Superman: World of New Krypton #4 Review

SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #4
Written by James Robinson and Greg Rucka
Art by Pete Woods

Sigh. I was quite disappointed with this issue. Not just because there was no Green Lantern vs Superman fight (would have been a tad cliched anyways) or that the cover was so misleading or even that the creators had hyped this issue up as the one to watch out for with the guest appearance by the Green Lanterns. No, the reason I'm so disappointed is that this issue plays to the weakest and most absurd parts of the planet of several thousand Supermen plot.

One such notion is that Superman can hear a the moving of air as someone is flying at super speeds, yet has no clue that Zod is building an armada of war ships in the one city on the planet? Seriously? And what the hell does an army of Supermen need space ships for? If it's for protection from Kyrptonite/red star light, they should just build lead shielding/yellow light power suits to protect them from their few weaknesses. Building an armada of ships is ridiculous. They don't even have enough people to pilot ships that big or in that number.

Another is the desire to kill off as many Kryptonians as possible. There's only a few hundred thousand of them and Zod is giving kill orders for criminals from the Phantom Zone. When Superman disobeys the order, Zod then arrests him for treason, which is a death sentence for another of their endangered species.

However, I think the biggest problem with the issue is that the Green Lanterns show up, follow Superman around for an entire issue and then leave. They don't do anything, add nothing to the story and are, in general, just there so they can have a misleading cover to sell more books. While there is the pretense that the Guardians want them there for a fact finding mission, all it seems to do is paint Superman as a bumbling idiot that can't see the forest through the trees in regards to just how horrible a people the Kryptonians are shown to be here with their armada building, extreme justice and cast systems.

Verdict - Avoid It. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of anything good to say about this issue. It's like they tried their best to do the absolute worst story possible for something that should have been a homerun with the Green Lanterns checking up on this new planet full of Supermen-level beings.

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Superman: World of new Krypton #2 Review

SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #2 (OF 12)
Written by James Robinson and Greg Rucka
Art by Pete Woods

Where the first issue grabbed me with its simplicity and excellent reveal twist of having Superman join the military guild, Superman: World of New Krypton #2 felt a lot like a world building issue. It simply spent too much time introducing people, such as Superman's new squad and subordinates, or trying to beat us over the head with the different culture inherent in the Kryptonian way of life. It's never outright bad and there are some good moments here, but it never actually thrills me or delivers on the unique promise of the first issue's reveal.

As I said, we're introduced to Kal's new squad that Zod has put him in charge of. I didn't recognize any names nor am I going to bother looking them up. The only thing you need to know is it's more of a 'police squad' than an actual military division, most likely designed to keep Clark out of Zod's hair.

One of the oddest things from the issue was the inclusion of the new 'red sunlight' guns. I'm not sure what the purpose of these really is. With so few Kryptonians left alive, wouldn't it be in their best interests to have non-lethal means of stopping potential criminals or dissidents without murdering a large percentage of their relatively few numbers? If they're meant as offensive military weaponry, why the red sunlight secondary fire? Why guns in the first place? They're an army of Supermen, just use heat vision or punch stuff!

In fact, I think the only reason the guns were included was to set up the main event of this issue - the labor guild gets a hold of a few guns and takes some people hostage. This would be more effective of a plot if the hostages couldn't move at the speed of light (or faster since Superman can obviously travel from planet to planet at faster than light speeds) and escape with relative ease. Hell, as Zod pointed out earlier in the issue, he can hear anything Superman says on New Krypton thanks to his powers. How the hell does no one notice an entire guild setting up something like this? In all honesty, this labor guild rebellion felt forced and unnecessary. We've seen maybe two panels of mild dissatisfaction about their current status over the past two issues and there's absolutely nothing to substantiate the conflict nor make us care about its outcome with so many contrived events building up to it.

Verdict - Check It. I'm still intrigued with Superman's life in the military guild, but there's only so much suspension of disbelief in regards to the forced labor guild hostage plot that makes up the latter half of this issue and its cliffhanger.

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Superman: World of New Krypton #1 Review

SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #1 (OF 12)
Written by Greg Rucka & James Robinson
Art by Pete Woods

Okay, I know I said in the previews that I was kind of tired of the Superman titles with Johns and Frank gone and not really interested in the whole New Krypton arc up until now, but this issue finally delivered on all accounts and made me a believer in this storyline again.

For those out of the loop, Brainiac came back several months ago. This was the "real" Brainiac and all others we had seen up until now were labelled as robots or fakes. He had the real shrunken Kandor city on his ship. After Superman defeated Brainiac, Kandor was restored to it's rightful size. After some trials and tribulations on Earth, the Kryptonians moved the city off planet and created their own crystallized New Krypton planet, which now orbits opposite to Earth. World of New Krypton picks up after Earth has banned Kryptonians from Earth and Superman has left to join his people on New Krypton.

What immediately pleased me about this issue is that Superman was finally interacting with his fellow Kryptonians. Previously, he simply reacted to whatever crisis was going on at the time, whether Zod's followers killing some humans or Luthor and General Lane's sneak attack or what have you. This issue told me more about what the Kryptonians are like, what their society is currently like and gave that much needed attention to the people of New Krypton, who have mostly been treated as nameless, faceless cannonfodder up until now.

The only real complaint I have about the issue is that it took them so damn long to get to this point. Most of the things occuring in this issue should have happened in the first several issues of the New Krypton storyline. We have scenes with Kryptonians slamming into walls, having trouble flying and practicing using heat vision - all logical and things they should have been doing as soon as they found out they had powers.

My favourite part of the issue dealt with Superman's interactions with the General Zod lead Military Guild, which plays into the final page of the issue where Superman chooses his Kryptonian guild - the very same Zod controlled Military Guild. I was not expecting him to join up with the Kryptonian military nor was I expecting him to drop his Superman costume in favour of the imposing commander's military uniform he's shown sporting in the final page.

Verdict - Must Read. I'm not sure if I'll be following the other Superman titles, but I'm definitely sold on World of New Krypton. Excellent first issue that has sold me on the "world without Superman concept".

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Superman: World of New Krypton Archives

Archives - Back Issue Bins - DC - Superman: World of New Krypton

Superman: World of New Krypton

Superman:World of New Krypton #1 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Must Read
Superman:World of New Krypton #2 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #3 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #4 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #5 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #6 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #7 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #8 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #9 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #10 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #11 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown
Superman:World of New Krypton #12 - Superman leaves Earth - Verdict - Unknown

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