Post by Babu Baboon on Jun 15, 2018 20:52:10 GMT -6
It's bad enough such a lame looking villain has been shoe-horned into Superman's origin. Now he's destroying treasured parts of his history.
From CBR:
Superman has more weaknesses than just a terrible allergic ration to Kryptonite, or being reduced to less than a mere mortal in the face of magic. There are two major routes to take if you were in the business of making Kal-El emotionally buckle at the knees, and neither one is related to brute strength (although, some heavy hitters have proven this is also an option). Superman lives simultaneously in two different realms in his day-to-day life. One of those is his human alter ego Clark Kent, the reporter and family man. Attacking this facet of The Man of Steel is pretty direct, which is to threaten his family and his livelihood. This is something just about every comic reader can relate to. We all have family and friends we care about (hopefully) and someone putting them in harm’s way is soul-crushing.
But the other way to get Big Blue to shed some tears via emotional terrorism is to attack his origins, specifically, any remnant of his dead home world, Krypton.
The relationship Superman has with Krypton is a complex one. Though he was born there, it’s a world that he has never stepped foot on in the primary DC continuity (aside from a recent time-travleing adventure alongside Booster Gold), but he feels a deep connection with it nonetheless. Unlike most people who have left their homeland, Superman can never go back, can never visit where he came from. There’s a certain level of angst and loneliness this realization inflicts upon him.
Even when remnants from Krypton are discovered, be it a long-lost cousin or villains from his Krypton, they can’t possibly fill the void of never really knowing what it was like to call his birth place home. This make whatever tiny bit of Krypton (that aren’t built to kill him) Superman comes across deathly important to him. The pinnacle of these home world keepsakes is Kandor, the shrunken capital city of Krypton Superman hides in the Fortress of Solitude.
In The Man of Steel #3, this living, breathing memento has been destroyed by Rogol Zaar, a villain who has been exhibiting quite an obsession for eradicating any and all fragments of Kryptonian life. And, as it turns out, Rogol is pretty good at what he does.
While for the most part, Kandor may look like a lifeless snow globe sitting on the shelf just waiting for a cat to knock to the ground, it’s actually filled with life, and has been used a plot device to drive Superman since the late 1950s. Originally, Kandor was shrunken and stolen from Krypton by the supervillain Brainiac years before the planet’s inevitable destruction. And while Kandor has seen various recons and alternate versions over the last few decades, what it means to Superman has never changed, even if it has been used for more nefarious purposes.
Before Brian Michael Bendis took up the reins on Superman, Kandor was most recently featured in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight III: The Master Race. During the miniseries, the inhabitants of the shrunken city were brought back to full size by the Atom. Under normal circumstances, this would be cause for celebration, but the Kandorians were quickly turned against the people of Earth, forcing the Last Son of Krypton to fight alongside an aged Batman and Wonder Woman against the last of his people.
Now, Bendis has taken that storied history and literally shattered it to pieces. It’s a bold move, and one that definitely has Superman’s hackles up. Power plays like this keep pumping up what a threat Rogol Zaar truly is. This guy knows what Superman can do. He knows the power the Man of Steel possesses, but his reign of terror against Krypton clearly knows no bounds and will not be deterred even by Earth’s greatest guardian.
If Rogol is cunning and swift enough to raid The Fortress of Solitude without getting caught, then what’s to stop him from doing the same to Clark Kent’s home? It’s a terrible notion, but one that must be considered. After all, Jon is half Kryptonian. If Rogol is trying to wipe out all history of the planet Krypton, why would he stop at Kandor? Yikes. Maybe Bendis really has crafted the most deadly Superman villain ever.
