Superman: New Krypton HC

It seems that by the time New Krypton rolls around, James Robinson has more involvement in the super-books than Geoff Johns. I found myself a bit puzzled during this trade, even though I read Superman: Brainiac fairly recently. The collection opens with Jimmy Olsen setting out to find out who the mysterious observer was during Superman's recent fight with Atlas. This leads Jimmy back to Cadmus labs, where his old pal Dubbilex gives a very informative info-dump about a new villain named Codename: Assassin. Assassin is already on Jimmy's trail and is a step ahead though, Dubbilex dies after the conversation. I'm bummed to see the neat Kirby-creation die like this, but I suppose being a DNAlien, he could always come back. This is a good example of Robinson's recent penchant for killing though. (I fear for Agent Liberty who shows up later in the hardcover.) Jimmy continues to meet up with Guardian. The whole Guardian thing is confusing, but I think it boils down to this: the original guardian was cloned, killed, and since then has been replaced by one "prime" clone (the first) and a bunch of stand-ins who haven't lasted long. The less said about this the better, I'll just assume that the original was cloned and now we're reading about him. Let's leave the other stuff out of it! Robinson does some neat stuff setting up the non-Kirby aspects of Cadmus as a much more mundane and shady government contractor.

These plot elements all lead into the development that General Sam Lane is alive and in charge of a project to kill Superman. Cadmus, Codename: Assassin, Atlas, Lex Luthor, and Brainiac are all part of this crew that wants Supes dead. There are a few scenes with the Kandorian survivors of Krypton that are appropriately worrisome too, these aliens are not going to fit in, I can see why they need their own planet. I still don't like the idea of this many folks running around with Supes' power-set either.

Pete Woods handles a bunch of the art in this one, and I still like his clean, classic style. He's really set the style for the Superman books in this era, and everyone involved in this collection does a nice job keeping things consistent.

Average