This installment of Graphic Novels is brought to you by the letter Q.Superman: Brainiac
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Gary Frank
Hello and hello! I'm back to do the thing I set out to do a while back: go through my collection of TPBs and events. Today is a little different since what I have are individual issues of this story arc. Today, I'll talking about Action Comics #866-870 as well as the first part of Superman: New Krypton Special. But first, I'll let you know about the creative team...
Geoff Johns - If you don't know Johns is, then you haven't been reading DC comics for the last 5+ years. He is the premier writer at DC right now. Johns has written on many books, including Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Action Comics, JSA, and a few more. He's also the big event writer, writing on such books as Blackest Night and Infinite Crisis. He's kinda cool in my book. I own some of the stuff he's written.
Gary Frank - I don't know much about him, but from what I see, he is a great artist.
This isn't their first time doing Superman. They started out with an arc involving the Legion of Superheroes, and have just recently finished a mini-series that, once again, details Superman's origins. So on to the story!
Part 1: First Contact
Part 1 of the arc starts out on the planet Krypton, a few months before it was destroyed. All hell is breaking loose in Kandor, captial city of Krypton. Robots are going around killing everybody. We end up seeing some familiar faces, General Zod and Ursa. They chat and try to fight off these robots, and we find out that a skull-shaped ship is attacking them. Suddenly, a force field of sorts covers the city. Zod and the others try to break the shield to let the people trapped behind out. All of the sudden, the city vanishes and the ship leaves.
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Gary Frank
Hello and hello! I'm back to do the thing I set out to do a while back: go through my collection of TPBs and events. Today is a little different since what I have are individual issues of this story arc. Today, I'll talking about Action Comics #866-870 as well as the first part of Superman: New Krypton Special. But first, I'll let you know about the creative team...
Geoff Johns - If you don't know Johns is, then you haven't been reading DC comics for the last 5+ years. He is the premier writer at DC right now. Johns has written on many books, including Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Action Comics, JSA, and a few more. He's also the big event writer, writing on such books as Blackest Night and Infinite Crisis. He's kinda cool in my book. I own some of the stuff he's written.
Gary Frank - I don't know much about him, but from what I see, he is a great artist.
This isn't their first time doing Superman. They started out with an arc involving the Legion of Superheroes, and have just recently finished a mini-series that, once again, details Superman's origins. So on to the story!
Part 1: First Contact
Part 1 of the arc starts out on the planet Krypton, a few months before it was destroyed. All hell is breaking loose in Kandor, captial city of Krypton. Robots are going around killing everybody. We end up seeing some familiar faces, General Zod and Ursa. They chat and try to fight off these robots, and we find out that a skull-shaped ship is attacking them. Suddenly, a force field of sorts covers the city. Zod and the others try to break the shield to let the people trapped behind out. All of the sudden, the city vanishes and the ship leaves.
The abduction of Kandor.
We cut to present day Metropolis, at the Daily Planet. Perry White, the editor, is holding a meeting while Jimmy Olsen is handing out coffee and donuts. Christopher Reeve and ...., I mean, Clark Kent and Lois Lane-Kent(Does she use his last name) are there, along with Ron Troupe, the black writer (he's a real smart guy), Cat Grant, the Planet's returning gossip person, and the Sports Jock/jerk, Steve Lombard. They talk some and Steve get taken down a peg by Clark. After the meeting, this happens:
If some middle-aged woman did that to me, I'd probably act the same way.
Afterwards, Lois and Clark talk about Cat. She used to be was an accomplished journalist. Her son Adam's death messed with her and a façade of brash cattiness is the result several years later. They both know that it's an act,since they knew Cat before. After some flirty talk with each other, Clark suddenly hears of a fiery object coming out of the sky, so he goes and changes into costume as Superman.
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You know, all this scene needs is a black dude saying "Say Jim! Wooo! That's a bad outfit...WOOOO!!!!" Then it will be beyond awesome.
We cut to Smallville, and Jonathon (Pa) is fencing. Martha (Ma) comes out to tell him to come in eat breakfast. The wind blows and the weather vane spins....foreshadowing? Maybe.
Meanwhile, Superman catches up with the object, which turns in to one of the robots we saw at the beginning.He realizes that it's Brainiac (at first). They fight, but Superman gets the upper hand by ripping off the robot's hand. The robot scans him, finds a tiny drop of blood, and finds out he's Kryptonian. The robot then shuts down. Superman stands there wondering what Brainiac is up to.
