The Kingdom of Zod event concludes the way it began – with an extra-sized issue featuring all the key players and creative teams. But the comic itself begins with a surprise flashback to Hamilton, to a day when Superman was admonishing young Jon for a spot of Super Sons naughtiness with Damian Wayne. A sorry Jon asks his Dad if he ever did anything he regrets. Clark tells Jon he once had to send Zod and his followers back to the Phantom Zone.
And in the present day, Jon is at his father’s side as the whole Super Family battles a younger version of the man his father banished.
Among the participants are Supergirl and Ursa, Zod’s future wife, who has recently murdered the version she knows. She’s been trying to undo the death of Krypton with Booster Gold’s time machine, and isn’t giving up.
Someone equally keen to harness the time bubble is, happily, on the side of the angels, Lena Luthor.
And while the route to enacting the plan isn’t the smoothest – heroes and villains gotta bash – Lena’s machine works, leaving us with epilogues cum previews pertaining to all four of the current Super series.
Finally able to take a breath, Superman wonders why Jon has adopted the identity of Tomorrow Man.
It’s all leading to the new status of Superman Unlimited as a father-son team-up book.
Action Comics looks towards the upcoming extended Lex Luthor origin, but young Clark Kent will still be around, even if here he wants to stay in 2026.
Supergirl, meanwhile, has insisted on the Kryptonian Sunstone which created a Kryptonite Kingdom in El Calderon leaving with her. She repurposes its insta-building technology in Antarctica.
And the recent star of Superman announces that Prime Time is over.
I don’t believe it for a minute, Superboy Prime’s short run as the star of Superman has gone down very well, and we’ve already had a hint we’ll get more of him. Maybe a special or mini-series will follow his attempts to live a quiet life.
And while he doesn’t have a title right now, Kon-el looks to be heading for trouble when a bad influence shows up with weasel words.
I enjoyed this special. Yes, Lena’s time twisting was a deus ex machina but she’s using the tech that’s been a big part of this nine-part crossover, and she is a Luthor-level genius augmented by a Brainiac bot.
And the important business is the character dynamics, with the likes of young Clark getting a peek at the future, Lois helping Superman understand he’s a million miles from being a deadbeat dad, and Booster bolstering the boys.
And he’s not just super-camp counsellor, Booster is MVP when Lena needs a hand with her time tinkering.
The sequence that follows is my favorite of the issue – Superman writer Joshua Williamson is obviously a Booster booster, and artist Paulo Villanelli does him justice in a mini-strange sports story.
Williamson also give us a post-epilogues preview of more upcoming plot points.
I swear, it’s like Geoff Johns never left the building.
So what do we have? Black Lantern business, bottled Legionnaires, mad science without Lena… and a flag that says Zod? Answers on a postcard…
Am I the only one who thought that opening scene with Jon was Williamson really, really wanting to lock the John Byrne-era execution of Zod, Zaora and Quex-Ul into current continuity? I mean, since when did tossing Kryptonian crims back into the Phantom Zone bother the Man of Steel?
Also, shouldn’t Clark’s feelings in the flashback have been echoed in the main story in some way? Otherwise, what’s the point? Maybe Zod’s closing words to Superman as he sends him back to Krypton’s past are it.
The only moment in the issue that really felt off was this.
After two months of the Super Family trying to avoid Ursa and Zod changing the past, suddenly Superman is risking his own existence by stopping his younger self from returning to his origin point? Am I missing something?
Credit to everyone involved with this sharply written, excellently drawn issue – and there are a lot of ‘em. Pardon me if I’m too lazy to type out all the names.
So, how was it for you?
