Writer: Geoff Johns, James Robinson & Sterling Gates
Pencils: Pete Woods, Gary Frank & Renato Guedes
Inks: Pete Woods, Jon Sibal & Wilson Magalhaes

Art: 8/10
Story: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10

Superman: New Krypton Special #1 effectively pulls together all of the various plotlines from Action Comics and Superman into one cohesive major story. This issue does its job of laying out a clear direction for both Superman titles and also manages to hook the reader’s interest into picking up both titles to follow this monster story.

The first three pages had absolutely no dialogue. Franks’ artwork was unbelievably powerful as he conveyed such a range of emotions from Clark’s heart wrenching sorrow, Lana’s feelings of regret and shame to Bruce Wayne’s ever constant distant personality. Most writers would have not had the restraint to allow an artist to tell the story. I appreciated the fact that we were not flooded with narration boxes.

I loved the scene with Ma Kent and Clark where she emphatically tells her son that he has nothing to be sorry about concerning his father’s death and then orders him to go do his job. I liked how Clark eagerly offers up the statement that the restoration of Kandor will not change him.

The theme of family continues as Superman fresh off the loss of one of his parents watches Kara’s emotional family reunion with her parents. Even though Superman is clearly happy about Kara being reunited with her parents, there is probably a tinge of jealousy that he not only does not have his biological parents, but now he is missing his adoptive father.

The writers do a fine job handling the debate between Superman and Jor-El concerning the debate about the newly super powered Kryptonians from Kandor. This is obviously going to become a serious problem. Superman handles his incredible powers well because of his Earthling father and Pa Kent’s humble and solid middle-American values. The teachings of Pa Kent and how they have impacted Superman are well contrasted with the fact that Jor-El seems horrified at the suggestion that the Kryptonians learn from the Earthlings. Jor-El’s comment of why the Kandorians would allow the Earthlings to teach them to be less Kryptonian was perfect.

It is totally unbelievable to think that all of the Kandorians are going to handle their awesome new powers like Superman has. The fact is that your average person, or Kryptonian, when blessed with such incredible powers would probably trend toward being a villain rather than a selfless and idealistic hero.

And on top of that, Superman will face a much more personal decision to make on whether he identifies more with his Earthling upbringing and his Earthling adoptive mother or more with his Kryptonian heritage and his Kryptonian family. The fact is that deep down inside, Clark is more a typical mid-west farm boy than he is a Kryptonian.

The artwork by committee was nicely done. Yes, it creates an inconsistent look to this issue, but that is offset by the fact that Woods, Frank and Guedes are all three great artists. Frank’s artwork was my favorite of the three due to his amazing ability to convey so many emotions and properly move the story along in the absence of any dialogue. Still, all three artists did a fine job with the artwork and they combined to make this a good looking issue.

The writers made this issue very new reader friendly. If you have not given either Action Comics or Superman a try then Superman: New Krypton Special #1 is the perfect jumping on point.

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