And people say Ultraman's a jerk.
I don't know what's up with Peter Milligan. His work of late hasn't exactly been stellar; his JLD was middle-of-the-line, his Stormwatch caused me actual physical agony, and the less we talk about his Red Lanterns, the better. Still, the guy used to be somebody, which is why it's surprising to find him writing trash like this that has no redeeming quality to speak of. Stories like "The Demolisher" make you grateful that Adventures of Superman has a rotating crew of writers; if a story sucks, you only have to put up with it for three weeks until the guy producing the sucking is gone.
This review is actually for all three issues of this arc rather than just the finale. The story goes thus: people in Metropolis are apparently always complaining about how Superman's a pussy (that might not be their exact complaint, but I'm paraphrasing for your benefit) and that he's soft on crime. So when a new superhero called the Demolisher shows up and starts punishing crime via the shattering of bones and other acts of physical hardship, everyone's all aflutter. The Demolisher breaks Toyman's arms to make sure he can never build his creepy crap again, and then breaks into prisons to thrash gangsters until they're on the brink of death. Some like him, some don't. The story really only starts to go downhill at the end of the first issue, where it's revealed that Demolisher is actually Superman in disguise.
"But Saren," I hear you ask, "wouldn't you have to be a complete idiot to think Superman of all people would just pole-vault over the moral horizon like that?". Yes, dear reader, you would. There are a lot of characters whose morals can be toyed around with. Superman just isn't one of them. Unwavering moral rectitude is sort of his thing.
But hey, this is a digital out-of-continuity series. You can bend the rules a little! Maybe Superman could go over to the dark seid here. If it were actually done well, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. This isn't done well. It's easily the hammiest, most unsubtle story in the series. After the first issue's reveal, you could be forgiven for praying that this is one of those stories where Superman's under mind control or a spell or some cliche like that. But it's not. Superman just has a dark night of the soul and decides to be a Genuine Badass™ because he's tired of people calling him a pussy all the time. He even justifies it with "No one said I had to be adorable." You're f**king Superman, for god's sake. At one point it's suggested one of the reasons he became Demolisher was because he's tired of Lois not falling head-over-heels for the meek and mild-mannered routine ---- even though the first issue portrays Lois dropping hints about her attraction to Clark that are so heavy even Superman couldn't lift them. Is Clark really that much of an idiot?
The story concludes with an issue where Demolisher decides to shut down the city's power station. Why does he decide to shut down the city's power station? Because when the entire city's dark, all the criminals will come out, you see. And when the wretched masses are besieged by scum on all sides, then they'll realize that they need Demolisher, not Superman. And then Clark will never need to be that useless boy scout again. I wish I was making any of this up. I wish I was making up the fact that Peter Milligan thinks Superman really wants to be Batman, if Batman was permanently on crack and had a chemical imbalance in his brain.
Fortunately no such thing happens to Metropolis. At the last minute, Clark realizes he's not a raving lunatic and snaps back to Superman mode. How does he do this? By convulsing and wrestling with himself, as if he were literally pulling free of the Demolisher. Why, Milligan, why? You've already made it clear that this is just Superman playing out a childish power fantasy. Why even try to throw in some weird psychological nuance at this point?
The experience convinces Clark that the Demolisher has to go. How does the Demolisher finally go? If your answer was "Clark dresses up as him one final time and robs a bank in full view of CCTV cameras, just so people won't like the Demolisher anymore", condolences, you have Peter Milligan's brain. With the same subtlety that inspired that issue of Red Lanterns where Atrocitus' top priority was throwing up on random humans he'd never met before, Milligan depicts the change in attitudes by having the citizens of Metropolis basically yell out loud "Hey, Demolisher sucks! Give us back Superman!". And boom! Superman's back. Problem solved.
This issue will leave you profoundly thankful for AOS's rotating crew of writers, and stricken with fear that Milligan might eventually come back for another arc. Save your 99 cents, boys and girls. Buy a knitting pattern or something.