Bendis' Big Twist Revealed MAJOR SPOILERS for Action Comics 1000

[DragonPiece]

So I've realised what my biggest problem with Rogol Zaar is as a Superman villain. There's nothing new, unique or compelling being brought to the table with this character. His design is basically The Persuader and Magog rolled into one Jim Lee mashup, his shocking connection to Superman has been done by Tyrell in Superman: Earth One and his motivation of hating all Kryptonians are the same as Amalak's from Kurt Busiek's The Third Kryptonian story. Bendis' first OC has been done several times before and by better writers.

I agree, but to be fair, we only got a sneak peak of the villain so far. Maybe his back story in man of steel will make him more interesting.

[Robotman]

I haven’t read the comic in question and it might be some time before I can get it in my hands, but as far as it goes with the doomed planet died of old age, I see that as just the simple shorthand form without getting into long explanations.

Planets break apart at different rates, because they are subject to many variables. But eventually everything falls apart, it’s entropy. So you can call that old age.

A world killer would have to have tremendous power to completely oblterate a massive planet like Krypton. It would just be a lot easier to take advantage of some existing flaw in the system to hasten the natural destruction of the planet. Sort of like splitting a diamond.

If it wasn’t purely an “act of god”—my preference is that the Kryptonians doomed themselves through their own hubris. Let’s say the scientists harvested energy for their experiments from the planet itself. This increased the natural stresses at the planet’s core until the strain was so great that the planet blew apart.

But the Siegel origin story is superior, because it’s better science fiction. A story where a bad guy kills a good guy has some shock value. But the story where the hero defeats himself and hastens his own death, raises more questions about the human condition.

If Krypton died because a bad guy killed it, oh well they were screwed end of story. But if Krypton died and none survived because they were arrogant and convinced of their own superiority, that’s a morally powerful tale.

Totally agreed. It’s a much better story if Krypton was a planet that was breaking down from old age and from the ravages of environmental damage caused by its inhabitants. The Kryptonians were basically a civilization at the end of their empire. They no longer traveled in space, they had exhausted their natural resources, and were too self assured in their own abilities that they didn’t accept the warning signs. As you say, that’s a great cautionary tale.

I hate the idea that Krypton was destroyed by an outside source. It takes away the blame from the Kryptonians themself.

[jackolover]

spoilers:

Disappointingly predictable. I do think there could be potentially interesting, meaningful ways of spinning it; off the top of my head, this was a long-term form of retaliation from an alien race Kryptonians had previously exploited, with Jor-El and Lara trying to warn the council of the long-term repercussions of their actions but being waved off since they wanted to ignore the past, keeping the same thematic concerns in play with an even more explicitly political edge to the idea of Krypton as symbolically a fallen nation that Superman is one of the few surviving refugees of. However, even if the rest of his run is quality, I'm not convinced that Bendis will handle this aspect with the requesite degree of craft and forethought; even if he doesn't though, I suspect this is something that will be easily retconned or ignored if it's a genuine failure.

end of spoilers

Bendis has stated in an interview that “We really need a Superman today”. That tells me, no matter how bad Bendis makes the Kryptonians, (and they could be Skrull dirt bags given Bendis), he is going for a redeemed Superman after dragging Clark through the mud. Because, the Earth is bad, the universe is bad, but there has to be somebody that’s better than this. Somebody who isn’t dictated by his parents sins, or race sins, but finds his own ethics. Like Black Panther found in his movie. Superman is this ideal people need to believe in, and though Clark may see himself as degraded and wanting to tear up his family colours, he’ll keep the colours because that represents what people on Earth can cling to - hope. And Clark can make those colours pure by his behaviour.

I have never seen a Superman story told from an alien standpoint, who sees the Earth as Alien to him. (Sort of like Marvel’s Nova, Richard Rider, when he was called to a planet and solved its problems with the Nova Force). I wouldn’t mind Clark Kent just treating Earth like any other Alien world, once he learns the traditions of his race were so reprehensible, and he becomes this roving Voyager. Then he can just visit Earth now and then, and the dramas of that place seem just like trivial matters to him. He doesn’t have a home, really. Superman just feels lonely and like an outsider everywhere.

All in all, no strong feeling one way or the other. Sucks that we basically called it as soon as we saw the cover.

