Return to Krypton: "Fathers" / "Sliding Home" / "Second Honeymoon" / "The Most Dangerous Kryptonian Game" / "Escape from Krypton"
The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #589 (Apr. 2001)
Superman: Return to Krypton (2004), reprinting Action Comics vol. 1 #776, Superman vol. 2 #166-67, Superman: The Man of Steel #111 (Mar.-Apr. 2001)
Story: Jeph Loeb, Joe Casey, Mark Schultz, and Joe Kelly
Pencils: Ed McGuinness, Duncan Rouleau, Doug Mahnke, and Kano
Inkers: Cam Smith, Jaime Mendoza, Marlo Alquiza, and Tom Nguyen
Colors: Tanya & Richard Horie and Rob Schwager
Lettering: Richard Starkings, Chris Eliopoulos, and Ken Lopez
Assistant Editor: Tom Palmer, Jr.
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Joe Casey's second solo issue on Adventures of Superman isn't really a solo issue at all, because Adventures is promptly plunged into a crossover between the four ongoing Super titles, Return to Krypton, and Adventures #589 is thus part two of a four-part story. (The Return to Krypton trade also collects a one-issue prologue, Superman #166.) In this story, the sterile Krypton of John Byrne's Man of Steel reboot is revealed to be an illusion, and the "true" Krypton is something closer to the Krypton that we saw in the comics of the Silver Age; Jor-El created fake data about Krypton for Kal-El so that he wouldn't miss his home. It's a little convoluted-- retconning a retcon always is, I suppose-- and probably doesn't really track with the details of Man of Steel, which I remember really liking, though it's been over a decade since I've read it. In that story, people on Krypton no longer bore children, so baby Kal-El was sent to Earth in a "birthing matrix," and thus literally born in Kansas. Return to Krypton makes it clear that Lara bore Kal-El in her body, and then he was placed in the birthing matrix to be sent to Earth, so the story maintains some details of Man of Steel while ignoring its spirit.
from Superman vol. 2 #167 (script by Jeph Loeb, art by Ed McGuinness & Cam Smith) |
It's action-packed (particularly part three, Man of Steel #111), which is the big weakness of it all: I feel like this story should have had more emotional weight. This is momentous! But most of the story is spent 1) massaging the continuity to the preferred form of the 2000s writers, and 2) making things explode again and again. The human story gets lost in the middle of it all. I know this is a superhero comic, but I feel like there must have been a way to balance them better than they were.
from The Adventures of Superman vol. 1 #589 (script by Joe Casey, art by Duncan Rouleau and Jaime Mendoza & Marlo Alquiza) |
As for the retcons... I dunno. The Steve Mollmann criterion for judging retcons is that The new thing must be at least as interesting, if not more interesting, as the old thing being replaced. I did like Byrne's Man of Steel, especially its vision of Krypton, but I'm open to stories about other forms of Krypton being told. But based on this tale, this new old version of Krypton doesn't have more to offer, but I also believe it could. Weirdly, the story indicates Superman might actually have changed Kryptonian history (wouldn't that have wiped him from existence) and kind of hints that the Man of Steel Krypton still exists. I guess I'll see if either of these ideas are picked up in Adventures going forward.
(Incidentally, the method of the retcon here would itself be retconned! In Superman: Infinite Crisis we're told that Kal-El's backstory changed because of Superboy-Prime punching at the edge of reality, and thus not because Jor-El had been lying about the truth.)
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