We cut to Space and we see the Skull ship, powerless and floating in space. Suddenly, it powers up. In the ship, we see bottled cities hanging and in the center, we see a green guy in some sort of mechanical structure. A voice says " Kryptonian encountered.....Attempt 242 in progress."
Part 2: Hide and Seek
Part 2 starts with us back in the ship. Brainiac is going to attack another planet.
Meanwhile, Superman and Supergirl (Kara) at the the Fortress of Solitude. We learn that the robot is not Brainiac and that all of the other versions of Brainiac that Superman faced were either clones or probes. No one has seen the real Brainiac. Kara, upset about Brainiac, uses her heat vision to burn the robot. Apparently, she is scared of Brainiac because....well, you'll find out later. Kara tells him that Brainiac is everything bad about aliens.
At the farm in Smallville, Clark tells his parents that he is going into space to find Brainiac and stop him. They are scared for him, but understand that he needs to go. Afterwards, Clark and Pa have some time to talk. We even see Pa's chest, full of Clark's childhood stuff. Clark adds one more thing to the chest.
Aww...
By the way, it's a real nice scene between them. Clark then goes to the DP to say his goodbye to Lois before he leaves. Steve messes with him and with Jimmy and Ron because he's the go-to jerk.
We then cut to space. Superman is in a ship (apparently he wanted to relax) tracking Brainiac. Some time passes, he shaves, eats, and watches logs of stuff from Krypton. He wonders about one log talking about Krypton's destruction, when he finds Brainiac attacking another planet. He goes to the planet and tries to stop the attack, but he can't. The Skull-ship then shoots a missile into the planet's sun. It goes supernova and blows, destroying the planet and knocking out Superman. He is then brought into the ship.
Part 3: Greetings
Issue 878 starts out at the DP. Cat Grant is the queen of the workroom, strutting her stuff. All of the guys want to do all kinds of stuff for her like get her coffee and get her dry cleaning. Suddenly, the guys stop paying attention when Supergirl shows up. She looking for Clark, but he's "off on assignment." Supergirl and Cat then get into a discussion that makes me laugh:
Probably the funniest part of the arc.
We then cut to Brainiac's ship. Clark is hooked up with tubes and is being probed. Through the probes and tubes, Superman sees Brainiac's history: he's a collector of knowledge, going from planet to planet, shrinking cities taking them. He then uses their suns to blow the planets up (seeing a pattern? I hope so.). Clark, enraged, wakes up and busts out of the machine, destroying the robots. He removes the tubes. He walks around and sees pods containing different species of aliens. He's then attacked by a baboon(?) and beats it easily. When he finds the central chamber, he see many bottled cities, where he discovers the Kryptonian city of Kandor! The tri-circles then begin to light up and the mechanical structure opens up and we finally see Brainiac.
We have met the enemy, and he is big.
They fight, with Brainiac winning. He proclaims that "he will be perfection evolved - the ultimate vessel of knowledge and power."
We cut to Smallville, and we see Pa assuring Ma that Clark will be all right. Suddenly a bird falls out of the sky. Yeah, something's going to happen, but I'm not saying yet.
Back in space, Brainiac says he thought that he had a good sample of a Kryptonian, but it didn't lead him to it. So, he coasted through space and the Kryptonian comes to him! Clark wonders if Brainiac is the reason Krypton's sun went supernova. Brainiac had been in stasis for 300 years, so his probes had been taking care of the whole process. The fact that Superman was raised on another plant interested him.
Superman is able to break free and they fight, with Brainiac getting the best of him. It turns out that Brainiac has the ship Superman came in and it had the flight path to Earth. So now Brainiac is heading to Earth to do to it as any other planet and to get Kara!
At the DP, Kara and Lois talk. Suddenly the power goes out throughout the DP,and Kara sees something she thought she would never see again - Brainiac's ship. Steve looks up to the sky and wonders where Superman is.
Part 4: Mind Over Matter
Kara gets freaked out as Brainiac's robots are attacking Metropolis. Lois tells her to get out of here, but Kara decides to stay and fight, like her cousin would.
All right girl!! Kick some butt!!
Meanwhile, on the ship, Brainiac beats up Superman, berating him and humanity. Superman then does something both weird and cool at the same time:
After knocking out Brainiac, he looks for Kandor. When he finds it, he finds with Kara's parents, Zor-el and Alura, still alive. Meanwhile, Kara is getting overwhelmed by the robots.
On the ship, Zor-el tells Superman how they got there:
Zor-El was able to use Brainiac's technology to help Argo City survive the destruction or Krypton. Unfortunately, Brainiac sensed his technology was out there it and returned to Argo City, assimilating the city into Kandor. Kara was sent off in a spaceship to watch over baby Kal-El(which ended up a getting flopped).
