Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton Issue 1

This Brainiac guy just doesn’t quit! The 12 issue Superman: World of New Krypton has just ended with the appearance of the Brainiac skull based ship hovering over New Krypton and Rao help us all! This issue picks up immediately where SWNK left off. We begin of course with a quick historical narration from General Zod.

Explaining how Kandor was taken from Old Krypton and placed into the bottle on Brainiacs ship. That defeat planted a seed in the people of Kandor, one of defeat and fear.  But the yellow sun that New Krypton orbits has changed things. This time the people of Kandor are ready and able to fight back.

The first few pages are panels of utter mayhem.  A lot of heat vision flying around, robots being ripped in half and general carnage is the gist of it.  Zod is in his command center with Ursa whipping up some scheme to take down Brainiac once and for all. What I really like about fighting Brainiac robots is that Kal-El doesn’t have to pull his punches.  He has no compunction about ripping robots in half with his hands or putting a fist through a metallic skull (quite a difference from his standard method of operation.)

Zod tries his standard approach of firing first and planning later.  To the detriment of many of his soliders and to no effect on the Brainiac ship.  Kal-El can’t take it any longer and quits his post within the military guild.  This is where we get to hear my favorite Superman quote (which I haven’t heard in well over a year of issues.)  “This is a job for Superman” he states as he takes to the sky and rips off his Red Shard uniform to reveal the classic red and blue!

Supergirl finds her mother and they battle their way past the new Brainiac bots which are now firing red suns burst and are able to actually put some hurt on the Kryptonians. With an assist from Mon-El, Conner and The Legion of Superheros it looks like they might be able to turn the tide if Zod was willing to accept their help that is!  He can’t handle it and decides to arrest the Legion instead of accepting their help.

Superman breaks into the Brainiac ship in orbit and is seeking out the main man when he is hit with a blast of kryptonite. But the blast didn’t come from Brainiac.  It came from his apparent new partner in crime.  The evil team up Superman probably never saw coming… Brainiac and Lex Luthor are partners in crime!

In total this is a great setup to what looks like will be a very fun arch in the Superman series.  It was a great way to see Superman get back into the swing of things and pickup the mantle of Superman.  Brainiac stories are always fun, and who doesn’t love a Luthor arch?  So how could the two together go bad?  One thing I was wondering about though in the last full page image.  Why is Lex STILL wearing the orange prison jump suit?  He’s a pretty egotistical guy and even though he’s running around on Brainiac’s ship I gotta believe he’d wanna stop off and make a quick wardrobe change.

Where is this going?  Is Brainiac calling the shots? Is Luthor? Or is General Lane pulling the strings on this? Is someone we don’t know about yet doing?  Where do you think this story is going?

• Issue: 1 (of 3)
• Story Arch: Invaded
• Writer: James Robinson & Sterling Gates
• Pencils: Pete Woods
• Color: Blond
• Letters: Steve Wands