In our house, there’s a rule. If someone in a thriller or horror has a dog, be ready with the channel changer to zap away at a moment’s notice. The latest issue of the Krypto mini-series, presumably commissioned due to his starring role in the recent Superman film, needs a cover blurb: ‘Warning: Contains Adorable Puppy.’
There is a blurb on the credits spread, after you’ve been lured in by Jae Lee and June Chung’s lovely cover, and enjoyed a few pages of The Littlest Krypto having fun with a new pal who, like him, was rummaging around for food.
And here’s the blurb.
There was a similar warning in the second issue of this look at the first days on Earth of Superdog. Feeling OK to continue?
Krypto and the puppy come across some kids in the woods, and are invited to join their adventures.
They find more excitement than expected.
But this is no friendly Iron Giant.
The brave bairns rise up against the basic Brainiac, which quickly turns on kids and canines alike… and there’s a predictable casualty. A devastated Krypto finally taps into the power he’s been absorbing from the sun since his Kryptonian rocket landed on Earth.
Writer Ryan North may as well have titled this story ‘Fridging the Puppy’. There’s no point at all to killing poor Brownie other than to spur Krypto on to such anger that his heat vision kicks in. Couldn’t he just have been rankled by the kids being threatened?
The script is well crafted; seeing Krypto find a friend, then having them both encounter a bunch of thoroughly nice kids, is lovely after all the sadness this series has brought to date. Brainiac 0 is a great design, courtesy of Mike Norton, and letterer Ferran Delgado whips up a nice font for it. The eventual confrontation between dog and drone is very well done thanks to Norton’s dynamic, superbly executed compositions and the striking colours of Ian Herring. And seriously, is there a better portrayer of pooches than Norton? These doggies are living and breathing.
Well, for a while…
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
Part of the Kryptonian power set is super brain. Just ask Kurt Busiek. In Supergirl we saw it in play with thought balloons. Here we see a dog using animal instincts to wield world destroying power with no more intelligence than Odie. I still can’t believe great power in an otherwise normal animal is the path to anything other than death and destruction, not heroics.
And the sad part? Sorry, I have been phobic towards dogs since I was five. My reaction was ‘oh well’ at best.
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Kurt Busiek used the super brain well in his run on Superman, particularly when it came to Clark’s plane reading.
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When I was a toddler I chopped the end of a finger off when a chair collapsed on it. It was bandaged and healing but an Alsatian in the street pulled the bandage off and it healed weirdly. I like it, but am still a bit nervy of German Shepherds. Love Krypto, though!
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