It's the beginning of the Last Stand of New Krypton - we look at Adventure Comics #8 and Last Stand of New Krypton #1

Adventure Comics #8 or #511

We've now reached the Last Stand of New Krypton story. It works its way through the Superman titles and results in... something, I guess. I've never read this before, so this will be all new for me. Hope you enjoy my take and I hope I'm able to find all the separate issues.

This cover makes me a little sad in a... what might have been... nostalgic sense. Artist Francis Manapul had a nice little run on the Threeboot Legion, made the book look really good, even when the stories weren't matching his work, and if only they could've gotten him back at this time, when he was firing on all cylinders, we might've seen more readers for the Legion.

Speaking of readership, here's what Adventure Comics did post-Legion of 3 Worlds:

Adventure Comics #1 - ranked 30th with 56,646 in sales

Adventure Comics #2 - ranked 44th at 47,256

Adventure Comics #3 - ranked 40th at 44,404

Adventure Comics #4 - ranked 6th at 85,106

Why so high? This month, DC included power rings in certain issues to promote Blackest Night. The only way to get a blue power ring was to buy Adventure Comics #4.

It's also the best-selling Legion book since 1994.

I know that this is a deadly sentence to write, but at this point, DC would have to completely mess up a Legion book in order for its sales to tank. I mean, they've been connected to Superman and Final Crisis and fans know who everyone is, right?

Let's begin my first reading of Last Stand of New Krypton - this issue is the prologue to the big story, so I'm guessing we're just going to see a lot of groundwork being laid down before the story really gets going.

The first story is written by Sterling Gates with pencils by Travis Moore and inks by Julio Ferreira. 

On Colu, in the 30th Century, a very young Querl Dox is getting bullied by other young Coluans who don't want him to level up to their grade. They're also not fans of his chosen name: Brainiac. They reveal he didn't know Brainiac was a hated person so doesn't know why they feel this way.

But he quickly learned why. He discovered the evil his great, great, great, great grandfather had done (apparently destroying Durla I, Imsk, and Rimbor, among many others). Querl wondered why his father had given him this horrible name.

His father told him that it's time to reclaim the name, time to make it into a title the family can be proud of. You know, for a genius from a planet of geniuses, that's pretty dumb. I mean, would you expect someone, one thousand years from now, to want his child to walk around being called Adolf Hitler to reclaim the name?

We move to present day and Brainy is piloting the Legion cruiser, heading... somewhere. Joining him onboard are Dawnstar, Timber Wolf, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, and Wildfire. On one hand, I'm happy they're still including character name captions for everyone, giving superhero names, real names, homeworlds, and powers. On the other, when you have 6 characters and only 2 captions (and one for Brainiac 5 even though you've already introduced him for 3 pages), it seems like they're not thinking this through very well.

They're at Earthgov Science Outpost Delta 2 and there's a rift in space causing lots of problems. How many problems? On the simpler side, it's going to kill the 6 scientists onboard that the Legion has been sent to save. On the much more complicated side, Brainy says that the rift is growing and will destroy the universe in a matter of days. There's never a medium threat anymore, is there? Can we just have a "this rift is going to destroy this solar system and then collapse onto itself"?

The five Legionnaires who aren't Coluan fly off on a rescue mission while Brainy sends a probe into the rift. He learns that this is a chronal tear in space and it's growing much faster than expected. They only have a minute to save the scientists.

Timber Wolf and Lightning Lass quickly reach the two trapped in one section and the rest of the scientists are saved in the next panel.

Since this is a huge crossover, and things always get worse in the beginning, Brainy drops another bombshell - there are rifts like this all over the galaxy, eating away at the dark matter. Good thing this isn't the Reboot universe, because all the dark matter is still gone there. Right? The chronal tear also comes from one thousand years ago (shocker!). Who did this? Why, Brainiac, of course! He murders Superman and destroys one thousand years of history.

Whenever they tell these stories, I always end up wondering one thing - if murdering Superman wipes out the future, what happened when Doomsday killed him? Or was that supposed to happen, so the future was safe? And shouldn't the Legion be constantly protecting Superman to ensure their future is safe?

Ah, best not to think about it because we have another Legion-related story this issue.

This one is brought to you by writer James Robinson, penciller Julian Lopez, and inker Bit.

We're back in Smallville in the 21st Century, and Conner Kent rushes home because one of his teachers has arrived to have a chat with him. Mr. Janson, the chemistry teacher, needs to have a private conversation so Mrs. Kent leaves and we get the next big reveal.

Mr. Janson is actually Element Lad. Oddly enough, there's no caption explaining his powers, but at least we get the moment we saw a few issues ago where he pulls open his shirt, Superman-style.

