{"id":33316,"date":"2025-07-13T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=33316"},"modified":"2025-07-11T11:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T11:59:14","slug":"superman-the-many-worlds-of-krypton-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/07\/13\/superman-the-many-worlds-of-krypton-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Superman: The Many Worlds of Krypton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy E. Nelson Bridwell<\/strong>, Denny O\u2019Neil<\/strong>, Cary Bates<\/strong>, Marv Wolfman<\/strong>, Elliot S. Maggin<\/strong>, Paul Kupperberg<\/strong>, John Byrne<\/strong>, Murphy Anderson<\/strong>, Dick Giordano<\/strong>, Gray Morrow<\/strong>, Michael Kaluta<\/strong>, Dave Cockrum<\/strong>, Dick Dillin<\/strong>, Marshall Rogers<\/strong>, Howard Chaykin<\/strong>, Paul Kupperberg<\/strong>, Mike Mignola<\/strong>, Rick Bryant, Carlos Garzon<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-7889-2 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

For fans and comics creators alike, continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, and the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly \u201cnever happened\u201d. A most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman\u2019s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.<\/p>\n

Silver Age readers avidly consuming Superman<\/strong>, Action Comics<\/strong>, Superman\u2019s Girlfriend Lois Lane<\/strong>, World\u2019s Finest Comics<\/strong> and Superman\u2019s Pal Jimmy Olsen<\/strong> (not forgetting Superboy<\/strong> and Adventure Comics<\/strong>) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in incredible blanks about the lost world through the tantalising and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 1970s, The Fabulous World of Krypton<\/strong> was a back-up feature in Superman<\/strong> specifically revealing intriguing glimpses from the history of that lost world. But during Crisis on Infinite Earths and it\u2019s in its wake that was all unmade. Happily, however, these days a far wiser DC has opened the doors to all those lost moments with a more inviting and inclusive definition of continuity, so a \u201cyay them\u201d all around!<\/p>\n

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s – and an issue of giant-sized anthology Superman Family<\/strong> – the peripatetic feature delivered 27 \u201cUntold Tales of Superman\u2019s Native Planet\u201d (and is long overdue for a complete archival collection; perhaps as a DC Finest edition?) by a host of the industry\u2019s greatest talents all further exploring that defunct wonderland. A far-too-small selection of those are re-presented in this beguiling commemoration, taken from Superman<\/strong> #233, 236, 238, 240, 248, 257, 266 and Superman Family<\/strong> #182, to augment a brace of miniseries World of Krypton<\/strong> #1-3 and World of Krypton (<\/strong>vol. 2) #1-4. These collectively span 1971-1988 and, following enticing scene-setting introduction \u2018The World (of Krypton) According to Paul (Kupperberg)\u2019<\/em>, kick off Chapter 1: Fabulous World of Krypton <\/strong>with E. Nelson Bridwell (always the go-to guy for any detail of fact, or trivia concerning the company\u2019s vast comics output) & Murphy Anderson\u2019s trendsetting, groundbreaking yarn \u2018Jor-El\u2019s Golden Folly\u2019<\/em>.
\n\"\"
\nFollow-up tales would alternate between glimpses of historical or mythological moments in the development of the Kryptonians and tales of the House of El, such as this astoundingly concise and tension-soaked drama which in seven pages introduces Superman\u2019s father, traces his scholastic graduation and early triumphs in anti-gravity physics & rocketry and reveals how he met his bride-to-be, trainee astronaut Lara Lor-Van<\/em>. The story also reveals how she stows away on a test rocket, crashes on the (luckily) habitable moon Wegthor<\/em> and survives until her infatuated suitor finds a way to rescue her…<\/p>\n

This a superb adventure in its own right and, set against what we fans already knew about the doomed planet, augured well what was to follow…<\/p>\n

The remaining tales in this section concentrate on non-Jor-El episodes – presumably in lieu of what follows – so the next fable comes from Superman<\/strong> #236 with Green Arrow<\/strong> & Black Canary <\/strong>hearing their Justice League colleague recount the story of \u2018The Doomsayer\u2019<\/em> (by Denny O\u2019Neil & Dick Giordano). This eco-terror tale reveals how scientist Mo-De<\/em> detected mounting tectonic pressures at the planet\u2019s core but was silenced by modern day lotus eaters who didn\u2019t want to hear any unpleasant truths…<\/p>\n