That said, I think the real meat of the story is what Clark does with this information, and why it--or the fallout from it--inspires him to "look at the world through new eyes...with new ideas about what Superman could and should do for the city of Metropolis and the planet Earth." THAT'S fascinating to me. How does this come from what Zaar did? And what are the particular ways Clark wants to go about helping the world, and how does that relate back to Zaar's actions?

spoilers:

It's also super likely that Krypton's natural disaster is still in play, but it was caused by Zaar. Maybe Jor-El, following the clues of the apparent natural disaster, stumbles onto Zaar's plan. By then it's too late to stop, and Jor-El has been labeled a crackpot by his peers thus killing all credibility, so Zaar's able to gloat and explain how Kryptonian's are apparently a sickness.

end of spoilers

I should probably bring this up too. Don't know when this is set (I can only imagine that there are flashbacks in MOS), but it's very possible that Zaar either didn't act alone or had a blind eye turned to his actions.




spoilers:

Given Bendis' penchant for mysteries, reporting, and detective stories, we could be seeing a "who shot Krypton" sort of slow burn detective narrative. Bendis might be building up Clark Kent's reporting skills in Action Comics, so that he can blur the lines a bit when he mixes the grounded with the cosmic, and has Superman solve the mystery of the murder of his race. I think that'd be sufficiently cosmic because you'd have Superman going to Rann, interviewing Green Lanterns, and basically exposing the origins of the mass genocide of his people. This could be really interesting.

end of spoilers

Some food for thought.

PS do we really need spoiler tangs in a thread that says MAJOR SPOILERS? Just a question.

I Like your ideas about asking other races if Zaar is telling the truth or not. If there are Alien races that know what happened with the Kryptonians why didn’t they tell Clark before this? Is there some kind of mind wipe going on about this? Is Zaar from some alternate universe? But I don’t think Bendis is setting this up as a misdirection. I think Bendis honestly wants Krypton to be seen in a nasty light, and all the information surrounding Krypton has been some positive propaganda that nobody could resist. And only one person knows what was really going on, and that’s some obscure chronicler tucked away in some corner of the universe, Clark has to quest after.

I think that was it, along with basically his whole thing was that the knowledge was more important than the actual tangible planet and people, so who cares.

In fact I still wouldn't mind an ultimate reveal by the end of all of this that Rogal-Zarr had a puppet master and it indeed is Brainiac.

I think it would job the whole impact that Bendis wants to do to Superman if Brainiac is telling a lie.

Let’s see. If I were Superman, and I learned my race were so dumb they’d rather believe their planet was okay in the face of evidence it was exploding? Well, I’d think my race were idiots in the first place, and maybe Clark comes from a race of idiots, so he is one too. What Bendis is doing may be a bit more respectable than the folklore of Krypton to this date.

[jackolover]

Just what I was thinking. That explains the solicits, but also the pages we've seen from DC Nation #0.

I'm wondering if Clark himself doesn't know where they are at because he and Lois agreed on a plan that protects them from,say, Brainiac or some other being able to read minds. This way if worst comes to worst if Superman is captured or defeated, the bad guy can't read his mind and find them in order to use them as some sort of further leverage, but also to protect his identity.

I mean, he once accidentally sent a significant portion of Earth's population including Lois,to the Phantom Zone before and it was based on a contingency plan he concocted and then made himself forget. He could have done the same or something similar here.

So could ancient Krypton. I mean force themselves to forget, and force the universe to forget that they were a race of genocidal maniacs.

[jackolover]

That what I think too. Kryptonians don't have power only under a yellow sun, they only don't have powers under a red sun. Maybe the Quintessence confined kryptonians in one of the feel places they wouldn't have access to their powers.

When you come to think of it, if there was a race of Kryptonians, and they all had powers like Superman, they would be horrible. We only saw General Zod, but imagine the military of Krypton like General Zod? They would be like an army of Thanos’. It would be chaos wherever they went. Tell that story before you tell Supermans story, and then try and justify Clark Kent in the universe. We know of only one other Kryptonian besides Zod and that is the scientist that created Doomsday. And that might be a good scientist!! What if the bad Kryptonian scientists made things far worse than Doomsday?

Imagine at one end of the scale is Supermans family and at the other end, General Zod, and then everything in between. Criminals, extortionists, corrupt government officials, murderers, beaurocrats with super powers. You think Luther is bad. Imagine Luther with Supermans powers.

[Superlad93]

I think Bendis honestly wants Krypton to be seen in a nasty light

Interesting. You seem pretty dead-set on the idea. What makes you so sure? Haven't read or seen anything to make believe Zaar's story. And he's not even being specific in the Action 1000 story. He's the Kryptonians a plague, but we don't know what he means, if it's true, or if it was within the Kryptonians' control. So, I'm fascinated by what makes you gravitate to your line of thinking right now.

[jackolover]

Totally agreed. It’s a much better story if Krypton was a planet that was breaking down from old age and from the ravages of environmental damage caused by its inhabitants. The Kryptonians were basically a civilization at the end of their empire. They no longer traveled in space, they had exhausted their natural resources, and were too self assured in their own abilities that they didn’t accept the warning signs. As you say, that’s a great cautionary tale.

