DECIPHERING DC
Writers: John Byrne, E. Nelson Bridwell, Dennis O'Neil, Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, Elliott S! Maggin, Paul Kupperberg, Martin Pasko, Bob Rozakis
Artists: Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant, John Byrne, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano, Gray Morrow, Dave Cockrum, Michael W Kaluta, Dick Dillin, Marshall Rogers and Gil Kane
Collects: The World of Krypton 1-4, part of Man of Steel issue 1 and back up features from Superman issues 233,236,238,240,248,257,266,375 and Superman Family issue 182
Publisher: DC Comics
Welcome to yet another edition of Deciphering DC. Today, after a long hiatus, we take a look at the continuing saga of Superman's early years (earlier looks at post COIE Superman can be found here and here).
Some time after Superman made a splash with the explosive Man of Steel miniseries, John Byrne wrote three more mini series, with different artists, each chronicling a part of the Superman mythos. The World of Krypton was the first of the three, with breakdowns by Mike Mignola and finishes by Rick Bryant.
Krypton was first seen as a cold, sterile world in the Man of Steel mini series. However, our view of Krypton was terribly brief. Byrne takes the space to elaborate, instead being repetitive, and stretching what could have easily been a single issue or a double sized issue at the most to a four issue mini series.
Centuries before Krypton exploded, cloning was a standard practice. Three cells were taken at birth from each kryptonian so that clones could be made, thereby indefinitely prolonging the life of each kryptonian. However, a faction of society demands that the clones be given rights and set free, and the practice of using them for spare parts is inhuman and barbaric.
Vara, in the course of a race with Van-L, ancestor of Jor-El, is injured and rushed to the hospital where she is saved using cloned parts. Kan-Z, another youth, finds that his mother is planning to marry him to a clone of herself. This explodes into the first personal act of violence on Krypton in centuries, as Kan-Z kills his mother at Van-L's coming of age ceremony; which leads to unrest and war.
Centuries later, Van-L tries to protect the rest of Krypton from a terrorist organisation known as Black Zero who threaten to destroy a Krypton ruined from the earlier Civil War. Kan-Z is revealed to be the leader of Black Zero. However, the plans of Kan-Z and Black Zero succeed, and a nuclear device is detonated in the middle of the city.
Jor-El views the entire history of Van-L when he is summoned and as per the rules of the now sterile Krypton, which now do not permit socializing, and even when a couple is selected to bear a child, they do not actually meet, but genetic data is taken and the child is grown in a laboratory. Jor-El finds this practice disconcerting, and takes the effort to meet Lara. Research undertaken by Jor-El proves that the explosion initiated by Black Zero has begun converting the core of the planet into Kryptonite, rendering it unstable and causing it to explode. The Els succeed in sending their child to Earth. On earth, Superman tells Lois Lane about the world he comes from, their history, and their legacy.
Other than the first issue, every issue felt dragged out. Though the story is told through different points of view, it could have been tighter. Mike Mignola's wizardry isn't evident here, understandably so, as this was one of his earlier works and features only breakdowns.
The back ups are actually more interesting than the main story. The forst feature is a reprint of the first eight pages of Man of Steel 1, featuring the'sterile' Krypton in full glory. Of the classic back ups, my favourites were "Doomsayer" by Dennis O'Neil and "The Face on the falling Star" by Elliott S! Maggin. Most of the stories in this section are moral stories. I have no idea whether there were more, but I'd definitely have wanted to see more of these in comparision to the main story.
My rating: 7 on 10. Redeemed by the backups. The main story gets a 5 on 10 from me.
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Aalok Joshi is a total fanboy and claims to read everything in the comics genre but American comics and Syndicated strips totally win him over. He has been reading comics since he was 5 and started off with Indrajal Comics. After his relatives started pestering him about changing his reading habits, he switched over to novels after junking his erstwhile collection. Gotham Comics, the Indian Authorized publisher of DC/Marvel brought him back in 2002 and he has stayed here ever since.
Now concentrating largely on DC and slightly on Marvel and few selected independents, he is interested and taking steps towards writing for the genre. He also dabbles in illustration and his dream is one newspaper style cartoon per day.
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