War of the Supermen (Finally!)

Reset!  Reset!  Reset!

Seriously.  It’s hard to imagine, a bigger, more grandly-scoped, modern day epic that ends with less changes to the status quo than New Krypton.  War of the Supermen managing to bring all the various plot threads to a world-shattering climax, with massive battles, the nearly complete destruction of one population, and vicious destruction wrecked upon another, and yet with all the familiar pieces of Superman-lore back into their most comfortable positions, all neatly tied up in one trade paperback.  Which is a pity, since it wasn’t that long before the whole DCUniverse reset again, so in retrospect there was no real need to bring everything back to such well-trodden ground.

Superman: New Krypton vol. 4

And with this book we come to the end of the “middle” of the New Krypton story, and the end of the concurrent storytelling.  And not a moment too soon.  There’s been a lot of energy spent trying to keep track of the different threads and the internal chronology of this epic.  Actually, the first issue in this current book is already printed at the start of the Codename: Patriot book, just for the sake of these trades actually carrying the entirety of the actual New Kryptons series. 

Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives

Turns out that Supergirl dresses pretty much the same in her civilian life as she does in her costume.  You’d think that be a potential secret identity risk, but oh well.

Superman: New Krypton vol. 3

And so we finally come to a place where all of concurrent storylines in the New Krypton saga are up to the same point. And though I was not reading any of this as it came out, it’s fairly obvious that this particular stream was the flagship title at the time, even though it wasn’t appearing in any of the regularly published series. This is where we actually got a proper taste of “New Krypton” as a world and a society. And even more importantly, this is where we had appearances Superman himself.

Superman: Nightwing and Flamebird vol. 1

I started off rereading the Nightwing & Flamebird vol. 1, largely written by Greg Rucka, thinking it was one of the better New Krypton books.  It had a strong story start, quickly establishing the identities of the mysterious heroes (which has been kept a mystery in the other concurrent books I’d read) and giving them a sense of a mission on earth.  We got a clear picture of General Zod and Ursa’s involvement, and the whole thing really came across as a decent follow-up to Last Son, which is one of the books that really set this whole story arc into motion.

Superman: Last Son

Last Son is not the greatest Superman story, but it is an enjoyable one, giving the hero some genuine emotional stakes to be fighting for, and nicely balancing a character-driven premise with exciting action.  The story has to do with the unexpected arrival of yet another Kryptonian child on earth, and the mystery of his identity.  Superman must not only cope with this newcomer who is in some ways so similar to himself, but also to how his adopted planet responds to an immensely powerful alien being whose arrival is so much more public than his was.