Dear DC:

Superboyman-Prime was a humdinger of a bad idea. Hoo boy, was it ever a stinker. I hate to lay it out to you like that, but there it is. Sometimes, the band-aid has got to come right off.

A Superman counterpart who is selfish, whiny, evil, and self-motivated? Really, DC? What the Didio were you thinking?

Look DC, there are characters you can turn evil and there are characters you can't. People bought into Tony Stark acting like a big ol' dick and getting Captain America killed, but dude, Iron Man ain't Superman. (By the by, the failure the first time Marvel turned Iron Man evil was strictly due to the leather jackets the Avengers wore at the time. I can prove this with pie charts and venn diagrams, but that's a different topic for a different day. And did Marvel try to turn Captain America evil? Well, did they? Of course not, DC. Shame on you.)

You could have gotten away with it if you turned a Batman counterpart evil. The guy saw his own parents gunned down in cold blood right in front of him. Bound to fuck a kid right up. So if you wanted to turn a counterpart of his evil, I'd be right on board with that idea. Hell, Batman created the Brother Eye satellite and that turned into a big ol' batch of steaming evil, right? Plus, the guy's a control freak. He's the jealous husband wearing the wife beater who keeps his wife on an allowance of $2 per week. A Batman from a parallel universe going nuts isn't an awful idea.

But Superman? Really? Who thought this was a good idea? Superman is the Big Blue Boy Scout. He's the hero that inspires other heroes in the DCU. He doesn't lie to his mother, steal from his boss, or cheat on his wife. He's truth, justice, and the freakin' American way. He's more than just a hero, he's a goddamn ideal. He should be incorruptible. And what do you guys go and do? You take a counterpart of his and turn him into this . . . imbecile on the right (image courtesy of our friend Tommy at SayItBackwards, one of the best comics-related blogs out there; Tommy kind of likes the idea of an evil Superman, and HE'S WRONG, but he still has a top-notch blog).

I'm cool with the black costume, DC. I'm even willing to live with the second grade dialogue. Really. Personally, I think "Kill you to death!" should be made into t-shirts. You'd make a mint. So seriously, I don't hold any of that against you, baby. But what ever possessed you to do the unthinkable and corrupt Superman?

Okay, sure, this is not our Superman. This is the Superman of Earth-Prime. Thing is, you always implied to the reader that the Superboyman from Earth-Prime was going to grow up to be pretty close to our Superman. That's right, you did. Don't go saying you didn't. I know what you said. Are you calling me a liar? Are you calling me a liar? I didn't think so.

And our Superman CANNOT BE CORRUPTED. He cannot be driven insane, he cannot lose hope, and he cannot be so despondent at the state of the universe that he decides, "Oh well. Fuck it. Gonna blow that sumbitch up an' start over." He should always persevere. Always. He doesn't scar his own chest and he doesn't maim magical imps from the fifth dimension with his heat vision.

Superman is an ideal. You don't turn an ideal evil DC, you just don't. I don't want to hear it about Ultraman, either. He was evil from the get go. That was the whole point of the character. He wasn't ever going to be the Superman that we know, and thus, was never corrupted. So don't even go there with me.

So fix it, DC. Please. I'm beggin' ya. We've been through a lot together, haven't we? Come on, baby. Don't be like that. We can make this work.

I don't know who this Paperghost dude is, but I'm guessing he made the image on the right and he's got the right idea.