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Underground > Comic Books >

All-Star Superman

  
  

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SiliconDream
04:37 / 07.07.07
I love the entire set-up in Quintum’s base, that minimalist colorful orgy and the techno-representation of Superman rising as a flower on a cup (or funil-vase)

Superman rising? I think the only thing in that display is Bizarro-Home and the Noom getting stretched out of recognition as they spiral down the cosmic drain. Or am I missing something?
 
 
Mug Chum
07:02 / 07.07.07
This image, Papers. It was a teaser from months ago for Countdown.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it was an intentional commentary, first because it's just not cool to do so; I don't think Moz is immune from being able to be a prick, but that'd be beyond petty (and perhaps professionally damaging). Makes more sense calling out on the readers into tapping on why these things are there, what imaginative purposes are these stories and myths fulfilling and why; or like in #4, why did we the readers -- we, the symbolic Jimmy Olsens -- felt we needed to see Superman dying?). So I don't think it was intentional. But it ends up falling on the same territory of commentary, like the underground bizarro JLA being coincidently almost as the same concept we see in something like ASBRBW's Sewer JLA anti-heroes (because moonbase is too silly and goofily whimsical). Also the necessity to play "HIGH! STAKES! OF DOOM TRAGEDY!" cards, meddling in the "grotesque" and mud of the grand guinol decadence, every (anti-)hero tortured on a perpetual via crucis, showing a destroyed Statue of Liberty, lots of corpses (and superhero body-counts) and a Crying!! Superman (the most cliche cheap tool to use; "make the story and Superman relatable: make him cry, take all his powers, make him bleed, fail and send the world to hell, make him die; we! mean! business!" in the same vein of "make it adult and intriguing, throw a rape in there. Remember Watchmen? Eh? Killing Joke? Eh? Put even some cruelty stuff there, yeah make some questions like 'does the villain have some point in a peverse way?'"; "make that faggy goody-goody silly bullshit into something more hardcore*, put Mary Marvel in a blacque short cheerleader outfit, make a few allusions to alluring and seducting darque sideh and underage sex 'cause sex is teh danger and sexual girls are dark dirty bad, whoreswhoreswhoreswhores"). There's something in all these things that are centered around a single axis.

*and of course, the intended "no nonsense hardcore" comming off as even more silly than the old goofy comics for too many reasons to list here without becoming huge threadrot (I mean, the last I saw in Countdown was Mary Marvel talking to a demon made of TEH DEAD BABIES!!!, and him saying he was going to suck the shit from her bowels and, supervillains now snort cocaine as if straight from a 90's film. I mean, even if you dumbly wish to out-Marvel Marvel, idiotly darken it up, stupidly make it "real" and god-knows-why make it hardcore "mature" and tough it up, that's what they put out? Fear of sex, underage porn and an intrigued fear of drugs? Are these writers 8 years old who just saw Tarantino for the 1st time?).

Basically, I'm trying to say is that in normal logic, the current state of heroes and it's world belong in bizarro land and this series sort of taps on that, even if unintentionally (but maybe there's a hopeful trace in there like the no-longer-brooding Zibarro we see in the last pages).

[/threadrot rant]

I think the only thing in that display is Bizarro-Home and the Noom getting stretched out of recognition as they spiral down the cosmic drain.

No, you're right. It's just that I sort of took it as the narrative saying "they only see the despairing draining, but we know he's getting out of there, but may have to deal with stuff on the way" (he wouldn't be visible in the distance of that representation anyway). I thought it was just a tiny visual play on a blooming flower looking like a Lily of the Nile, playing on Isis&Osiris' rebirth motif (wikipedia says it's also named "Calla Lily"; here we coloquially call it "cup o' milk" and in Portugal "Jar"; apparently it represents the union of marriage, sacrifice and variations of Osiris' myth tell of his return from the underworlds by the hands of Isis as a sacred blue lily of the nile) by using the distorted planet and moon (and the funnel) to do a tongue-in-cheek "coincidental" visual similarity to represent Superman rising and returning. Just to sort of represent the wheel (sanskrit, "chakra") put in motion, b(l)ooming up. But I don't think much of it is intentional (although I do think FQ intended the astronomical-bodies flower, linking with issue #6's gift).

