accidentally roots off their head, who burns them with his heat vision, which, as Tom can attest, is less believable than the planet Krypton. My toddler has almost ripped off my head multiple times and he does not have super power. And to make matters worth Superman lost the only writer who was doing anything good with the series. John Burn and replaced him with, I am not kidding, an 18 creator panel in charge of keeping Superman stories from what's going to Across various different comics. Yeah, you can imagine how well that went.

Yeah, probably as Kim Heron is a podcast about history told by five people. Yeah, that's right. We're just doing 13 more white guys who podcast. We're all set. They're hard to find. So by 1992, Superman was selling a fraction of what other comic books were selling.

About 150,000 copies in issue. While popular comics like Spider-Man were selling about 540,000, so you got this shitty-selling comic book about this boring character, 18 people are trying to make soup at the same time, and then to make matters worse, Warner Bros. develops a TV show called Lois and Clark, the new adventures of Superman starring Dean Kane and Terry fucking Hatcher. And they, Warner Brothers, demand that the almost two basketball teams worth of writers scrap their plans for the comic for the year so that it matches the TV show, including the big season finale wedding they have when

Jesus. Dean Canis taken so much from us. I miss the atrustans and Tetris. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. I've been playing Tetris for the last 20 months. I'm not going to lie.

So, that's when writer Jerry Ordway, half as a joke, suggests to the writer's room that they kill Superman. He points out that when he worked at Marvel, killing a beloved character was a great way to shake up the world of the comic book. It explored how the other characters felt and it gave them a chance to talk about big themes, like love and loss, and on top of that,

quote, the world was taking Superman for granted. So we literally said, let's show what the world would be like without Superman. Yeah. And the answer was way better, way more compelling and interesting and useful to what the universe stopped being all of Christian cinema. Now, you might be thinking to yourself or saying out loud, think fucking deal. Super heroes die all the time. Why would this matter?

But back then, they did it. I mean, yes, characters had died, but they were minor, and they stayed fucking dead. What Ordway was suggesting was just unheard of in mainstream comments. Well, originally he suggested Superman gets fucked to death with tentacle dicks, which was really unheard of in mainstream.

Man, that's a bad thing. They threw that out. That's a bad time. Usually he suggested Superman gets fucked to death with tentacle dicks, which was really unheard of in mainstream. That's a bad thing to have done. But in the year 2033, you can bring the Irish side a Japan on her. It's superman-a-may. They had to be really hard dicks, too, to get in there. You know, really strong dicks to get in there. I caught that heat. That was brilliant.

Thank you. I was gonna say. So, to orderly surprise DC said yes. And look, I know I've been a little harsh on soups and his soccer team and a half of writers, but to everyone's credit, the death of Superman fucking rocks. Right. It's beautifully drawn and constructed. The villain, Doomsday is a fantastic contrast to Superman. There's no fucking kryptonite bull shit, no wax loot, they're getting everything low as laying garbage. He's just a big fucking strong alien like Superman. He's Superman's black mirror and they just fucking punch each other to death.

Cool, yeah, finally they got an otur on the staff. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you how bad was Superman that just punch each other until one of them is punched to death was a step up. Like super shocking step up, no laughs. You gotta help me. Doesn't it have half-writers, you just like binge watch the Rocky franchise, like, let's do that with capes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Capes. Pretty much. To give you an idea of how brilliant the construction of the series is, the last four issues leading up to the death of Superman use panels themselves as a countdown. So the first issue has four panels per page. Second S3, third S2, final fight is all splash pages.

But the effect on the reader is that it feels as if you go from reading a story to these just flashes of images in your own memory. It's phenomenal. And people ate it up. The death of Superman, Superman 75 sold over six million copies. Wow. Fun fact, my father, avid comic collector that he was, waited outside his local comic book shop for it to open and bought two copies, one to read and one to seal in plastic or leave

sealed in plastic and leave to me. I still have it. And I took a look on eBay as of the Sunday before recording this. It was worth $31. So if we have time, can you just list the dollar value of all your precious keepsakes and your life? Yeah, hopefully you got plenty of tulips in that college fun too. Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, if there's one thing you can say for things that they make more than six million of, it's that they're rare. Yeah.

Hard to come by. Yeah. But this didn't just affect comic book fans. This affected everybody. I mean, fuck, if you heard tomorrow that Scrooge McDuck got convicted of murder you might know me up on your duck tails but you're tuning into that fucking episode. Okay yeah, uh, wasn't all that interested in the death of Superman but you're right I would watch that very special episode. Also I fucking knew it about it.

Well yeah, I fucking knew it in the whole time. What's out of those coins? What's out of those coins? So as an oldeness sketch about it, it made national news. It was the front page of news day. Jerry Ordway was right. Superman had died and the world was mourning him. And all DC had to do was stick to their guns because in comics, my comedy, you cannot fucking flinch my friends. Following issues of Superman released four new Superman, steel, the cyborg Superman, Superboy, and sporadic.

Superboy, the fucking cyborg Superman. Well, I guess they used all their creativity on those, on that awesome panels per page, I do. It's very cool. You don't know you were 40. So the writers at DC had never had this many eyes on them before. But today many of them say that the plan was always for Superman to come back. And the only reason people were reading was to see how and why Superman would come back.

