Moved to a new place and went to the local library where I found that much to my surprise they had a really good Superman comics selection. They had pretty much the entire New Krypton saga volumes, so I decided to give it a reread. Man the ending is still just as anti climatic and disappointing as it was the first time I read it. I really felt like that as I was reading it the first time that this was going to radically shake up the Superman status quo and be Zod’s defining story like how Johns redefined the modern Brainiac. And you know what? I really enjoyed the majority of the New Krypton storyline. Kal and Kara trying to guide the New Kryptonians while back on Earth Jimmy and Lois try to expose General Sam Lane. Zod comes off as the Ra’s Al Ghul type villain I had always hoped he would become, cruel and ruthless at times but with a certain nobility and genuine compassion for his people as well as a willingness to let Kal do things his way. Metallo and Reactron got their threat factor heavily upgraded and got to really show how dangerous they are. Lex and Brainiac got to seriously show off their stuff as well, I loved the LoSH showing up to help. Of course Lex ends up backstabbing Brainiac with the aid of the Toyman (one thing I loved about the Johns era even though he was gone by this point was all of Clark’s Rogues having a hand in what was going on in some way or another). I actually really liked the parallels between General Sam Lane and General Zod, though I know a lot of people hate “Ross Lane”.

But man the War of the Supermen is just bad. Zod goes back to being a mustache twirler, New Krypton blows up, Sam Lane kills himself, and the “back to status quo” button gets hit so hard it leaves your head spinning and wondering what the hell was even the point of the story. Especially since the reboot was coming I don’t know why they didn’t just let the writers go with their original intended ending, not like it would’ve mattered anyway. The “War” gets mopped up in one issue pretty much, and lacks any sense of impact or weight. The aging of Chris was also really weird and kind of creepy given that he was in a romantic relationship and then goes back to being a child.

Yet I still think this would be a great storyline to see adapted on the Young Justice cartoon after they finish the Apokolips plotline if they really want to bring in Kara. Season 3 has been pretty Bat-focused for understandable reasons, wouldn’t mind seeing seeing a hypothetical Season 4 be more focused on the Supermythos. And unlike the comics where everything has to go back to status quo, the cartoon has actual changes like Kaldur becoming Aquaman, so I think something like New Krypton permanently shaking up the status quo would work fine.