Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 – “All I Want for Christmas”!

This is a standalone issue not packaged with any collection that I can find! In the previous issue of Action Comics Vol. 1, Superman and Wonder Woman spend about 100,000,000 years fighting demons in Valhalla while never changing their clothes. Lois is jealous that he’s with Wonder Woman and then gets all insecure about whether or not she’s a good wife.

The answer is… she’s not. Get a divorce!

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Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 [February, 2000]
Written by: Joe Kelly
“All I Want for Christmas”

“This season there will be no cheer, for Demon is bringing loads of fear!”

Oh snap! Demon flying around on his own sleigh with his own sacks of fear?? What will Superman do?? We can’t be giving the children any fear for Christmas, Christianity already does a good job of that anyway, why compound it?

lol, there’s an ad in this comic for Sega Dreamcast’s Toy Commander. There’s a screenshot of a biplane shooting at a balloon shaped like an octagon. State of the art graphics!

“Metropolis, New Year’s Day, 2000. Shortly after midnight. Shortly after the world stopped.”

Yes, yes, Y2K hysteria. People screaming in the streets, running around car fires and derailed trains. We all lived through it and came out almost unscathed! Some of us still have 400 cans of beans in our basements. I know my aunt does.

“The screams build and the fires spread and the nightmare things that have entrenched themselves throughout our world spread terror and darkness… and five thousand years of Man’s progress come to an end.

Sounds like the Demon is bringing fear! I hope Superman’s puffy jawline can save the day again!

Flashback. Lois Lane is hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree. It’s cool that she’s not spending Christmas alone eating Kraft’s mac and cheese like she thought she was going to. Lois tells Clark she doesn’t want any presents this year, and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Don’t even think about it or she’ll kick his ass. And his ass is very big.

Clark argues that Christmas is in Lois’ blood! She loves tinsel and eggnog and Jesus and capitalism and white supremacy! And with Christmas comes Christmas presents, so get off Clark’s nuts. He got you a $3 gallon of Eau de Dog Bowl by Kellyanne Conway’s new line of perfumes, so receive it and appreciate it.

Yeah, Lois doesn’t want anything. No fuss, please. It’s always something like the blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or some exotic, poisonous fish from the bottom of Marianas Trench. It’s never, like, normal earrings or one of the new Bill O’Reilly books! It’s always some crazy bullshit.

Look, lady. It’s not even hard to get any of that stuff. Clark can travel to Jupiter in three seconds and scoop up the entire Giant Red Spot into a Coke bottle. It’s no big fucking deal. Still, though, Lois thinks she doesn’t deserve such gifts this year. She makes a sneer like someone took a super dump right on her face.

Clark agrees to get her a normal gift that a normal guy will give her wife, like a bowling ball. Or sass. Lois is pleased with this arrangement. Clark heads to the mall, which is more harrowing than any space villain he has ever faced! The average Christmas shopper is way more violent and unstoppable. If he isn’t careful, he might get jabbed in the ribs and his toes rolled over with a shopping cart containing 750 pounds of Hickory Farms smoked sausage.

“Hey fellas, ‘tis the season, right?” Clark says to a couple of rowdy men while looking like a concerned suburban dad. “What say you two shake hands and try to work this out?”

“‘Work it out?’ Mister, you don’t got kids, do ya? THEN SHADDUP!!!” they both spit at Clark simultaneously. Talk about setting aside differences! LMAO!

Clark is very uncomfortable. “Not like back home… is it, son? Small-town boy, right?” pipes in a little old lady. She’s got his number! She hands him a candy cane of good tidings and agrees with him that people should be nice on Christmas! Unless you’re speaking to a Jew. She doesn’t say that, but she certainly has that look in her eye…

Elsewhere, Lois feels bad for making Clark go the harder route. She especially feels bad because she made a deal with Lex Luthor behind his back, but that’s ok. It happens! Lois stares at a giant display of Superman merchandise, including cardboard cutouts (to fornicate with), t-shirts, dolls, hats, and mugs (to fornicate with).

A woman in a huge fur coat and pink smoke wisping out of her, aka the dreaded Encantadora, moves through the mall shopping for expensive knick-knacks and tasteless baubles. She spots the Superman display. “Superhombre!?! Change of plans, niños! Impulse buy!”

Encantadora looks at Lois. “My little brother simply adores Superman. He’ll want all of this…” She talks about how much of a hunk o’ man this dude is, totally rippling with muscles and full of super semen. It would be a tragedy if someone slipped Kryptonite in his glass of rice milk. *wink*

Lois finds it oddly comforting.

A crowd is gathered around the mall santa, who has been replaced by Demon who brings fear, aka Satan Claus! Clark pushes his way to the front of the crowd to probably say something like “hey, you!” and “let’s be nice!” to it.

