Superman #668 Review

SUPERMAN #668
Written by Kurt Busiek
Art by Rick Leonardi

I don't usually read Superman. I typically stick to All-Star Superman and Donner / Johns Action Comics. As the Bizarro storyline has not done it for me and the multiple delays on the Zod story have put me off on their work, I decided to take a chance on the beginning of the Busiek penned "The Third Kryptonian" story arc. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed.

The comic focuses on Superman following up on the Auctioneer telling him several months ago that there was a third Kryptonian on Earth besides him and Supergirl. He rules out people like Zod or his son, and Superman's adopted son, Chris as well as Krypto the Super Dog, as they were all off planet or in the Negative Zone at the time the Auctioneer showed up. He also rules out Power Girl as she does not register as Kryptonian since she is from a different Earth.

With the main players out of the picture and the basis of the story set, Superman and Batman focus on rooting out all alien presences on Earth in hopes of finding the third Kryptonian. This leads to a great scene with Superman introducing his adopted son, Chris, to Batman and Robin. I loved everything about this scene, especially the interplay with Robin and Chris and their relating to each other as adopted sons' of Batman and Superman. I also liked Batman's admission to researching ways of stopping Superman and his sharing that information with Superman in an attempt to help Chris fit in better with a power dampener. I think that was a perfect example of the "new" Batman post-Infinite Crisis and One Year Later. He's still a paranoid nutjob, but not a complete dick to his friends and it's played really well here.

The only thing this storyline has going against it is the mysterious "anti-Kryptonian" badguy Busiek has introduced. As I said, I'm not a huge Superman fan, but I believe this is a new player in the franchise and I just can't see this alien race that still carries a grudge against the Kryptonians even after the entire planet was wiped out and the race thought extinct. For them to actually be a credible threat to Superman is another problem as if they were strong enough to take on Superman and multiple Kryptonians on Earth, why didn't they wipe them all out when they were under the red sun on Krypton?

It's still early in this arc, so I'll let these complaints slide, but one of my major beefs with comics is the contrived villain appearing out of no where as a viable threat or mysterious person / friend / family member being revealed to the character despite not seeing or hearing about it for years our time. Hopefully Busiek will be able to pull this mystery villain from Krypton's past off in future issues as I am really enjoying the beginning of this arc and looking forward to more. I'm also glad to see more of Chris, as he had fallen to the wayside with the delays in the Zod storyline. Some great moments between the big two in this issue and definitely worth a read for anyone with even the most superficial knowledge of the current Superman titles.

Verdict - Check It

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