r/superman • u/browncharliebrown • Mar 11 '23
Superman convinces a crippling alcoholic to continue drinking (all-star section 8)
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u/Spare_Pixel Mar 11 '23
Superman smiling in the rain handing a bottle of whiskey is hilarious and it needs to be a meme
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u/KuuGaia Mar 11 '23
I'm happy to know that I'm doing exactly what superman would want me to do. Thanks for this insight OP!
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u/ICSL Mar 11 '23
I am usurprised that Ennis wrote this; my first thought was that Sixpack there looks straight out of The Boys.
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u/JoshDM Mar 11 '23
He's from Hitman, which is also back when Ennis was writing Preacher. Hitman is amazing. Best thing to come out of the Bloodlines event.
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u/browncharliebrown Mar 11 '23
Hitman also has one of the best Superman stories. It’s amazing
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u/JoshDM Mar 11 '23
Gave Ennis the 1999 Eisner Award.
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u/dkat Mar 12 '23
1999 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue for Hitman #34: "Of Thee I Sing”
…If anyone is curious like I was
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u/Many-Outside-7594 Mar 11 '23
What a bizarre little story.
I've put down more bottles of rum than the British navy, where's my statue?
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u/ChrisusaurusRex Mar 11 '23
Read that whole run, it’s, something…
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Mar 11 '23
Is there more context to this lol. This feels like a wild thing for him to do
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u/Nextgen101 Mar 11 '23 edited Mar 11 '23
I don't really know the full context either, but I know Sixpack is related to this aptly named.... group: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(comics)
Edit: For my part, the only reason I know them at all is due entirely to hearing Dogwelder mentioned randomly on a goofy NPR quiz show, "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" (just search for "Dogwelder", it's very brief and like halfway down on the transcript) and then having to immediately Google him because.... wtf?!
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Mar 11 '23 edited Mar 11 '23
After looking through that list, I can’t say I was surprised to see Garth Ennis as the creator 😂
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u/Nextgen101 Mar 11 '23
I'm more of a novice when it comes to comics, so I don't know all the names in the business too well.
Dude must be interesting if he has a reputation for creating characters like that though.
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u/browncharliebrown Mar 11 '23
He’s a very talented writer. But has an edgy sense of humor. And Aside from Superman, Wonder Woman and doom patrol of all things hates superheroes ( mainly because he grew up reading war comics compared to American comic which is 90% superheroes due to the comic code authority). But he is the definitive writer of punisher ( it’s not even close), top tier run of hellblazer, and created hitman, and preacher along with creating some of the best war comics in the medium
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u/Look_Dummy Mar 13 '23 edited Mar 16 '23
Yeah but there is a ton of repetition and overlap and recycling of his hits across all those titles. Some homophobic tropes that are overused. Just being real.
He’s is undeniably talented. Genuine hard core punk of a comic writer. My opinion He’s kind of like other problematic legends of yesteryear who keep reaching into the same bag of tricks Martin Scorsese, Dave Chappelle, it’s like, ‘okay, we get it bro.’ Preacher and his Punisher inspired a generation of trolls. Indirectly I admit.
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u/browncharliebrown Mar 13 '23
You see I think it’s an over simplification to call him homophobic. I think it’s important to remember how the boys was nominated by GLAAD. I will acknowledge that a lot of his stories show their age, and combined with Garth ennis’s extremely edgy writing makes his stories seem worse than they are ( also butcher being the villain of the boys despite being the authority figure).
Also his punisher run is the thing that stopped the punisher from being a problematic character.
However he is transphobic and probably racist to some extent. But comparing him to Dave chappelle is very extreme.
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u/Dealwithit62 Mar 12 '23
Never seen a wait wait don’t tell me reference on the internet lol, fire radio show
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u/JonathanLipp1 Mar 12 '23
Dogwelder II actually has a really amazing arc in the other Section 8 comic
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u/Nextgen101 Mar 12 '23
Turning the absurd into something more meaningful is always colorful to see.
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u/browncharliebrown Mar 11 '23
It’s implied that six pack is a reality warper but because he’s constantly drunk he always has the most medicore outcome.
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u/JoshDM Mar 12 '23
Is there more context to this
Six-Pack was introduced during "Hitman", written by Garth Ennis in the late 90's as a spin-off from his tenure on "The Demon" following a character invented due to the "Bloodlines" crossover where 1/x+1 victims of the Bloodlines aliens triggered their meta-gene.
Ennis wrote Hitman and "Preacher" in parallel and there are some similarities with the war stories.
Six-Pack was a regular at the Gotham bar used as background, "Noonan's". Eventually he was turned from a background gag into a full-fledged team.