(sorry for messy babble. Bit drunk)
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:56 / 07.07.07
I'm not sure I see a direct or indirect commentary going on in that last page, Sparrow - it's just the Unjustice League sinking back into the ground following the successful mission - everybody dying! They were unsaved! - and Zibarro looking up in a moment of loss, his first true friend gone. It doesn't feel particularly meta to me. But obviously there can be other interpretations...

SiliconDream: "AM NO MUCH TOO BUSY TO PROTECT PRECIOUS GARBAGE IN BIZARRO MUSEUM! SALMON AM ALREADY ORDER ME NO HELP JUMP DOWN WATERFALL! ARCH-ENEMY AM WHITE STURGEON, HIM NEVER ASK ME FOR NOTHING, AM NO LEAVE ME UNEMPLOYED!"

See, now I'm so sad that there was no Bizarro Aquaman. Except for the Bizarro Aquaman that lives on in our hearts (or our livers).

Come to think of it, Bizarro Green Lantern should pretty much just be the Quiz.

Except it'd be every power he hasn't thought of. Ironically, the old gimmick of the Bizarro Green Lantern - Yellow Lantern being afraid of everything - has been, ah, harshened to make the Sinestro Corps. I like Bizarro Lantern thinking about everything, though, and being immobilized. I think all the goo covering him was his ring's power...
 
 
Mug Chum
16:32 / 07.07.07
Nah I don't think it was as well, but at first reading the scenario, the composition (the heroes and the corpses) and the statue made it click in my head.

Did Solaris ever appear before visually?

PS: Christ, only now I noticed that the three bizarros mocking Zibarro were Perry, Lois and Jimmy. I think that adds more to the Zibarro-kinda-like-Kent idea.
 
 
Triplets
17:07 / 07.07.07
And what would a Bizarro Superman look like? He'd look like his opposite - Clark Kent. Only it's an imperfect Bizarro, so the two get blended in Zibarro. I like how there's a Bizarro Superman and Zibarro Clark Kent. If they were the same person that'd be too accurate. Too perfect.
 
 
The Falcon
17:36 / 07.07.07
Did Solaris ever appear before visually?

Yes, in DC One Million, which also featured Kal Kent and, in the 80-page special, Klzyzyk Klzntplzk.

PS: Christ, only now I noticed that the three bizarros mocking Zibarro were Perry, Lois and Jimmy. I think that adds more to the Zibarro-kinda-like-Kent idea.

Yeah, I'm actually unsure now whether it's Lois or Cat; the hair suggests possibly the latter.
 
 
Mug Chum
17:56 / 07.07.07
I think the red dress made me think of Lois because of the last issue (but if I'm remembering correctly, it was longer). I think Jimmy and Perry has the same clothes from the party as well (well Perry seems to always wear the same thing).

I read DC 1 Million once but too briefly and sort of a long time ago, but couldn't remember if Solaris actually appeared or was some other representation (like he was hidden inside our sun or something).

I'm very convinced Quintum is a villain. Something in his scenes combined with Solaris looking like Sauron made me see him as Grima Wormtongue. But he can't be, he's too cool damnit...
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:39 / 08.07.07
I'm very convinced Quintum is a villain. Something in his scenes combined with Solaris looking like Sauron made me see him as Grima Wormtongue. But he can't be, he's too cool damnit...

I really don't think Quintum's going to turn out to be a villain -- I like him functioning as a counterpoint to Lex, reminding the reader that not all of science is driven by petty, vicious inspirations like Luthor's. He's also the other side of Lex's desperate fear of Super-Infection, seeing ways that Kryptonian DNA, culture, and technology might be incorporated into Earth's. Of course there will always be a darker undercurrent to Quintum's futurism, but Morrison seems bent on depicting it as reasonably altruistic.

Hadn't thought about Solaris as Sauron. The Tyrant Sun's pretty pivotal to DC One Million, though - don't you remember Green Lantern encasing him in a green plasma safe to contain the nova?

The irony is that, for all his love of Super-infection and futurism, Quintum still comes across as dependent on the Man of Steel - the two pages where he tells Clark's secret to Lois (because he'll always be holding something back from her, won't he, even after coming clean) reveals a scientist who hasn't quite hit the point of knowing how to deal with the day-to-day functioning of Superman's life. He's working on the DNA but he doesn't know how to save people the way Clark does. So he sees a threat but still thinks in terms of Clark coming in to save everyone rather than sending the meganthropes or G-types to investigate.