“Bah! I left beloved Dis for this?” Demon says while grabbing the kid by the scruff. “A waste of time, yon idle tryst. No closer to the truth, am I – and Child has made mine leg not dry!”

While children continue peeing on Rhyming Demon Santa, Clark has already turned into the Super Man and snatches the kid off his lap. The demon is named Etrigan, and he’s been a bad boy this year! “I’m going to tell you this once, Etrigan… drop the Santa cap and back away from the reindeer before someone gets hurt.”

Then Superman punches the imp right in the mouth, knocking him around and increasing the likelihood of someone getting hurt twenty-fold.

“You’re not allowed unsupervised, Etrigan. What gives?” Superman asks as Etrian tries picking his jaw up off the floor. Etrigan rhymes some more, telling Superman to back off, man. He ain’t got a beef with him. BUT, since you got involved like a real asshole, Etrigan will return the favor!

FWASSSSH! This Hell Monster breathes fire! Cool! I hope Superman gets fried to a crunchy crisp. Shoppers disperse in all directions, which really should’ve happened five minutes ago. “That thing baked Superman!” yells a kid as he runs by Lois. She’s petrified, forgetting that Superman can swim down to the bottom of an active volcano and enjoy a tender penis-stroking session without harm.

“Today I walk the plane of Man. The way, the how, my secret plan!” booms the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Superman doesn’t like Etrigan’s secret plans. They usually involve death and destruction and smuggling and looting and eating too many sweets. Superman flies at the beast, but he gets uppercutted through the roof and straight to the Oort Cloud. Look that up, friends. It’s far away!

Encantadora shows up dressed like Sexy Santa Claus. She’s got boobs that look like they’re killing her back, fishnet stockings, and, of course, some of that alluring crimson smoke. “Superman is my boy toy, Señor Diablo, and I don’t want him broken… not by you, anyway.”

So many women trying to lure Superman away from his shitty wife who doesn’t even want presents! Not even the pinkest sand from the most faraway beach of the most remote planet of the most remote galaxy on Mars!

Etrigan doesn’t know who the fuck this woman is, but he goads her into coming close so that he can wring her neck. She says “no!” and tries to waft some of that stenchy perfume over toward him.

“The ‘perfume’, as you call it, is Mist of Ibella… and with it, you’ve just made me one jolly fella,” Etrigan smiles. Keep it in your pants, dork. Shitty writing abounds, heads up.

Meanwhile, at Justice League America HQ on the moon (since only America owns the moon, apparently), a couple of heroes I don’t know are trimming a tree. An elastic Mr. Fantastic ripoff, and some guy in a green mask. A big crash indicates that Superman got uppercutted all the way to that giant stupid rock revolving around the Earth. Do you smell what the rock is cooking? …nevermind, sorry, that was just me…

These two lovebirds ask if Superman is all right. He blames his sudden arrival on Christmas shopping and books it back to Earth. “ETRIGAN!!!” he screams zooming toward the ground at 1,000,000,000 mph. For those of you outside of the United States, that’s roughly a whole lot of km/h. At least two or three.

Superman is stunned – STUNNED – to see what he missed while he was gone for four nanoseconds. “I tried to stop him… but… he was too strong,” squeaks Encantadora, who has shrunk down and now appears to be a child. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Etrigan knows more about the mist than even Encantadora, and he took it from her! He took the mist! The mist! THE MIST! THHHEEEE MIIIIIIISSSSSTT!! And she’s not the only one he fucked all up. The whole store is full of women who are now fat, turned into witches… uh, harassed by giant cigarettes. “Everyone in the store is beset upon by – Lois,” concludes Superman, whatever this happens to mean. Lois has insecurities that she’s projecting all over the place? Join the club.

Lois runs through the store huffing and puffing, looking for a phone. Whatever happened, she wasn’t affected. Get a grip, gurl. Help Superman the only way you know how (sucking his bone).

“YOU OWE LI’L LEX SOME OF THAT JUICY YOU!!!” screams the leaping figure of a childlike Lex. Suited up. Eyes aglow. Looking like Demonic Mini-Me. Saying really stupid stuff like “juicy you”.

Elsewhere, Etrigan enjoys his victory and his control of the mist. “Most loaded of magic, just there for the taking, ‘round the neck of some floozy, just there for the breaking!” Yes yes, keep flexing that songwriting. Lennon and McCartney all rolled into one, this one. Etrigan waits for Superman to come find him so he can complete his mission of world domination or something to that effect.

Time to fight. Lots of fighting. Etrigan mocks in rhyme. Superman tells him to stop terrorizing these poor shoppers. Blah blah blah. Superman is actually able to be hurt and wonders what kind of powers the Etrigan fellow wields. Magic, my dear Watson! Sorcery! Rabbits out of hats!

