Action Comics 871

New Krypton continues with Doomsday roundly taken out by a dozen or so Kandorians and a couple of Zod followers put in their place by the latest version of Nightwing and Flamebird (the fifth I can recall, so likely the 12th). Superman continues to be a bit of a wimp, biting his tongue when too much force is used on Doomsday. Plus, there's a scene showing General Lane won't be Luthor's lackey, and Lex has a gay moment over Brainiac.

The best bit, the scene that made me laugh out loud, came as writer Geoff Johns explained away the other Kandors we've seen since John Byrne's reboot (two by my count, see first parenthetical rambling above). Supposedly they were Kandors inspired by the magnificence of this, the One True Kandor! Genius, Johns uses the Brainiac assertion again. The one that says all the previous versions of Brainiac were drones of the One True Brainiac. He quickly followed that with the revelation that Toymen 2, 3 and maybe 4 (even my theoretical counting has lost track) were robots created by the One True Toyman. And now old Kandors are similarly shrugged off. Expect the new Krypto to pee on the memory of Krypto the Former Dinosaur From the Krypton That Wasn't the One True Krypton (Cos It Was Created By Brainiac 13, a Mere Future Drone - or something) any month now.

The book looked very pretty, with Pete Woods providing some gorgeous Kryptonians and a pouty Luthor reminiscent of Frank Quitely's over in All-Star Superman. And Alex Ross' cover was striking, to say the least.

All in all, a decent good-looking read, but little more than well-produced, predictable set-up for the main event.