Quintum's like Zibarro; they both have the potential for great things but have only the barest threads of how to do it in hand; Superman can only give them so much before they have to find their own steel will and save the day themselves. But Zibarro ends #8 with what looks to be the first embers of power, power to transform Bizarro-Home for the better, or escape it, or be a real boy.

And, maybe, if #9 centers around the replacement Superman and all that - maybe Quintum's a bit closer with that second to last page of #8- "Superman saved us all. But he's gone."

Lex is in a similar situation in that he's got a delightfully powerful brain like Quintum, and a particular goal (remaking society for the better) but he's too caught up in his petty revenge fantasies to take that next step. Superman's given them all - Lois included - so much, but they haven't quite taken the reins themselves. Yet. They need something to inspire great change, like maybe the death of a parent (Superman is the Super-Big-Daddy) - it's what turned Superboy into a Superman, after all.

...which might be how #6 serves as the series in micro. Parent dies, child grows up. The series is very modular, but it almost works better as a set of fractals in my head...

Back onto that two-pager with Lois and Leo. DUDE. Sure, Quintum just spilled the beans, but Lois now knows: Clark Kent is Superman. Not a joke, not a hoax, not an imaginary story. "But...this explains a lot of things, doesn't it? This is why Clark took a vacation after he interviewed Luthor on Death Row." She accepts the truth and there, in the dim of P.R.O.J.E.C.T., she's faced with the possibility that she's just now, just then, finally connected with the man she loves very much but she's going to lose him. The earlier question from #2 - what's going to happen when he's still young and beautiful and she's haggard and sagging in fifteen years time - well, that's just blown out of the water, isn't it? And it means something. I feel for Lois on that page, in that panel, having that realization.
 
 
Mug Chum
02:10 / 09.07.07
I think Quintum came off as bad signs for me because of his complete forsake of hope in Superman's return. It sounded kinda off, and the Demiurge's big Sauron eye just put me immediatly in LotR setting, Grima slipping despair and decay into people's ears.

I assumed from the very beginning that Quitum was quite a quintessential Morrison figure, progressive, solar and colorfully futuristic hippiesh, representing Superman's qualities in what science has best to offer in it's progressiveness and evolution and making mankind step foward. So I'm not expecting him to be a villain in the sense of mad evil scientist or something (and I hope he won't become a villain of any sort. Because he's just too good of a character and narrative function -- and to make him a evil scientist is just so... I don't know, "hippie gay scientists want to make armies of our evil clones from cells of aborted babies!"). Can't quite explain it.

I was thinking there was going to be, like you said, some darker undercurret because he was a bit too easily likeable in so many ways, in what he's doing, what he represents -- but also thought he was going to have some backlash due to the entire clone slaving thing.

don't you remember Green Lantern encasing him in a green plasma safe to contain the nova?

I remember very little from DC One Million. I only recently glimpsed through a second time just to see Kal Kent after issue 6.

The irony is that, for all his love of Super-infection and futurism, Quintum still comes across as dependent on the Man of Steel (...) Superman's given them all - Lois included - so much, but they haven't quite taken the reins themselves. Yet. They need something to inspire great change, like maybe the death of a parent (Superman is the Super-Big-Daddy) - it's what turned Superboy into a Superman, after all

That's a good point. Flunchy's theory two pages before might be somewhat right -- of Superman leaving mankind to become the sun (and ultimately dying like any other sun would while mankind either goes like Krypton or becomes independent space immigrants -- or any other metaphor, superhumans legacy, evolution etc -- taking their own baby steps 'without' their Superman-Sun). But I don't think the story is aiming at a definitive closed book ending like that, or something so literal as becoming the sun itself -- even if I'd love to, or even if he does as Future GoldSups in the official line (I mean, Superman has enough qualities of the big sun/ protective-nurishing-big-brother that has to leave one day already, and the series already played up the existing qualities, made new ones and brought big approximations of the two in every sense, including a very literal visual concrete one already -- the sun bringer in #7).