Instead of actually explaining anything, we jump forward in time and see Superboy flying around with Mon-El after defeating a giant with a horrible costume. They head back to the farm to meet the "Legion of Super-Heroes Espionage Squad." Who is waiting for them?

Chameleon Boy, Sensor Girl, Matter-Eater Lad, Quislet, Tellus, Starman, and Element Lad. Not exactly the Espionage Squad I was expecting. The Legionnaires have to convince Mon-El that they mean no harm and they're here to help him. We get a quick rundown on how he knows them - apparently they were a team called Control and they all used different names.

Once again, my brain is breaking a little here. Does this moment mean that Mon-El will know everything about the Legion before he spends one thousand years in the Phantom Zone? 

I'm also not too sure how they're an Espionage Squad and not just on a Legion mission...

The Legionnaires need Mon-El's help because they were each given a piece of R.J. Brande's will that contained instructions for what to do in the past. They weren't allowed to share them with each other because knowing too much about the past might mess things up even more.

They were all told to fit into Metropolis (and Smallville for Element Lad and Tellus) and they were supposed to teach Mon-El how to be a hero.

We learn that the future of the Legion is in danger and they have to protect the universe in the present to stop what may come to pass.

So where do they go? New Krypton, of course.

 

We get a third story all about an evil Kryptonian who wants to destroy every human on Earth, but since there's no Legionnaires, I'm going to skip it for this column.

 

This issue was... well... meh. Any excitement I had from seeing the Legion in action, even if it was for a tiny amount of the story, was reduced by the fact that both of these stories serve only to get me to read the big crossover event that's coming.

I will give the writers some credit - these stories both felt like the Legion and this is the first time in a long time that I actually liked what they did with Brainiac 5. He was just a smart teammate - he wasn't a jerk and didn't treat his fellow Legionnaires with contempt. That, in and of itself, was enough to get me to give this issue a thumbs up.

I also always like seeing the Legion performing rescue missions. I think a lot of writers miss that aspect of the team and focus only on big fights. Just seeing them under a deadline and calmly saving the scientists was nice.

But art-wise, I can't say either story did much for me. Moore really struggled with the Legionnaires (especially Dawnstar) and the entire story looked like it was happening in modern day, not one thousand years in the future. Also, I don't know how many guesses it would've taken me to identify Lightning Lass the first time she appears. They miscolored her and Moore didn't give her any distinguishing features.

Although I felt Lopez did much better, words cannot describe how much I hate, hate, hate Sensor Girl's new costume. The whole point behind why Projectra become Sensor Girl was because if you knew what she was doing were illusions, they wouldn't have the same effect. So revealing her hair and eyes, and having her teammates call her Jeckie, destroys the effectiveness of the new identity.

My biggest complaint, however, is that neither of these stories make a lick of sense, especially the Legionnaires who've been sent back to the past. So R.J. Brande made a will that revealed huge problems in the past that would affect the future. And they didn't know about it until he died in Legion of 3 Worlds... which is when most of these characters were already missing and so they didn't appear in that mini-series. Did he tell them about the problems before he died? And Starman has been back in the past since before the Lightning Saga, so how long ago was he told about this? Since Sensor Girl was part of that as well, why didn't she stay back? And why send Tellus and Quislet, two Legionnaires who definitely can't fit in in the 21st Century?

I said this when I was reading Countdown - at this point I'm certain that DC editorial doesn't care if anything makes sense.

Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton #1

It is bad that the first thing I checked was the page count to ensure this wasn't going to be longer than normal?

Going by the red Superman logo on the cover, this is chapter 31 of this whole saga.

It's also Part One: Invaded. This issue is written by James Robinson & Sterling Gates with artwork by Pete Woods.

I know that I'm getting my hopes up here, and probably shouldn't be, but considering that Starman is one of my all-time favorite comics and I've always liked Woods' artwork, I'm looking forward to this one.

Let's hope this doesn't bite me on the ass.

We begin on New Krypton, which has a gigantic Brainiac head floating over it. Ursa is talking to a general (I'm going to assume it's Zod) about defeat and we soon see that the Kryptonians are fighting the Brainiacs somewhere on the planet. I'm learning a couple of things with the first two two-page spreads:

• The Kryptonians either wear clothing that would fit in best during the Silver Age (capes, very bright colors, huge symbols on their chests, huge belts, long, flowing robes) or the clothing John Byrne introduced in Man of Steel (head coverings, lots of dark colors, togas)
• The Kryptonians saved their dogs... do they have any other pets?
• The Brainiac robots are powerful enough to kill the Kryptonians, who (to no surprise) have the same powers as Superman... so this mean Brainiac's robots can kill Superman, right?