Superman is then incapacitated by Brainiac, who traps him in that mechanical structure. Kara is then taken to the ship, and Metropolis is shrunken and transported into the ship. Brainiac then sends a missile to Earth's sun, and tells Superman that the sun will flare up and go supernova just like Krypton did.
Part 5: Finale
Brainiac does an evil monologue to Superman as he hangs up the shrunken Metropolis. We cut to Ma and Pa, with Pa seeing a storm brewing and knowing that Clark is in the middle of it.
We cut back to the ship, Brainiac berates Superman about his love for Earth. All Brainiac has to say about Earth is that it's useless, vacuous, and most of all disgusting. "Krypton was a superior planet, Earth in comparison is a savage world with nothing to offer." Metropolis, now a bottle city stares up at the warped image of Superman through the protoplasmic glass. In particular Superman glimpses down at the minuscule Daily Planet building and the microscopic human staring up at him." Lois is standing there and tells him that she loves him. Supes hears this and musters up all of his strength to break out!
Superman throws a punch, but Brainiac grabs his fist and berates him some more, calling him a simple brute. Superman retorts, "When I need to be," and something awesome happens:
He knocks out Brainiac Heat Vision Style and grabs the bottles containing Metropolis and Kandor. He then goes and frees Kara. He tells Kara to go stop the missile that's heading for the sun. She's a little scared at first, but after some encouragement, she goes to stop it. Brainiac, scarred and looking peeved as ever, tries to stop Superman but Supes uses Freeze Breath to freeze Brainiac to the wall. Superman then hits Brainy out of the ship and into a swamp, where he completly wigs out.
Then Superman finally ends the fight.
He then see that the cities are flickering, so he takes Metropolis back to where it was originally. After Supes leaves, Brainiac is able to activate a small homing missile, and sends it to his true home. Superman places the bottle just as it expanded, leaving the citizens of Metropolis safe, but with Lois wondering where her husband is going.
Mean while, Supergirl is in space, chasing the missile. She's able to stop it and saves Earth.
At the farm, Pa sees something in the sky. It's the missile. Ma is close to the house, so Pa books it and gets her away from the house. At the same time, Superman is in the arctic, taking the bottle of Kandor to the fortress when it finally expands before he gets there.
At that moment, Pa has a heart attack. Immediately Ma start yelling for Clark. Unfortunately, he's is in the Arctic, watching Kandor grow. The sounds from all of growing keep Clark from hearing Ma's yelling. After the sounds stop, only then does he hear her. He super speeds it back to Smallville, only to be too late.
Part 6: The Funeral
The big issue starts out with 5 pages of little to no dialogue. It's the funeral for Jonathan Kent.By the way, the artwork for the whole part of the story is awesome. From what I can tell, Clark gives the eulogy. A lot of people are there. Perry, Jimmy, Lana Lang, Pete Ross, Kara(I think, she's supposed to have a secret identity at this point), and Bruce Wayne (I think), are all there, along with Ma and Lois. Pete gives Clark his condolences. Lana almost goes up, but doesn't.Clark and Lois embrace, and then Clark and Ma embrace.
We cut to a prision, where enemies like Bizzaro, Metallo, and Parasite are being held. We see a flash of red yellow and blue. We also see some rubble and a hand ripping off a door to Brainiac's cell. It's Superman, and he is not happy. Who can blame him for being mad? Brainiac gave Clark a double dose oa pain in his life by causing Krypton's sun to go supernova and now Pa's death. The next page shows Superman beating the crap out of Brainiac.
Fortunately, it was a dream and Clark is sitting in the house after the funeral. Lois comes up to him and asks if he's all right. He says no and say that Brainiac is still alive and his father is not. Lois tells him not to think that way. Clark retorts, saying "My father's dead, Lois. There's nothing I can do." Lois touches his face and tells him that there is something that he can do: "Never forget what he taught you." Clark leaves and head to the farm. He opens up a chest where his father kept stuff from clark's childhood. Clark remembers those times. He then sees the horse shoe he gave to Pa recently, and he remembers the words his father told him: "...If there are people that need help, you do what you always do...Don't let anyone or anything get in your way." Clark then takes his glasses off, and sits down to grieve.
...
MMmmmm....tastes like chicken!
After knocking out Brainiac, he looks for Kandor. When he finds it, he finds with Kara's parents, Zor-el and Alura, still alive. Meanwhile, Kara is getting overwhelmed by the robots.