And yes, we need to hear more from Lois.

ps: that last 'goodbye' page. In Bizarro Land, and after what we just saw... it's really a 'hello', no? Or has someone recently put Beatles in headphones on my ears while I was sleeping again?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
02:30 / 09.07.07
I think Quintum came off as bad signs for me because of his complete forsake of hope in Superman's return. It sounded kinda off, and the Demiurge's big Sauron eye just put me immediatly in LotR setting, Grima slipping despair and decay into people's ears.

You know, I own the bloody trilogy DVD but that image didn't make me think of Sauron at all until you said something. Possibly, while Lex's pettiness and hatred emerges from genuine desire to push humanity up towards something better, Quintum might suffer from a pessimism that he tries to escape through futurism. Hence immediately thinking that Superman is gone. Lois should be able to tell him that this isn't true, even without knowing; she and Jimmy know he's always going to fly up for beyond and save them all.

I was thinking there was going to be, like you said, some darker undercurret because he was a bit too easily likeable in so many ways, in what he's doing, what he represents -- but also thought he was going to have some backlash due to the entire clone slaving thing.

Maybe we're just too used to thinking in terms of Government = Bad, and living in Batmanworld, where corruption seems inevitable. In some ways, having Quintum as a positive figure is practically experimental these days.

And yes, we need to hear more from Lois.

I presume we'll get that next issue with its Replacement Superman "Funeral for a Friend" hijinx, if the hype is truthful. I miss Lois, and I wish we'd get to see a grown-up Lana Lang to continue the seed of stories from #6.

ps: that last 'goodbye' page. In Bizarro Land, and after what we just saw... it's really a 'hello', no? Or has someone recently put Beatles in headphones on my ears while I was sleeping again?

That's a really beautiful idea to take away from that last page. and it does seem significantly, particularly given that while all the Bizarros are looking down - well, Zibarro's looking up.
 
 
The Natural Way
07:11 / 09.07.07
Where can I find the hype about the next issue being a Funeral for a Friend spoof? It would certainly make sense of the paper from the future in issue 3 with its 'Superman Dead' Headline.
 
 
The Natural Way
07:13 / 09.07.07
Although it wouldn't make sense that Clark wrote it. But, hey-ho, Morrison's always a bit tatty in the continuity dept.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:39 / 09.07.07
Is the Superman Dead newspaper story written by Clark Kent then? Maybe it's a 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow'-Gold Kryptonite thing then? Or maybe, because Superman's powers are all gone from being in the Underworld Clark thinks he's going to be a normal human and writes his obituary?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
13:41 / 09.07.07
I'm merely extrapolating based on them thinking that Clark's dead, and there having been hype that the series would include (a) a Replacement Superman and (b) a new identity for Clark. It seems, after the use of Doomsday in #4, like too good an opportunity to miss not to reference the "Funeral for a Friend" stuff. Mere speculation, though.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:39 / 09.07.07
I think the Gold Kryptonite thing's obviously wrong. Been done before. But I'm assuming Grant's read 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' and I might be mistaken.

Doubt it, though.

As for losing his powers after spending time in the underverse; okay, but that would seem an emotionally unsatisfying and anti-climatic way to resolve the major plot thread of the series so far. I can buy that he might lose them temporarily, but the whole poisoned by the Sun thing's very, very important to this book. It's where a great deal of the drama lies - the uncertainty, the new powers, etc, etc - it wasn't injected into the narrative so that it could be resolved just 8 issues in.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:00 / 09.07.07
Well, either he comes out of the Underverse and his powers come back full-force - which is possible, seeing as the damage is presumably already been done - or, alternatively, he rises up without much power left. Only there's Solaris to deal with, which means going back INTO THE SUN, knowing it'll kill him, but having to do the RIGHT THING because he's the only person who could function in that environment.
 
 
Triplets
15:10 / 09.07.07
Yeah, the impending solar aneurysm is the Big Bad for this series. The holographic/fractal nature of the series is key here. Only when Clark's overcome all his demons and mini-deaths (hell, mini-bosses) does he get to fight the Big D Death that's waiting.

I can see why it seems like removing his solar stores would cure him but we've seen this ish that cutting Clark off from the yellow-rays of the sun is as toxic as scooping up a fish to get it out of mucky water. He'd have died there on Htrae, and a damn sight quicker.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:17 / 09.07.07
Presumably, because he spent so long in a rocketship as a wee bebe, and then was raised under the yellow sun with Earthling gravity, exposure to Bizarro-Home's reddened light & super-gravities was giving him the solar equivalent of the Bends or something...he's never been shown before to have *that* dramatic a reaction to red sunlight.