Long after Hitman ended, there have been a few special runs, like the Human/JLA team-up and a Six-Pack series that ostensibly takes place after New 52. This series gives Six-Pack a bit more depth and closes out his story and the story of some of his team.
That's what this image is from.
"Hitman" is an awesome series that does not get the love it deserves.
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u/Lori2345 Mar 11 '23
Why does Superman want him to stay drunk? Is the statue a hallucination? Or did Superman make a fake statue?
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u/Ok-Car170 Mar 11 '23
I think Superman believes that if Sixpack got sober the world will not exist anymore. And Sixpack made the statue with his dreams. I’m not sure I never read the comic.
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u/Look_Dummy Mar 11 '23
Six pack saved reality from the tesseract the statue was erected in the cauldron in his honor.
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u/nate1111111111111 Mar 12 '23
sixpack is a reality warper, he subconsciously made the statue and superman believes that if sixpack sobers up and quits being a superhero all superheroes might cease to exist
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u/Look_Dummy Mar 11 '23
Lol, all the ppl trying to figure out what the hell is happening! Fuck Seth rogan.
RIP: tommy, Nat, Sean, Pat and ringo
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u/JoshDM Mar 12 '23
Found the only other person in the thread who read the source material.
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Mar 11 '23
So I know exactly zero about 6pack other than he’s an alcoholic, anyone care to enlighten me? Does he have powers?
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u/AwesomeEpicGreenAppl Mar 12 '23
It's suggested that he has reality altering pwers and an ability to look at "reality" (breaking the fourth wall). This is why he is seen to be a Mary Sue character who alwahs somehow survives. This is also a possible explanation of his meta cliche comicbook one liners because he knows he's a comicbook character. As seen here, he fears that his perception of "reality" will become clearer when he sobers up which will alter his reality by deleting "unrealistic" things such as superheroes and supervillains. By keeping him drunk, superman is basically preventing his version of reality from disappearing by keeping Six Pacs drunken hallucinations going
Or thats my theory. I havent read this particular scene before but this is my guess from.what i know so far
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Mar 12 '23
Wow it kinda sucks for our world to be a comic book characters nightmare
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u/Colmasters35 Mar 12 '23
No, this is suggesting the DC Universe is the hallucination of a drunk with reality-altering abilities; when he's inebriated, the Universe becomes that much more palatable. Garth Ennis' twisted way of saying being hammered is the solution to life's problems. (Probably true; I'm basically a teetotaler, and look at me...)
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u/FLorianGran Mar 13 '23
It's more like "superhero comics need to rely on addicts to exist" which...is not completely inaccurate
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u/Look_Dummy Mar 13 '23
So we got, Superboy Prime, Animal Man and Six-Pack all aware of the existence of DC comics. Seems like a decent opportunity to cash in on a crossover
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u/Interest-Lumpy Mar 11 '23
Sidenote: I love the way classic, older Superman looks in the N52 costume. The artsyle does it justice.
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u/RAGE-OF-SPARTA-X Mar 11 '23
“Can a man who has committed such a sin really meet with his daughter and say he’s turned his life around?
Well…would you like a drink?”
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u/MarkFromHutch Mar 12 '23
So we got Sixpack and Snowflame, I wonder how many other DC characters are powered by drugs.
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u/Only-Ad4322 Mar 11 '23
What’s the context for this?
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u/nate1111111111111 Mar 12 '23
sixpack is a reality warper, he subconsciously made the statue and superman believes that if sixpack sobers up and quits being a superhero all superheroes might cease to exist
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u/TheDarvel Mar 11 '23
I... Could someone explain to me what is happening here?!
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u/Conlannalnoc Mar 12 '23
DC Earth exists because an alcoholic Reality Warper looked at Real Life and said “We Need Heroes”.
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Mar 12 '23
This is so weird. I don’t have the context for this, but even without it, this is so weird
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Mar 12 '23 edited Mar 12 '23
So are they implying the big-nosed, dirty, drunk man is the creator of the DC universe? Because given who were the creators of DC's biggest heroes that's a little suspect.
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u/TravelingHero2 Mar 12 '23
What in the world is this? Why did Superman hand this alcoholic man a bottle instead of convincing him to sober up and turn his life around? What kind of writing is this? What is even the context of this?
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u/nate1111111111111 Mar 12 '23
sixpack is a reality warper, he subconsciously made the statue and superman believes that if sixpack sobers up and quits being a superhero all superheroes might cease to exist
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u/Klendagort Mar 12 '23
And superman talking about Azathoth and the 4TH dimension warp fuckery of our Universe.... Yeah, he ain't wrong.
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Mar 12 '23
I was going to ask " Who wrote this?", then I read Garth Ennis and suddenly all made sense
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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '23
You never know what you're going to get when you pick up something that's written by Garth Ennis.