Written by Greg Rucka and James Robinson
Art by Pete Woods and Ron Randall
The Story
And thus wraps up the miniseries. All is over and Superman gets to go back to his home with Lois in Metropolis and to his home titles of Superman and Action Comics…wait, what? No? Well darn.
For twelve issues, Superman: World of New Krypton has followed Superman on the recently established New Krypton. He’s helped his long lost brethren adapt to their emerging abilities while making sure former enemy General Zod doesn’t go all tyrannically evil with an army of super-powered Kryptonians.
Aside from ending the miniseries, this issue wraps up the investigation of a series of assassinations occurring on New Krypton, as well as several events that have happened throughout the miniseries. Superman, after some guest starring help from Adam Strange, begins to figure out the conspiracy behind it all and confronts the mastermind behind it.
The end, right? Not quite. All this issue does is wrap up the events of Superman: World of New Krypton, not the whole event itself. Superman is still Kal-El of the New Krypton military, a commander under General Zod. Seems like we have a bit more to go before he’s regularly back in the red, yellow and blues. In a month, Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton starts, which I can only hope isn’t more of the same Law & Order: New Krypton that this has been.
Honestly, I couldn’t find much interesting about the actual plot of this issue or the miniseries. There hasn’t been much about New Krypton to emotionally invest the reader, especially with taking Superman away from those characters readers already are invested in. Kal-El the soldier always questioning the morality of everything just isn’t the same as either Superman or Clark Kent, which would be nice if the character got back to sometime soon.
What this issue does do well is humanize the Kryptonians. We’ve had larger-than-life heroes and maniacal villains come out of Krypton before, but not just regular people. Here we have political corruption, military officers abusing power and simple workers having labor disputes with lack of representation. It feels grounded.
The reason this is important is because it effectively makes Superman even more alien. He wishes for his people to be better than the failings of all the other races he knows, but they’re just as human as his Earth home.
Superman can never truly be one of them just as he can never be one of us. As he ponders being unable to make much of a difference, he and the readers see that it’s not being an alien that makes Superman alien to everyone. It’s just being himself, being the Boy Scout with such high ideals that makes him alien.
While the issue isn’t particularly entertaining, it does develop some interesting points about Superman’s uniqueness. Superman isn’t going to be at home anywhere except for the one he has made for himself – Earth. Now if only he’d stop screwing around and get there. At least the ending seems to lead to some good old fashion Superman fisticuffs
5.5/10
The Art
I’m just not feeling it. The characters just fail to emote. Almost every face looks static and bland. At the very least, Superman should look a little pissed when someone gets murdered in front of him, but not at all here. Although he does have a pretty long face at times.
The color job is decent in showing bright objects. Adam Strange’s teleporting and a glowing waterfall are as bright as expected. Some blacks though blend in and don’t show any detail, particularly on military uniforms.
There are also some bad looking panels in here when the characters are distant from the vantage point. One in particular looks like Superman is missing a mouth.
Overall, it’s mediocre at best. Nothing to get excited about.
4/10
It’s an uneventful ending to a less-than-thrilling storyline. The ending is somewhat of a cliffhanger with a surprise appearance, but it’s really more of a relief than anything.
The Review
Story 5.5/10
Art 4/10
Overall (Not an Average) 5/10