Hmm.

Possibly it's more a case of the gravity and cold killing him once his powers started to fail.
 
 
iamus
15:46 / 09.07.07
I would of thought it's the fact that he's already dying, coupled with the removal of the invulnerability and suchlike.
 
 
The Natural Way
17:18 / 09.07.07
It's prolly the stress and pressure of descending into the Underverse that's killing him. Or that's what I thought, anyway.
 
 
SiliconDream
17:20 / 09.07.07
Possibly it's more a case of the gravity and cold killing him once his powers started to fail.

That's what I figured. I think Bizarro-home's gravity continued to increase well past Krypton's as it sank into the Underverse. Spacetime was warped to the point where "time stands still," according to Quintum.
 
 
Mr Tricks
21:19 / 09.07.07
Well couldn't we presume that the entire population of Htrae gets reabsorbed by the organism that swims in the underverse looking for planets to devour? Isn't this the "ever night" (or whatever it's called) where the entire population dies to the identity they've adopted to appear less threatening to population of Htrae's prey?

Later, it would then surface from the Underverse, retool itself to appear as a reflection of the planet it's about to attack and up to 5 billion Bizarro versions of this new planet's population would be created, followed eventually by a Zibarro. If this Planet eater were to surface near Rann, there would be a Bizarro ADAM STRANGE and, depending on RANN's population, a Zibarro version as well.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:09 / 09.07.07
Zibarro-2, Bizarro Adam Strange, and Bizarro-Home as Nnar. That is such a friggin' cool idea that I just can't contain myself. I JUST CAN'T CONTAIN MYSELF. I wanna write comix.
 
 
Mr Tricks
22:35 / 09.07.07
thanks . . .

Come to think of it, it could a pretty neat follow up to Zibarro's character arch. Bizarro Adam Strange (Normal Adam?), dedicated to destroying the planet as the ultimate solution to keeping Nnar's population safe from teeny-tiny water giants. The team-up between the real Adam Strange and Zibarro-2 to save both their planets from would be perfect. A, now brave, Zibarro gets to learn how to be a hero with-out flight or any other super powers beyond creativity and inspiration.

Throw in some Bizarro-Thangarian-Fishmen P.O.W's and we could wring an Aquaman appearance out of this as well . . .

All Star challenge anyone?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:35 / 10.07.07
Is the nighttime that devours in the shadow universe Grant playing with the white that devours reality from the original Crisis again? Crisis Over a Large Quantity of Bizarros!
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:19 / 10.07.07
I dunno, Lady. The white that devours was pretty much completely destructive, while the All-Night is more about the Bizarros going to "sleep" -- becoming inert "infra-material" making up the crust of Planet-Eater. I'm still having trouble parsing out whether or not the Bizarros view the All-Night as a positive thing that they long for or something else; Zibarro, obviously, doesn't count among them because he recognizes the loss of consciousness and fears it, while Super-Bizarro didn't want to think anymore...or did he?

But, Bizarros being opposite, sleeping darkness might be the opposite of devouring white, I suppose. Dissolution occurs in both cases in opposite ways.

This all leads me to thinking further on the Bizarros. The Unjustice League gather underground, orbiting the frozen core, because that's the opposite of what the JLA do (or is it? I would have imagined the JLA this Superman would be involved with might still meet in the Happy Harbour cave), but also because they're generated by Bizarro-Home from its soil/substance.

Similarly, Superman's the first and only alien visitor to Bizarro-Home. In A*S, Earth seems to be impacted by space more than space is impacted by Earth (at this point) - Superman's rocket, the meteor shower of Bizarros, et cetera. Bizarro-Home, by contrast, is always the invader, and seems in their own crude way, to be about Chthonic beings GOING UP: Green Lantern, typically a space-hero, is shown in Bizarro form emerging from the soil. There's no Bizarro-Martian Manhunter. The closest beings to alien Kryptonians are Le-Roj, Zibarro, and Super-Bizarro -- all of them generated from within Bizarro-Home.

I'm not sure where to take that, it's more just an observation.