And look, maybe that's true. But me, I think people were reading to see what comics would do next. And how would those stories be told now that something this unthinkable was possible in the medium? But, try as they might do new and interesting things with their four new Superman DC eventually caved and Superman came back to life. You just rolls back that huge kryptonite rock and try to scream. I'm curious, which of the other four,

not at all, Superman would win in a fight? Oh, well, actually, there's a few different. Oh my God. Nobody cares, I wasn't seriously answering. You know what? I kinda, I gotta be honest, I kinda am curious. Who would actually win in that thing? Super boy. Super boy. Super boy. Super boy. Super boy. Super pony. And yes, Steel is actually just a guy in the eradicators. Just a robot that's filled with Superman's DNA

and it's and cyborg Superman. He gets defeated by a relatively minor villain pretty early on in the city. I have the effect on comics. Don't tell me down a rep. The effect on comics and its fans was immediate. Readership immediately plummeted when Superman came back. So suddenly that everybody started fucking dying and coming back to life in comics, right? They killed Wonder Woman, the flash, Green Lantern, Wolverine Thor, the whole Wolverine again, Spider-Man had a baby. Well, they killed his passion. They didn't kill him.

I killed his sleep schedule. So everyone was just trying to catch that hype train, but the illusion had been broken. The audience knew that writers didn't have the cajonas to stick to their guns and the industry went into a free fall. Okay, but in a show where some of us have died dozens of times, I don't feel like we have a lot of room to talk. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm dying inside every day. So does that count? I can't. No, since that never sums back. That's true. So to give you an idea of just how bad people's faith in comic was just about a year after Superman died, the Batman series Nightfall, where Bane discovers Batman's secret identity and breaks his spine, one of the

most influential and best-written plotlines in the history of the character, went largely ignored because everybody in the public and everybody who read comics knew he was just gonna fucking comic book bullshit his way back into being Batman, which to be fair, he did. As a result of Superman coming back, mainstream comics never really recovered. I mean, I would argue it wasn't until the Nolan reboots of Batman that the character has got a chance to become mainstream again. And film and television have largely led the industry since then. I mean, look, I love comic books. I literally have a collection of 5,000 comics, but I have not bought a new comic book, especially from one of

the big houses in years. Why? Because they got nothing to say. And if they do accidentally say something, they immediately take it back. So, I mean, except for identity crisis, of course. And okay, astonishing X-Men and origin, obviously, but that's Marvel. Oh, man, Logan, also Marvel. Yeah, that was honestly what Anderson Dylan did with a punisher in the 2000s. He like, can you just continue? Sorry, all right, rabbit hole. The upside is that many disaffected comic fans sought out in D publishers. This indie success led to new and interesting voices in the field. And that in turn gave rise to some of the legends we know and love today. We, we say we, some of the legends I know and love today. What did Enison Dylan do with the Punisher in the 2000? Oh, they do this. Oh my god, nobody cares.

You had to summarize what you learned in one sentence. What would it be? When I die, I promise to stay gone. I'm over the quiz. Absolutely. All right. So Eli, to start things off, you offered up a few reasons why Superman might not have been the most popular comic in 1992.

What else may have contributed to the decline in his popularity? Hey, the fact that 1992, people still remembered Superman III with Richard Pryor. B, the 1987 storyline where Superman gets mind-controlled by an alien named Sleeze into making a super porn. What the hell is that real? What the hell is that real thing? C, they still hadn't gotten over the 1970 storyline in which Lois Lane magically turns Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Simony. Okay. So you can answer E all of the above in your main. Sorry, he gets mind controlled into making super porn. Yeah, we have one control. I'm using the quotes mind control. I mean, mind control. Hey, wonder woman, let's go into this invisible room. And what do you say? This is great moment in that comic.

And it goes under appreciated because it's so bad, but they like defeat him and they're like, ah, you won't control us again and Sleeze is like, man, we're all just fucking here and it's so good to watch Sleeze be like, oh y'all don't wanna fuck each other. Y'all don't, you don't wanna fuck water woman, you don't wanna super fuck Superman.

Okay, fine, I guess I'll go to Super Jail. What super power is coming into play in the fucking? Do they actually strength? Give you answers. Eight vision. Caliente vision. Hard and steel boring. All right, Superman died in a comic book.

Then later didn't. So this changed all of comic book history, so that a comics are more relevant than ever. Or b, no, it didn't. See, you are. You are. Fine. Alright, Eli, what other comic storyline rivals this one in pure storytelling genius? A, when a being of near infinite power was defeated by a guy who shoots beams from his

eyes. B, when a being of near infinite power was defeated by a guy who shoots beams from his eyes. B, when a being of near infinite power was defeated by a guy who shoots webs from his hands. C, when a being of near infinite power was defeated by a guy who flies on a space surfboard. D, when a being of near infinite power was defeated by a guy who can stretch. Oh wow. Okay, but that team have such a good catchphrase, Cecil. Not me, galact us. I don't know what that means. I don't know if that's right. Big top purple god.

All right. You like I want more for you? It's planets. What is better than comic books? A, subprime mortgages. B, mango-steen fruit time shares. Then comic books a subprime mortgages Mangosteen fruit time shares Or see having sexual intercourse

That's gonna be C because it's the only one I'm sure my father invest That is not correct. It was the magazine. Oh, I was so close. I knew he's getting better than sex. You won, Heath. I'm so glad to see you. All right, next week, let's get no onboard. I wasn't busy fucking or anything, sure. Yeah. All right, well for Eli, Heath, no one time.

I'm Cecil. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We've got next week, and by then, Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then you can listen to our other shows you can find them on citationpod.com. If you'd like to keep, help keep the show going. You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com

slash citationpod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. If you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. You sure check out citationpod.com. Thanks for the live-tome, Superman. I could have taken my bat jet, but you know, you are significantly faster than my bat jet.

Yeah, much faster. No problem, Batman, no problem. Hey, a Superman. Yeah, Batman. When you and Lois Lane do it, how do you know, like, not kill her? I'm gonna go I gotta go. Oh come on man, is it handjabs?

I bet it's handjabs.