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As fantastic as they are, sometimes bromances can go horribly and irretrievably wrong.  These stories are a kind of trap; you feel unable to put down the book because you can’t believe what you’re reading and you desperately need to know what’s going to go wrong next.  The part of you that remains sane wouldn’t mind going suddenly blind for about half an hour, just long enough to break the spell.  It’s very similar to the feeling I get when I watch daytime court shows.

The very best example of the bromance-gone-wrong is 1984’s World’s Finest Comics #289, “The Kryll Way of Dying.” The eroticized relationship between Batman and Superman in this book is so shocking and cringe-inspiring that accounts of it have popped up on the Internet for years.  I’m writing a description of this particular bromance story for two reasons: 1) in the hopes that I can introduce this story to someone out there, because I’m apparently part evil, and 2) to lend a queer voice to the conversation and let all the straights out there know that it’s as painful for us as it is for you guys.

The story opens with Batman swooping in on two thugs attacking a guy in an alley.  One of the thugs stabs the victim.  Batman beats the attacker to a pulp, then races to the victim’s side.  I could argue that Batman needs to examine his priorities more closely (save victim first, attack thugs later), but whatever.  When Batman finds that the mugging victim has died, he drops to his knees, shakes his fists to the heavens, and screams, “NOOOOOOOO,” as if in answer to a question that no one asked.

Cut to Superman, who is saving a group of mountain climbers from a falling boulder.  One of the brutish, insensitive mountain climbers points out that Superman’s “got the whole lousy world in his hands!” Strangely, this causes Supes to ruminate about the fact that his home planet of Krypton was destroyed and that “in the midst of teeming billions, I must ever stand virtually alone.” In addition to x-ray vision, heat vision, freezing breath, unaided flight, super-strength, a well-paying job doing what he likes, an intelligent and beautiful girlfriend, classic good looks, and friggin’ INVULNERABILITY, Superman also has the gift of super self-pity. 

Batman has since returned to the Batcave, and tells Alfred that he needs to be alone.  Alfred leaves, and Superman appears.  Batman tells Superman that he was just about to use his J.L.A. communicator to try to reach him.  “Yes…somehow, I knew,” Superman says cryptically.  “You knew?  But how could –“ “I suspect, friend, that we could both use some solitude.  But I think, too—that it would be better if neither of us spent this night alone,” Superman explains.  Batman agrees, and they fly off to the pre-Crisis, pre-Donner-designed Fortress of Solitude together.

I ask you, my gay brothers, if Superman said this to you, wouldn’t you just assume that you’d be in for the super-cornholing of a lifetime within the next 45 minutes?  Wouldn’t you be a little excited, underneath a whole lot of frightened?  It’s unclear how this escaped (heterosexual!) Doug Moench, the guy who wrote this.  We haven’t even gotten to the splash page yet, and everything is already pointing to some furtive yet surprisingly tender man-on-man action, and a whole lot of post-coital cuddling given all the talk about feelings we’ve been subjected to thus far.

Believe it or not, it gets worse.  Much, much worse.  Keep reading at your own risk.

At the North Pole, Superman gets the giant gold key disguised as an airplane marker and opens the door to the Fortress as Batman watches, probably wondering if the bat-condoms in his utility belt have expired and thinking he would’ve spent more time in the bat-gym that day if he’d known this was going to happen.

The two men enter the Fortress and share their feelings some more, mostly about being orphaned and a bunch of other stuff.  Superman sums up the conversation nicely, albeit creepily: “We’re like night and day, you and I, and yet we’re closer than we realize, closer that twins, because we complement each other.  We fit each other… like hand in glove.” As uncomfortable as this is, the panel of the two men grasping hands and the related boxes of exposition take it to the next level.  “They hold the grip for a long time… staring silently, shattering with the honesty of their eyes all the usual emotional obstacles of embarrassment and discomfiture.”

Before our heroes can make sweet, tender love on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace, Superman’s alarm system goes off, alerting him that something is approaching from space.  He races off and finds a meteor about to crash, and breaks it apart with a super-punch.  The chunks of destroyed meteor each open, and phallic-looking worms crawl out and immediately freeze.  Superman takes the worms back to the Fortress to examine them, and they spring back to life in the warmth.  They cause the weapons in Superman’s museum to float in the air and begin firing, as they draw an “aura” from Batman and Superman.  The superheroes defuse the threat, and the worms return to a docile state.  Superman flies off to deal with another meteor-like object heading for Earth, as Batman communicates telepathically with the peni—sorry, worms.

We learn that the worms (actually, “slugs,” according to Batman) were created by the Kryll, a once organic species that replaced their bodies and eventually brains with robotic technology.  Having lost all capacity for emotion, the Kryll genetically engineered the slugs to go out into the universe and collect emotions.  In their link with Batman and Superman, the slugs realize that their quest to collect emotion will leave Earth barren.  They decide that they have evolved beyond their creators, and have the capacity to experience empathy and self-sacrifice, and consequently decide to kill themselves to save the Earth. 

This isn’t such a bad ending for the slugs, except for the fact that their “evolution” involves one of the most homoerotically suggestive series of panels in comics history.  The slugs evolve by growing little orifices on their phallic bodies, where they get all up on inside each other. 

As the slugs die, they release the emotional energy (?) they have collected back to Batman and Superman, who then bust out crying, much the same way I did when I first saw “Fried Green Tomatoes” in 1990.  “A few years back some penis-looking slugs landed in that pond right over there, and it froze over so fast they got stuck in it.  They took off and that pond is now in Central City somewhere…”

What makes this story so uncomfortable for queer and straight readers alike?  The answer is simple: everything.  This is a gross mischaracterization of both lead characters.  They’re not the sort of bromantic couple that would talk about the nature of their relationship.  They would talk shop, right?  Crimefighting, battle techniques, how to address threats to Earth, that kind of thing.  In this book, they talk like two gay guys who just met at the Manhole Saloon after four martinis, and are trying to convince themselves and each other that this particular one-night stand is different because it’s actually the intimacy that they’re looking for. 

Another significant problem is that they don’t just do each other.  With the way the characters are portrayed in this story, it’s a problem that they don’t just hook up; the story feels incomplete without it, because it’s so clearly where they’re headed.

Finally, the worms.  It’s difficult to see the slug invasion anyway, but when the reader is forced to witness the inexplicable slug orgy, it just leaves you feeling dirty and wrong.

A word to comics writers, and aspiring writers: be careful with your bromances.  View this book as a warning, so at least it will have served some purpose other than some kind of reverse-aphrodisiac.

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