It interests me that there's an implied history to Bizarro civilization, even though it presumably only dates back to whenever the Planet-Eater emerged from the underverse and assumed Earth-like characteristics. Did all of that history -- useless, pointless, non-constructive as it was -- happen in seconds, or did it happen comic-book-style, emerging as backstory in Bizarro heads? There's a metaphor in there, if you look between Bizarro Number 1 (who does, in fact, get the name plate in #8!) attacking Superman in space and replicating him (spontaneous generation of a character) over to Zibarro talking about his childhood with Le-Roj (implied backstory, when the civilization isn't supposed to be more than a short, short period of time)...
 
 
The Falcon
16:42 / 10.07.07
Yeah, that whole aspect has me puzzlin'. The last page, you can see everyone but Zibarro and the Unjustice League are already, like the Grundies in 7S, being reclaimed by the Htrae waiting to rise again. If Zibarro goes down, how's he to write? There's maybe some other existence.

This all leads me to thinking further on the Bizarros. The Unjustice League gather underground, orbiting the frozen core, because that's the opposite of what the JLA do (or is it? I would have imagined the JLA this Superman would be involved with might still meet in the Happy Harbour cave), but also because they're generated by Bizarro-Home from its soil/substance.

Well, that was the dig at ASB&RTBW I mentioned, because the (precursory, chronologically, according to GM and, you know, fair enough) storyarc there has their fairly unpleasant, if manically entertaining (now inc. watersports-fan Plastic Man) JL, meeting, well, under the street.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:51 / 10.07.07
It'd probably make more sense if I was reading Ass-Bats as well, but I'm only letting All-Star Superman touch my bits. My two bits.

I'm wondering if Zibarro will be subsumed back into the Planet-Eater with all the rest? Because he seems fully coherent on that last page while everybody else is beginning to sleep in the wreckage. Maybe the point is that he's too different to be reabsorbed? Or if he is absorbed, maybe his new essence will change the Eater?

There's definitely a weird metaphor happening with the Bizarros' backstories suddenly emerging from the depths.
 
 
The Falcon
18:17 / 10.07.07
I'm wondering if Zibarro will be subsumed back into the Planet-Eater with all the rest? Because he seems fully coherent on that last page while everybody else is beginning to sleep in the wreckage. Maybe the point is that he's too different to be reabsorbed? Or if he is absorbed, maybe his new essence will change the Eater?

I wondered too, until close [read: actual re-]reading revealed Zibarro's words "I'm... cursed to return to the frozen sludge like all the others when the All-Night comes". So, it may be authorial fuckup or you can no-prize, non-literal reader rationalise like, um, the Underverse need not be contiguous to only one Superman-containing universe or buildings, creatures, civilisations manifest spontaneously, crudely, with histories on close encounter with an oververse being.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
18:35 / 10.07.07
I still there's something interesting to what Superman says about Zibarro being proof that the Planet-Eater is changing, growing, evolving (there it is again!). I think there's an implication that when Zibarro is absorbed, it will lead to some new element in the Planet-Eater's substance.

Thinking more about the way Bizarros are - backwards - and the weird backstory issue, I wonder if time works backwards for them, and they grow a history backwards like other people have futures. They're not dying at the end so much as being unborn, after all.
 
 
Triplets
20:24 / 10.07.07
Excellent points, dudes.

I wonder if Zibarro will be reabsorbed into Bizarro-Home. Superman spurs him to keep writing after he leaves, to keep his "thoughts" alive. To stay cognitive and conscious and, thus, cohesive?

Or maybe that's another of his great "flaws", manifest when he generated as Zibarro, to avoid losing his chameleon identity.

Either way, writers have two brilliant ideas to work with. Can you see it? Zibarro: First Son of a Regenerating Planet! Where Zibarro, living long past the camouflage life of the Planet Eater, becomes a sort of Wandering Jew figure. Forever recording the travels of a predator planet.

Or we could have a constant succession of Zibarros. Zibarro Adam Normal, Zibarro John Jones (The Martianhunter) and Zibarro Zatman (a man with a leather-bat fetish just trying to run an honest business).

I think everything we see on Bizarro-Home has only existed for a few hours. Even Zib. It's all a warped copy of Superman's thoughts and memories, to keep him off guard. Zib's raised by Le Roj because it's a bizarro version of Superman's own childhood.

