Homeless For the Holidays

Time for a Christmas story. A heartwarming one from 1989 by Roger Stern and Dan Jurgens.

Ok, so Superman is walking about town, waxing romantic about Christmas and how magical it is. Then he hears trouble:And by trouble, I mean a cuss word. I love that. "What?! A swear?! At Christmastime?!"

Because he has nothing better to do, Superman springs into action:

So even Superman admits that this isn't an emergency. It's profanity coming from a construction site. If Superman jumped every time he heard that, he would never have time to do anything else.

I will admit that the scene that follows is very cute and touching. And shows that construction guys sometimes like to spell out words rather than just say them.

Aw, that's a very cute tradition. I love these construction guys. Then they invite Superman to stay for coffee and sandwiches, and then sing to him as he flies away! Angels, every one of them. God bless you, Metropolis construction workers!

I posted the rest of that page so you could follow the story. It's his last day at the Planet because he's accepted an editor job at Newstime. I also think those floating heads of his coworkers are hilarious.

Moving on, the following page has one of the best Superman-changing-into-Clark panels I've ever seen:

Ok, the real reason why I am posting this comic is because it really hits close to home for me this year. Why, just last week I finished my job at a newspaper. I cleaned out my desk just before the Christmas break. Sure, I'm not accepting a fancy editor job somewhere else so much as I am taking more time to play video games and blog, but I can really relate to Clark here. Except maybe my co-workers weren't quite so cold to me.

Actually, as it turns out, the Planet staff is faking it. They love Clark still.

Clark, however, still isn't comfortable with kissing hot women.

Awww, surprise party. That's nice.

Anyway, there is a reason why this comic is called Homeless for the Holidays. It turns out that Planet employee Alice is secretly homeless...for the holidays.

What the shit, Perry? Pay your employees more! There is no way someone working full-time at a world class newspaper should have to live in a store closet.

In response, Perry writes a very long and heart-warming editorial piece on homeless people and what good citizens can do to help. I'm not going to repeat it here. It's goes on for over four pages. I'll give you a taste:

It's about time we reminded ourselves that the shabbily-dressed stranger shuffling by is another human being. Maybe he's not a "worthless bum"...maybe he's just had a run of bad luck. But we'll never know unless we make an effort to find out.

Uhh...ok. And if we find out that they are, indeed, a "worthless bum," then what? And at what point do we know that for sure?

Alice ends up spending Christmas with the White family. And Perry tells her he's going to convince management to start paying her decently. Which...is good. Seems like that should have been happening in the first place, but anyway.

Meanwhile, at the Kent Farm...it's heavy handed platitudes for everyone!

And creepy, Joker-faced Superman slamming back the nog.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Or, if you celebrate another holiday, enjoy that too. I'm unemployed now so this blog will be much less neglected in '07. That's my resolution.