I hate the idea that Krypton was destroyed by an outside source. It takes away the blame from the Kryptonians themself.

Who knows what Kryptonians perpetrated on the universe before becoming isolated? So they ravaged planet after planet, much like the colonises from the Alien movie franchise. See how easily they were destroyed by an Android?

Interesting. You seem pretty dead-set on the idea. What makes you so sure? Haven't read or seen anything to make believe Zaar's story. And he's not even being specific in the Action 1000 story. He's the Kryptonians a plague, but we don't know what he means, if it's true, or if it was within the Kryptonians' control. So, I'm fascinated by what makes you gravitate to your line of thinking right now.

Mostly Bendis’ history of being up front with his details. His comics have limited space to lay out facts and he wastes no time in filling them in on the page. If Zaar says the Kryptonians are a plague, that’s what they are.

Also, I think Bendis wants this to be a redemption story for Clark. You have to go to the bottom of the well before you can climb out. Something that will re-establish why we need a Superman, a counterbalance to the sick race he came from.

[Superlad93]

Mostly Bendis’ history of being up front with his details. His comics have limited space to lay out facts and he wastes no time in filling them in on the page. If Zaar says the Kryptonians are a plague, that’s what they are.

I don't totally agree with that because I can cite examples of that not being the case, but I won't argue with you if that's the read you got from his books. Haven't read all of them myself.

Also, I think Bendis wants this to be a redemption story for Clark. You have to go to the bottom of the well before you can climb out. Something that will re-establish why we need a Superman, a counterbalance to the sick race he came from.

You don't think it would be odd at all for Bendis, in this day and age, to generalize a whole as "sick and depraved" while holding Clark up as "one of the good ones?" You don't think it would be odd for him to basically contrive a why to justify what we now know to be genocide? That rings especially false if Bendis' words about being mindful of Superman's roots as a Jewish American creation (Bendis himself being of the same heritage) are to be believed. Not sure he'd go for that, but, again, I know about as much as you do.

[Kuwagaton]

I personally don't think those are the things on the table considering Bendis in general, the character of Superman, or what has been said so far. But who knows? If anything I think we can see some more problematic scenes with Jor El since Zaar specifically mentioned him.

As for DC Nation, well, I'm not sold on the hype behind these twists.

[Katana500]

Who knows what Kryptonians perpetrated on the universe before becoming isolated? So they ravaged planet after planet, much like the colonises from the Alien movie franchise.

It would make sense for the Kryptonians to have had an expansionist streak in the past. Im sure not all the Kryptonian colonies were on uninhibited worlds. Empires aren't built without some conquest.

Could be explained that as their civilization got older they realized it was wrong - similar to how the european empires eventually realized colonialism was wrong. Was their ever a reason to explain what happened to all of Krypton's colonies on other planets - I always just assumed they got abandoned but never knew why.

[jackolover]

It would make sense for the Kryptonians to have had an expansionist streak in the past. Im sure not all the Kryptonian colonies were on uninhibited worlds. Empires aren't built without some conquest.

Could be explained that as their civilization got older they realized it was wrong - similar to how the european empires eventually realized colonialism was wrong. Was their ever a reason to explain what happened to all of Krypton's colonies on other planets - I always just assumed they got abandoned but never knew why.

Good point. If Krypton expanded so far and wide, there would be histories of galactic interactions involving Krypton that other planets remembered. And for Krypton to just abandon planets without some struggle by indigenes seems unlikely. The Dutch had to be extricated from Indonesia, because they would never give that up. Look at all the colonises. They had to be pushed out. If that was the case with Kryptonian colonies, who pushed them out? If there was a concerted effort to push Krypton back, we’re talking Superman by a Billion. This would have to be some really spectacular pushing.

[Katana500]

Good point. If Krypton expanded so far and wide, there would be histories of galactic interactions involving Krypton that other planets remembered. And for Krypton to just abandon planets without some struggle by indigenes seems unlikely. The Dutch had to be extricated from Indonesia, because they would never give that up. Look at all the colonises. They had to be pushed out. If that was the case with Kryptonian colonies, who pushed them out? If there was a concerted effort to push Krypton back, we’re talking Superman by a Billion. This would have to be some really spectacular pushing.

maybe]any potential war was so brutal that whatever alliance against Krypton was destroyed to explain why no one remembers Krypton's expansionism. But Krypton too was badly battered losing all its colonies and becoming isolationist on its home world to stop future wars. They then sit around for a number of generations become decadent and then get destroyed when the planet explodes.