There's something in there about Le Roj sacrificing himself for Bizarro-Home (celebrating it's impending all-death?) and Jor-El trying to warn Krypton about it's impending destruction.
 
 
Triplets
20:26 / 10.07.07
Considering the amount of gab we've gotten out of this issue everyone who moaned about it being two parts can SHAHT IT!
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:37 / 10.07.07
I wonder if Zibarro will be reabsorbed into Bizarro-Home. Superman spurs him to keep writing after he leaves, to keep his "thoughts" alive. To stay cognitive and conscious and, thus, cohesive?

It certainly left rather open-ended. Zibarro might feel he's going to be reabsorbed - to fail, utterly, and lose his carefully protected sense of emo-self - up until Clark says, "And you, Zibarro... my friend. I know we'll meet again." Something clicks, something changes, specific to Zibarro, and I think he's given the opportunity - a genuine super-power - to maintain himself.

Or maybe that's another of his great "flaws", manifest when he generated as Zibarro, to avoid losing his chameleon identity.

Having trouble parsing this bit. He=Superman, Planet-Eater, or Zibarro? Whose chameleon identity? Probably doesn't matter, maybe, they all have one.

Either way, writers have two brilliant ideas to work with. Can you see it? Zibarro: First Son of a Regenerating Planet! Where Zibarro, living long past the camouflage life of the Planet Eater, becomes a sort of Wandering Jew figure. Forever recording the travels of a predator planet.

Zibarro, the First Man on Htrae! Zibarro, the Unphantom Unstranger! It would make for a rather fetching short story...and as was remarked upthread aways (back before Eight came out) - Zibarro might be a genuinely new element to the Super-mythos that could be used in the future.

Or we could have a constant succession of Zibarros. Zibarro Adam Normal, Zibarro John Jones (The Martianhunter) and Zibarro Zatman (a man with a leather-bat fetish just trying to run an honest business).

I wonder if that Zibarro would maintain enough of his inner self to recognize changes and absorb rather than mimic - whether his reincarnations would reflect and remember each other. Zibarro dropped to Planet Earth, Zibarro the Infra-Man, constantly emulating in awkward non-reverse.

I think everything we see on Bizarro-Home has only existed for a few hours. Even Zib. It's all a warped copy of Superman's thoughts and memories, to keep him off guard. Zib's raised by Le Roj because it's a bizarro version of Superman's own childhood.

Yez. Growing irrational memories of non-things that didn't happen.

There's something in there about Le Roj sacrificing himself for Bizarro-Home (celebrating it's impending all-death?) and Jor-El trying to warn Krypton about it's impending destruction.

I was puzzling over Le-Roj's funeral pyre, but that pretty much susses it out for me.
 
 
krakaboom
20:44 / 10.07.07
it's "Mr. Superman Goes To Hell". to the point of super near filibustering on the floor of the cube world begging for someone to listen and help.

descending. always descending. from the first bit of superman's non-flight capabilities, he(they) are seen walking DOWN. down stairs and sloping avenues or what have you. different levels to the bizarro cube-hell. to the point of superman wallowing in the muck. even the unjustice league arrive via yet another lower level.

zibarro being a sorta-psuedo-satan. a lucifer morningstar to the bizarro's all-night. not overtly evil in any way. but that nagging shouldercricket of hopelessness and despair. with his "sigh's" and "i told you so's". his tempting (pleading) of superman on the mound to "take me with you!". even his unintentional(?) blowing out of the match. it's almost cruel. but that is zibarro's curse because he CAN'T be anything other than zibarro. he's the fallen angel amongst the lost souls of the trash heap.
 
 
Triplets
20:45 / 10.07.07
Or maybe that's another of his great "flaws", manifest when he generated as Zibarro, to avoid losing his chameleon identity.

Having trouble parsing this bit. He=Superman, Planet-Eater, or Zibarro? Whose chameleon identity? Probably doesn't matter, maybe, they all have one.

Probably my dodgy writing. What I mean is, Zibarro's nature is - from his own perception - flawed. Maybe one aspect of his flawed generation by Bizarro-Home is that he can't be reabsorbed. Like you said much more simply, maybe he's just too weird.
 
  

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