Oh Noez! Superman Renounced His Citizenship!

I’m pretty astonished that anyone cares about this stuff. I mean, fer cryin’ out loud, I don’t care, and I actually read the freakin’ things! I assumed everyone would ignore the publicity stunt and get on with their real lives. Just shows what you get when you assume people won’t go nuts about trivial stuff.

Listen, here’s how y’all should be thinking of this thing. Back in ’93, Superman got killed by a monster from outer space. The same year, Batman got his back broken by Bane. Captain America was shot to death in 2007. And for some reason, none of those characters is dead or crippled any more. Because comics is a business, and sometimes, they try to shake things up by pulling crazy publicity stunts for a few months before putting their characters right back in their old status quo.

In other words, the screaming ninnies may take heart in the fact that in a few months, whenever this latest Superman storyarc is wrapped up, the Man of Steel will be waving the red, white, and blue again. “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” is too important to the character’s core, and DC Comics — a company very firmly locked into never deviating from their status quo — won’t ever give that up. It’s a stunt and nothing more.

And for goodness sake, I certainly hope DC doesn’t chicken out in the face of all the usual impotent Fox News screaming.

See, I think of it this way: The Tea Party is dying a slow and ugly death, ranting new variations of the black helicopter myths and mostly ignored by their preferred political party. Fox News has hitched itself to an aging demographic addicted to constant fits of panic and outrage. The Republican Party is trying to decide which crazy racist it’s going to latch onto as its latest savior.

They’re threatening boycotts now, but they’re toothless threats. The vast majority of those groups never read comics. The vast majority of them never watch summer superhero blockbusters. DC and Warner Bros. can easily afford to wait them out until all the screaming morons get distracted by the next shiny object to catch their eye. Seriously, can anyone really keep track of everything that Fox News attack poodle Megyn Kelly gets offended about? I think her hair got bleached by her own natural bile.

And hopefully, DC will have learned from Marvel’s previous embarrassing example — when you cave in for the screaming morons, you just humiliate yourself.

So if you’re mad about Superman — who’s an illegal immigrant anyway — renouncing his American citizenship, just settle down and forget it — it’ll all be over and forgotten before you know it.

And while we’re at it, please realize how fortunate you are that worrying about the citizenship of a fictional comic book character is the most pressing issue in your life… and maybe, you know, try to find some more valuable thing to spend your time focusing on.

And if you’re DC Comics, come on, guys, get yerself a backbone and don’t sweat the easily-distracted screamers.