In the guise of a Kryptonian kindergarten class story time session, Cary Bates & Gray Morrow devised a hard science creation myth for Superman<\/strong> #238 as \u2018A Name is Born\u2019 <\/em>details how two marooned – and initially mutually antagonistic – aliens crashed on the primeval planet and joined to birth a new race together…<\/p>\n

Bates & Michael Kaluta united in #240 for a cunning, irony-drenched murder mystery as \u2018The Man Who Cheated Time\u2019<\/em> details the unexpected consequences of an ambitious scientist who stole from and slaughtered his rivals only to pay for his crimes in a most unexpected manner. Then, Kryptonian archaeologists unearth a lost moment in planetary history as \u2018All in the Mind\u2019<\/em> (Marv Wolfman & Dave Cockrum from #248) discloses how war between ancient city states Erkol<\/em> and Xan<\/em> resulted in a generation of mutants. If only the parents had been more understanding and less intolerant, those super-kids could have saved their forebears from extinction…<\/p>\n

Superman<\/strong> #257 (October 1972) generated a timeless instant classic wherein Elliot S! Maggin and illustrators Dick Dillin & Giordano celebrated \u2018The Greatest Green Lantern of All\u2019<\/em>. Here avian GL Tomar-Re<\/em> reports his tragic failure in preventing Krypton\u2019s detonation, unaware that the Guardians of the Universe<\/em> had a plan to preserve and use that world\u2019s greatest bloodline – or at least its last son…
\n\"\"
\nMaggin, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella then emphasised a long-hidden connection between Earth and Krypton in #266 as \u2018The Face on the Falling Star\u2019<\/em> reveals how, in eons past, two Kryptonian children were saved from doom by a strange device fallen from the sky: a machine sent from a lost civilisation on pre-historic Terra…<\/p>\n

Wrapping up this section is Paul Kupperberg, Marshall Rogers & Frank Springer\u2019s \u2018The Stranger\u2019<\/em> as first seen in Superman Family<\/strong> #182: an analogue Christmas fable explaining how four millennia past a holy man named Jo-Mon<\/em> sacrificed his life to liberate the people and end the depredations of tyrannical despot Al-Nei<\/em>…<\/p>\n

The second section – Chapter 2: The Life of Jor-El<\/strong> – reprints a pioneering miniseries that referenced many of those 27 vignettes, as well as the key Krypton-focussed yarns of the Superman franchise. In 1979 – when the first Superman movie had made the hero a global sensation once more – scripter Paul Kupperberg and artist Howard Chaykin (assisted and ghost-pencilled by Alan Kupperberg) plus inkers Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte, synthesised many scattered back-story details into DC\u2019s first limited series World of Krypton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a monochrome pocket paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell. That enchanting, magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds remains a grand old slice of comics fun and forms the spine of the new composite compilation.<\/p>\n

It opens on \u2018The Jor-El Story\u2019<\/em> with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on Earth\u2019s moon: a record from his long-deceased father detailing the scientist\u2019s life, career and struggle with nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near-extinction. As the Man of Steel listens, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite sinister and aberrant efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them; how his sire discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone<\/em> ray<\/em>; uncovered lost technology of a dead race that provided the basis of Kal-El\u2019s escape rocket, and learns his father\u2019s take on Superman\u2019s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…<\/p>\n

In \u2018This Planet is Doomed\u2019<\/em> the troubled orphan feels his father\u2019s pain when android marauder Brainiac<\/em> steals the city of Kandor, reels as rogue scientist Jax-Ur<\/em> blows up inhabited moon Wegthor, and is revolted as civil war almost crushes civilisation thanks to deranged militarist General Zod<\/em> – and how and when his own cousin Kru-El<\/em> forever disgraced the noble House of El. The countdown to disaster continues until \u2018The Last Days of Krypton\u2019<\/em>, as political intrigue and exhaustion overwhelm the distraught scientist and – all avenues closed to him – Jor-El takes drastic action…
\n\"\"
\nHeavily referencing immortal classics such as \u2018Superman\u2019s Return to Krypton\u2019<\/em> (Superman <\/strong>vol. 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton<\/strong> mini-epics \u2018Jor-El\u2019s Golden Folly\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Moon-Crossed Love\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Marriage, Kryptonian Style\u2019<\/em> and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is still a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…<\/p>\n

