Worst. Blaspheming. EVER. (UPDATED!)

Source: CBM

It's been a pet theory of mine for awhile now that religious-outrage and fanboy-outrage are basically the same thing, psychologically, with societal-acceptance being the main difference. Taking the text of "Spider-Man" as the basis of one's life and raging at those who don't share your commitment? "Silly." Taking the text of an English translation of a Latin translations of a Greek translation of a Hebrew/Aramaic translation of ancient Middle-Eastern campfire stories as the basis of one's life and raging at those who don't share your commitment? "Republican Presidential Candidate."

With that in mind, I'd like to thank the proprietor of North Carolina's "Comics Conspiracy" for making that point amusingly clear: He's banned "Action Comics #1" - the "Superman's first year in action" retcon-series of the "New 52" - from his store because The Man of Steel took the Lord's Name in vain. Really.
To clear this up: The relaunched "Action" is set 5 years prior to the rest of the "new" DC Universe, and shows Superman's early days on the job; so early he's doing his crimefighting in blue jeans an a t-shirt, and has not fully developed his powers. Thematically, it's writer Grant Morrison attempting to take the character back to his pre-WWII stature as a street-level social-justice crusader - a walking embodiment of the (then) new protections of The New Deal.

In the sequence that so offended this particular shopkeep, Superman is fired on by a tank and exclaims "GD!," which he has taken as an abbreviation for "God damn!" Yeah, that's really it.

Two things about this strike me as especially amusing:

1.) I haven't read "Action #1" yet, but knowing Morrison's eye for obscure character detail it actually wouldn't surprise me if "GD!" is actually supposed to be Superman SAYING "GeeDee!" out loud as an intentional non-blasphemous curse word (see also "Gosh Darn," "Geez!," "Eff!," etc) befitting the "Tom Joad with super-strength" morally-upright hayseed farmboy 'social justice' Superman initially was. In other words, Morrison could actually have intended the line to be IN FAVOR of this dude's view on language.

2.) The fellow in question says he's been in the business for 35 years - which means he's been reading for longer than that, most likely - and that this is his "last straw" in liberal comic writers (he calls Morrison a "liberal scottish schmuck") taking liberties with characters: "Superman would NEVER take God's name in vain!" Uh... dude? Even putting aside that Superman isn't real... he used to take god's name in vain all the time: HIS god's! People tend to forget this (it doesn't come up much lately) but Kryptonians are actually supposed to have had their own religion based on worship of their red sun, "Rao," and "Great Rao" was Superman's go-to "holy shit!" proxy in the 70s. In the 80s, he flat-out confirmed that "Rao" is more-specifically the name of his God. Was this guy totally cool with Superman as a sun-worshipping pagan for the last three 40 years?

UPDATE: Grant Morrison has now publically stated that "GD" is actually just supposed to be Superman making a "grunt" sound because he just got hurt; which just makes this whole thing all the more hillarious. Morrison has a "thing" for stuff like this - when he was on "Justice League" the first time he popularized Batman constantly making a "Hh!" sound.