Superman #701 (comicboxcommentary.com)

5. Over There

Now it’s time to take a giant leap forward in the story and move to a moment which is…in the SAME PANEL as the previous one.

It’s like my copy of Grounded Vol.1 aggressively doesn’t want me to turn the page.

So after Superman tells the kid to give the drug dealers the message to leave, the kid responds, “Okay. But you KNOW they’re just gonna set up somewhere else, over there.” This is actually an incredibly reasonable and well-thought-out statement.

Superman however, responds in literally the dumbest way possible. And bear with me here, because I’m just going to quote it verbatim, because any paraphrasing I do will make it seem less stupid than it actually is.

Here we go…Superman says:

Yes, but they won’t be HERE anymore, and that’s a step in the right direction. See, in the end, all we can do is look at…where we’re standing, and say we will not allow this, here. Over there has to stand for itself…Because it’s only when over there becomes here that we can stop this once and for all.

Okay, so I actually don’t know where I could possibly start breaking that down. I shortened it a bit for simplicity’s sake, but you aren’t missing anything.

Can we start by acknowledging that the above quote makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER? I’ve read over the thing about waiting for “over there” to become “here” five times and I still can’t figure out what Superman is talking about in the slightest.

Also, it doesn’t even make sense within the events of the story. “Here” DIDN’T stand up for themselves, Superman did it for them. And “Over There” isn’t gonna have a Kryptonian around to deal with the problem. Also, RELOCATING A PROBLEM ISN’T THE SAME THING AS SOLVING IT!!! This is something that literally everyone knows. This speech is not profound, Superman, it is dumb. Really dumb. In just the worst way.

It might actually be the worst moment in the entire story arc. It’s just that bad.