Final section Chapter 3: The World of Krypton<\/strong> is John Byrne, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant & Carlos Garzon\u2019s dark reworking of the myth, depicting a radically different planet which came with the reordering of reality. In 1985, when DC decided to rationalise, reconstruct and reinvigorate their continuity via Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong>, they used the event to regenerate key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it\u2019s hard to argue that the change was not before time. This new Superman repurposed the hero into a harsher, more uncompromising hero who might be alien in physicality but completely human in terms of feelings and attitudes. As seen in Man of Steel<\/strong> #1 (not included here), \u2018From Out of the Green Dawn\u2019<\/em> traced the child\u2019s voyage in a self-propelled birthing matrix to a primitive but vital and vibrant world. He had escaped from a cold, sterile, soulless and emotionally barren planet barely glimpsed before it was gone in a cosmic flash.<\/p>\n

As the reconfigured hero\u2019s new adventures became a sensational success, his creators felt compelled to revisit his bleakly dystopian birthworld. It was however, now conceived of as a far darker and more forbidding place and 1987\u2019s 4-issue miniseries opted to reveal how that transformation came about.<\/p>\n

Scripted by Byrne, it all begins in \u2018Pieces\u2019<\/em> (art by Mignola & Bryant) as an indolent hedonistic scientific paradise comes crashing into ruin after the age\u2019s greatest moral dilemma boils over into global civil war. For 10 thousand generations, Kryptonians enjoyed virtual immortality thanks to the constant cultivation of clones to use for medical spare parts. The rights of the clones had been debated for centuries, but recently resulted in sporadic violence. The situation changes after ultra-privileged Nyra <\/em>is exposed as having stolen one of her supposedly braindead clones for an act of shockingly aberrant social abomination. Her exposure leads to murder, suicide and a rapidly escalating collapse of social cohesion…
\n\"\"
\nCenturies \u2018After the Fall\u2019<\/em>, technologist Van-L<\/em> wanders a planet shattered by devastating war technologies, surviving only because of his nurturing war suit. The grand planetary society is gone, replaced by constantly warring pockets of humanity, but Van needs allies, be they former lovers or despised foes. He has learned that the original instigator of the collapse still lives and plans to assuage accumulated shame and guilt by blowing up the planet…<\/p>\n

For the third issue, the scene shifts to millennia later as young scholar Jor-El immerses himself in a traumatic \u2018History Lesson\u2019<\/em>. This distant descendant of Van-L obsessively probes the last days of the conflict and the nuclear annihilation scheme of terrorist cell Black Zero<\/em>, but his compulsion causes him to almost miss a crucial social obligation: meeting his father and the grandparent of Lara, selected by The Masters of the Gestation Chamber<\/em> as his ideal DNA co-contributor to what will be the first Kryptonian allowed to be born in centuries…<\/p>\n

Carlos Garzon steps in to finish Mignola\u2019s pencils for concluding chapter \u2018Family History\u2019<\/em> as, in contemporary times, Superman agrees to an interview with Daily Plant reporter Lois Lane. The subject is how Krypton died, and why…<\/p>\n

Recapping the intervening millennia of history and stagnation, the Last Son of Krypton reveals how his own birth-father uncovered a shocking secret, rebelled against his moribund, morbid and repressed culture, and found brief comfort with perhaps the last kindred spirit on his world. Kal-El<\/em> then tells of how they ensured his survival at the cost of their own…<\/p>\n

Celebrating the many and varied Worlds of Krypton, this is a magnificent tribute to the imagination of many creators and the power of modern mythology: the ever-changing evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady Days of Yore(-El)…
\n\u00a9 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1987, 2008, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By E. Nelson Bridwell, Denny O\u2019Neil, Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, Elliot S. Maggin, Paul Kupperberg, John Byrne, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano, Gray Morrow, Michael Kaluta, Dave Cockrum, Dick Dillin, Marshall Rogers, Howard Chaykin, Paul Kupperberg, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant, Carlos Garzon & various (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-7889-2 (TPB\/Digital edition) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Superman: The Many Worlds of Krypton”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,258,76,255,102,15,82,345,395,127,107,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-black-canary","category-dc-superhero","category-environmentalism","category-fantasy","category-green-arrow","category-green-lantern","category-lois-lane","category-mike-mignola","category-nostalgia","category-science-fiction","category-superman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8Fm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33322,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33316\/revisions\/33322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}