On the ship, Zor-el tells Superman how they got there:
Zor-El was able to use Brainiac's technology to help Argo City survive the destruction or Krypton. Unfortunately, Brainiac sensed his technology was out there it and returned to Argo City, assimilating the city into Kandor. Kara was sent off in a spaceship to watch over baby Kal-El(which ended up a getting flopped).
Superman is then incapacitated by Brainiac, who traps him in that mechanical structure. Kara is then taken to the ship, and Metropolis is shrunken and transported into the ship. Brainiac then sends a missile to Earth's sun, and tells Superman that the sun will flare up and go supernova just like Krypton did.
We will start the bidding at 1 dollar!
Part 5: Finale
Brainiac does an evil monologue to Superman as he hangs up the shrunken Metropolis. We cut to Ma and Pa, with Pa seeing a storm brewing and knowing that Clark is in the middle of it.
We cut back to the ship, Brainiac berates Superman about his love for Earth. All Brainiac has to say about Earth is that it's useless, vacuous, and most of all disgusting. "Krypton was a superior planet, Earth in comparison is a savage world with nothing to offer." Metropolis, now a bottle city stares up at the warped image of Superman through the protoplasmic glass. In particular Superman glimpses down at the minuscule Daily Planet building and the microscopic human staring up at him." Lois is standing there and tells him that she loves him. Supes hears this and musters up all of his strength to break out!
I think Brainiac is going to get beaten by the power of love.
Superman throws a punch, but Brainiac grabs his fist and berates him some more, calling him a simple brute. Superman retorts, "When I need to be," and something awesome happens:
1....2...3....I AM A MAN! ( All he's missing is the long hair)
Hey, I'd feel the same way if I fell into a swamp.
Then Superman finally ends the fight.
"Now that's what I call a close encounter!"
Mean while, Supergirl is in space, chasing the missile. She's able to stop it and saves Earth.
At the farm, Pa sees something in the sky. It's the missile. Ma is close to the house, so Pa books it and gets her away from the house. At the same time, Superman is in the arctic, taking the bottle of Kandor to the fortress when it finally expands before he gets there.
At that moment, Pa has a heart attack. Immediately Ma start yelling for Clark. Unfortunately, he's is in the Arctic, watching Kandor grow. The sounds from all of growing keep Clark from hearing Ma's yelling. After the sounds stop, only then does he hear her. He super speeds it back to Smallville, only to be too late.
Both his happiest day and saddest day.
Part 6: The Funeral
The big issue starts out with 5 pages of little to no dialogue. It's the funeral for Jonathan Kent.By the way, the artwork for the whole part of the story is awesome. From what I can tell, Clark gives the eulogy. A lot of people are there. Perry, Jimmy, Lana Lang, Pete Ross, Kara(I think, she's supposed to have a secret identity at this point), and Bruce Wayne (I think), are all there, along with Ma and Lois. Pete gives Clark his condolences. Lana almost goes up, but doesn't.Clark and Lois embrace, and then Clark and Ma embrace.
We cut to a prision, where enemies like Bizzaro, Metallo, and Parasite are being held. We see a flash of red yellow and blue. We also see some rubble and a hand ripping off a door to Brainiac's cell. It's Superman, and he is not happy. Who can blame him for being mad? Brainiac gave Clark a double dose oa pain in his life by causing Krypton's sun to go supernova and now Pa's death. The next page shows Superman beating the crap out of Brainiac.
You know, this would have been real interesting if this wasn't a dream.
Fortunately, it was a dream and Clark is sitting in the house after the funeral. Lois comes up to him and asks if he's all right. He says no and say that Brainiac is still alive and his father is not. Lois tells him not to think that way. Clark retorts, saying "My father's dead, Lois. There's nothing I can do." Lois touches his face and tells him that there is something that he can do: "Never forget what he taught you." Clark leaves and head to the farm. He opens up a chest where his father kept stuff from clark's childhood. Clark remembers those times. He then sees the horse shoe he gave to Pa recently, and he remembers the words his father told him: "...If there are people that need help, you do what you always do...Don't let anyone or anything get in your way." Clark then takes his glasses off, and sits down to grieve.
...
This was a great story. The writing? Great. Johns writes a good story. Superman was heroic, and Brainiac was real menacing. the Artwork? Amazing. Everything looks so detailed. It feels like this would make a good movie. We have a big shock at the end (Okay, not so big, but still.) You really feel what Clark is going through. He loses his father, but at the same time gains a whole new family with the Kandorians. Well, that's all I have to say about this arc. Should you get it? Definitely. This is Ryell, signing off.
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