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.

Last Stand of New Krypton vol. 2

The latter half of this penultimate chapter of the New Krypton saga keeps things moving in high gear as General Zod, Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Mon-El, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and even Lex Luthor do battle with Brainiac. The upcoming war between New Krypton and Earth gets a few story beats, but the bulk of the action is focused on saving Kandor and the other bottled cities.  It’s good that the other bottled cities are part of the mix because otherwise the inevitable doom at the end of this epic would make this one feel like a bit of a waste of time.

Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton vol. 1

And at last, it’s all coming together.  Brainiac is back, and he is after Kandor.  And if you’ve been paying attention, Lex Luthor is right there with him.  Superman is duking it out with him.  And Mon-El is by his side.  And Supergirl is fighting against Brainiac’s hordes on New Krypton.  And Superboy has joined the action as well.  And the Legion of Super-Heroes are involved, working to save the future.

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. 

Superman: Mon-El – Man of Valor

The second (and last) Mon-El volume in this New Krypton saga holds up as well as the first one, making this stream of the story the most enjoyable for me amongst the three Superman “spin-off’s”.  Part of that is because Mon-El as a character is actually likeable, he’s genuinely heroic, and their are some great moments related to the Legion of Super-Heroes.  

Supergirl: Death and the Family

Don’t be confused, this isn’t the Batman story Death in the Family, or the Batman story Death of the Family.  This is the next (concurrently told) chapter in the New Krypton story.  The first thing you notice here is that the main plot actually has little to do with any of the “New Krypton” business.  That’s more the backdrop, while the real action is built around Supergirl fighting the Silver Banshee and saving her friend Mike Henderson, and Supergirl fighting the Insect Queen and saving her friend Lana Lang.

Nightwing & Flamebird vol. 2

Aaaaand here we are, back to concurrent storytelling in this New Krypton epic, into the second half of the four simultaneous series that contained it before it got into it’s last act.  I wasn’t sure what order to read these books in so I decided to do them more or less in the opposite order to how I enjoyed the prior chapters (sort of how I eat my meals sometimes).  That meant without a doubt that first up was Nightwing and Flamebird, vol. 2.

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: Codename Patriot

Codename: Patriot, by Greg Rucka, James Robinson and Sterling Gates, follows right on the heels of New Krypton vol. 3, showing the aftermath of the assassination attempt on General Zod.  The culprit flees and Krypton’s military, now led basically by Commander Kal-El (the other two ranking officers being the brutish and dopey Commander Gor and the psychotic but lovestruck Commander Ursa) trace him to earth.  He follows, but in his more traditional guise (the first issue ends with the book’s best moment as he takes out his familiar costume and says, “This is a job for Superman.”)

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.