Oh great, creepy Mini-Lex is trying to hug and kiss and rape Lois. Encantadora has become meek and self-doubting. Everything is out of whack. And we’re in the final quarter of the issue, so things are gonna get wrapped up quick I reckon.

Etrigan says he brought with him a gift for the people this holiday season. Superman clocks him and asks WHAT gift? The gift of help! Through terror and fear, he’s helping people by making them confront the fear! It’s altruistic, you see, and–

PUNCH! Etrigan doesn’t have time to talk anymore! It’s not really helping people! One day a year, Etrigan thrives. And, today, he’s going to destroy Jason Blood! Whoever that is. I guess the human inside Etrigan. I dunno. I had to look that up.

“Is it true? What’s he’s done with your mist, ‘Dora?” Superman asks, all concerned because he clearly has been wanting to fuck ‘Dora but he can’t because she looks like she’s 10-years-old. Also, he can’t because he loves Locust Lane and would rather fuck her any day of the week than this weird Mist Lady. I’m going on a tangent again, but that’s part of the deal when you read this shit.

Anyway, yes, it’s true. It’s true what’s he’s done with her mist. “How do I shut that cauldron down?” Superman asks her, referring to a cauldron of mist, apparently. Encantadora tells her that there’s nothing he can do. As long as it’s full, the power remains…

Well slap me sideways, Encantadora! There’s nothing that can be done? Wanna go get a burger, then? Red Robin has a kid’s menu!

OK, scratch that then. Maybe there’s a way to deplete its contents! Capital idea. Maybe he can drink it like that time Dumbledore drank stuff and hooted and hollered. Remember that? No? Me neither.

“You sop! You mop! You righteous fool! You’ve no strength o’er my magical tool!”

I was about to make fun of the sop/mop stuff, but “magical tool” is the real business here! That’s real rich. Superman decides to hover above the cauldron and start inhaling the mist deeply. Like so much lovely weed.

The mist confuses me. Without it, Encantadora is a 10-year-old girl, and Superman comments that this must be how she sees herself. However, WITH the mist, Superman sees himself as some hick? Why is this a two-way street?

Etrigan is literally in awe over Superman’s transformation and starts rhyming with reverence over Farmboy’s overalls. “A farming man, at home with the soil, the salt of the earth, knows endless toil. And what’s his reward for life on the range? He’s blessed with great power… the power to change.”

For reasons that are probably stupid, Superman carries a giant sack with people in it and starts flying across town. Everyone on the street looks up and smiles like pod people. Etrigan continues his flowery poetry like Superman is a god to be worshiped instead of a man who is wearing smelly farm clothes.

Superman flies to outer space and exhales all the mist into the vacuum.

“Well?” Superman addresses Etrigan after returning to Earth, “Any other stocking stuffers you’re looking to share, or can we call it a night?”

Etrigan is like, no sir. Everything is in order here. Spell is broken. Bye bye.

There’s some parallel about inner demons and change and triumph and self-actualization, but it doesn’t land. He advises the ugly motherfucker to channel his human host, Jason Blood, and get some perspective. Etrigan is like “ok” and prepares to go back to Hell where he verily belongs! “But I go with a smile and a song in my heart… ‘cause next year, I promise… I’ll tear you apart!”

Yes, whatever, very sexual. Go away, now.

Encantadora is back to her old sultry self. Superman thanks her for attempting to help. She complains about her lost mist, and also it’s snowing and it’s cold. Superman wraps his cape around her. She smiles. They got the ol’ fuck-me eyes.

Here’s her thank you: some cryptic information. “…a change is coming. …Beware the enemies inside.” That’s all he gets. Have fun deciphering that nonsense.

Suddenly, her mist comes back in full-force! That’s her cue to am-scray. Thank you, Superb Man, for all your help to get rid of that demonic mall Santa! Fare thee well!

*poof*

“Why do I have a feeling… that I’m going to be seeing a lot more of that woman?” Superman says, downtrodden, at the prospect of seeing a lot more of women in general.

With that, Clark goes home to see Lois. They hug in front of the Christmas tree. No kissing, though. That’s rated PG-13.

The comic ends with Etrigan cackling gleefully. He will bide his time, because the year 2000 is going to a memorable one for Superman. Heh heh heh heh… heh hehheheh… hahah ha hah ah… hah hahahaha… HAHA HAHA… AAHHHHH HA HA HAHA HAAAAAA!!”

The end.

Final Thoughts

This Etrigan fellow is the worst villain I’ve ever seen, good god. Someone take away his rhyming dictionary before we all voluntarily shove bullets into our brains gun-style.

The post Action Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #762 – “All I Want for Christmas” first appeared on Tom Writes About Stuff.