Zod's plan? To take over Brainiac's ship and kill him. After all, it's only fair. Brainiac destroyed Old Krypton so he deserves to suffer under New Krypton. It's time for the first offensive to begin, so let's see how insanely violent this is going to get.

Unlike the rest of the Kryptonians, Zod and Ursa are dressed like they just walked out of The Matrix. 

Elsewhere on the ship, a bunch of robots are about the kill a younger Kryptonian. Someone shows up to save the day - after destroying all the machines, he introduces himself as Kal. Commander El, of course. And the Superman logo on his chest lets you know who he really is. That and the curl.

Kal's... second in command??... tells him that Red Shard is supposed to stay away from Brainiac's ship and Kal's stunned Zod already has a plan. What is it? He's going to blast the ship with the Global Defense Cannons, so Kal orders everyone away from the target.

The ship gets blasted. Lots of people die (they were flying towards the ship - does this mean everyone onboard is dead too? Were there actually people onboard?).

But the ship is still there, looking none the worse for wear.

We get a two-page showdown where Kal questions Zod's orders and ends up resigning from the Red Shard, throwing his chest logo to the floor. He can't do anything as Kal-El.

But this is a job for Superman! He rips off his Kryptonian clothing and attacks the ship. Glad the costume is just his standard long underwear, even if there's absolutely no reason for him to wear it.

I'm not going to ask how she got there... but Supergirl appears and attacks the robots on the planet surface, wanting to protect her mother.

Supergirl's mother, Alura, is also the leader of New Krypton and she knows Brainiac targeted her home. So they have to protect the leaders of New Krypton. Supergirl keeps fighting and her mom flies off to talk to Zod.

Next, if you ever wanted two pages of story to explain how Superman can get through a force shield and into Brainiac's ship, you get it here. I did not.

Alura and Zod have a chat about protecting the council and they talk about how this attack is different. Brainiac isn't trying to capture them, he's attacking everyone. When asked if he has a plan (cause the last one worked so well), Zod tells Alura that she has to guarantee that the plans go unchecked. He can't have the council interfere in any way. Alura agrees, which means she's never read any stories about evil generals, or military history at all, or has a clue who Zod is.

Supergirl realizes that the Brainiac robots are killing the Kryptonians and wonders how they're able to do it. It's easy - red sun generators. It looks like she's about to die...

Which is when Superboy and the Legion arrive. (No, I have no idea how they got there. Do you?) She knows who Superboy and Mon-El are (she should know a lot of them, right? I mean, this is the same Supergirl who joined the Threeboot Legion, right?) and thanks Rao they've arrived.

On a quick aside, seeing Tellus punch a Brainiac robot is funny to me. I don't know why. It just is.

Supergirl wants the Legion to help destroy Brainac and his ship and we get another jump in action that makes no sense.

Suddenly, the Legion, Superboy, and Supergirl are talking to Zod. No idea how this happened. Did they just defeat everyone in that sector? Did they just run?

Zod and Mon-El know each other from the Phantom Zone, and no one's sure who's side anyone is on. I know that I always say that nothing makes sense, but why would anyone trust Zod? Especially since he was in the Phantom Zone for his criminal actions? Why put him in charge of anything? I'm not asking this because I want to know what the writers put in a previous story. I'm asking because why would the Kryptonians be this stupid?

Chameleon Boy tells them that they can't destroy Brainiac's ship until they've rescued all the other bottled cities inside. The Legion needs to save them and return them to their planets to ensure the future develops as it should.

Zod promises to help and orders Supergirl to return to the streets and save people. Mon-El offers to help her.

Once they're gone, in a moment that everyone saw coming, Zod orders his guards to arrest the Legion and Superboy.

On Brainiac's ship, Superman fights his way to the control room and realizes that it's Brainiac and Lex Luthor, working together, that he's got to deal with. Of course, if you've been reading Adventure Comics, you knew this was coming as well.

 

At the end of the book, DC is nice enough to explain the back story and gives a short synopsis of the New Krypton Saga. Since it's 86 separate issues, I'll pass.

Let me say that again - eighty-six parts to this story. And you wonder why people say comics are impenetrable.

 

I'm just going to assume Pete Woods was rushed when he worked on this book because it's really not up to the levels I expect from him.

I'm also going to assume that Robinson and Gates were overworked as well, because this one's pretty mediocre. Would it have been so hard to explain any of the back story? Did we need every twist to be telegraphed miles away?

 

What did you think? Was this a great way to end the whole New Krypton saga? Were you happy to see but not hear Quislet? Please share your thoughts below or on Reddit.