Superman General

Zaar is still by far the worst of the explanations for Krypton's destruction. Just unbelievably boring, with a horrendous and generic design, no character whatsoever... just the worst all around.

I think that decentralizing Krypton too much leads to weird anti-immigrant stuff like in the Byrne era.

I think it's important enough to be brought up often.

Where the silver age went wrong in my opinion was introducing a new Phantom Zone criminal every week. That was always lame.

I like the natural disaster version. Makes for a good contrast to Batman's origin story.

Speaking of Krypton, what's everyone's favorite depictions of it?

Personally, just in terms of aesthetics and vibes, nothing to me tops Lenil Francis-Yu's depiction of it in Birthright, where it looks super-alien and colorful. With second place going to either Pre-Crisis or, of all things, Zack Synder's depiction in Man Of Steel, which is basically like John Byrne's version but actually good and really cool for the relatively brief snippet we get of it. Generally speaking, I really prefer when Krypton looks and feels very unlike Earth in every conceivable way, both in terms of looks and culture (like, going back to Snyder, how his depiction has Kryptonians reproducing through cloning and gene-construct, and are so committed to the idea that Zod looks like he's about to hurl in disgust when he learns Kal was conceived naturally).

Yeah, I don't want Kryptonians to be exactly like Earth humans. They need to be different.

I can go for either the natural disaster...or a villain destroying Krypton...as long as the villain is actually cool (like Brainiac). As far as my favorite version of Krypton...probably the Zack Snyder version. I remember getting the Legendary World book for the movie...and it gave some background material on Krypton that I found intriguing. Silver Age Krypton is way too "Earth" for my liking.

house of brainiac started brainiac sets loose a bunch of czarians who start attacking metropolis, and ll-01 was revealed not to have been made by luthor to mess with superman, but is from brainiac who says lex saw into his mind when they worked together long ago and has been trying to prepare superman for this by giving him supercorp and setting pharm and graft after himself and brainiac starts teleporting superman's allies and his recently redeemed enemies like parasite, livewire, and silver banshee, and lex shoves clark out of the way and gets teleported instead. at the end its revealed brainiac is working with all his alternate versions, whether this is multiverse or just drones that look like other brainiacs is unsure. my favorite bit is ll-01 brainiac saying he now understands luthors lust for power because knowledge is power which means knowledge is power and because of superman they most power is in metropolis

Question, who's taken on the mantle of Superman besides Clark Kent and in what order?

The ones that immediately come to mind are obviously the four from Reign of the Superman; Conner, Steel, Henshaw, and Eradicator. Then years later we got Kong Kenan and Jon. Can't think of anyone other than that, tbh.

Pretty sure being trying to be Superman has been Lex Luthor's thing, at least during New 52.

Did they actually take on the mantle or have it force upon them? I know Steel was upfront that he wasn't Superman during that arc. I don't know if They called him Superman though.

x4 There are lots, going back a long ways. That'd be a big list. Most, as you can probably guess, didn't last long. I remember, for instance, a story from the early 80's where there was a pro-wrestler who had called himself Superman before Superman showed up, and whose career went into a slump afterwards. He unknowingly had psychic powers and so was able to manipulate Superman into a "title bout" for the name.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 10th 2024 at 8:58:42 AM

Speaking of super-legacy its significant that Jon looks to be a no-show for House of Brainiac.

The big Superman crossover and the son of Superman isn't in it.

Keep in Connor, Kara, Kenan, the Super Twins, Lana, John Henry and Natasha Irons are all in it.

Steel didn't claim to be Superman, but the comics did try to hint that Superman's soul might be inhabiting John Henry Irons's body in a form of reincarnation.

I imagine either Jon's writers had some story they want to do with him without being interrupted by a crossover or the writers of House of Brainiac just decided they didn't need him for this particular arc.

Is he being written in anything?

The only time he appeared recently was under Tom Taylor in his Beast World event.

The only other thing he has lined up is a story in the upcoming Pride special.

I think he may turn up in Suicide Squad: Dream Team as the latest issue seems to have Waller order Bizzaro to push Jay's mum out a window for some reason.

Speaking off, how much of New 52 happened to current Supergirl again? I lost track.

@Slim

He appears in one panel hanging out at an arcade with Osul, Otho, and Kenan, but he is weirdly absent during the fight scenes.

That is really weird.

Interview by Joshua Williamson about House of Brainiac

Looks like things might end with Supes in a hard place.

We are also getting a cool moment with Connor soon.

Edited by slimcoder on Apr 11th 2024 at 8:03:17 AM

All the Brainiacs

I like how they all have different numbers of dots on their foreheads.

Maybe the different number of dots on heads is some sort of ranking symbol? Like it indicates how high-level of an intellect each is.

Some of them probably wanted to have the brightest skull in the room.

I like how one of them looks like the DCAU Brainiac.