World of New Krypton is Superman’s Most Epic Comic Book Story

There have been countless unforgettable Superman stories in the pages of DC Comics, but in terms of telling a comic book story on a grand, epic scale, few can compare to the scope and magnitude of Superman’s World of New Krypton arc. The story is actually somewhat unique, in that it’s really four comic book stories linked together into one huge narrative, and technically five with the 2008 story Superman: Braniaic acting as a lead-in of sorts. From there, the story is told over the course of Superman: New Krypton, Superman: World of New Krypton, Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton, and War of the Supermen. If that sounds like an immersive comic book read, it most certainly is, as would undoubtedly be the case for any Superman story that utilizes General Zod as its primary antagonist.

The New Krypton arc involves the surviving population of Superman‘s home world of Krypton suddenly sitting in orbit right next to Earth, and with that comes a status quo change for the entire DC Universe that even the Man of Steel is hard pressed to find a peaceful resolution to. Told over a wide collection of issues and interweaving with the entire mainline DC continuity narrative, the New Krypton books for a time stood as the only DC comics that Superman was appearing in. There is very good reason for that, though, as even a cliff notes re-telling of the New Krypton story makes quite clear.

World of New Krypton’s Story Explained (& How It Leads Into Last Stand of New Krypton & War of the Supermen)

After New Krypton has been fully formed as a new planet in Earth’s soar system with a population of over 100,000 Kryptonians after the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor as is retrieved from Brainiaci (as seen in New Krypton story), World of New Krypton finds Superman sitting between a rock and a hard place. With tensions building between the human population of Earth and its superhero community and the citizens of New Krypton, Superman makes a big decision in going over to New Krypton. Officially, Superman is inducted into General Zod’s military guild, and given the title of Commander El, but his ultimate goal is to act as a diplomat between his revived home planet and adoptive worlds, hoping to achieve peace between Earth and New Krypton.

However, the situation gradually crumbles, with Zod leading the Kryptonian army to defeat their previous captor Brainiac in Last Stand of New Krypton, and eventually launching plans for a full-scale Kryptonian invasion of Earth. This leads into the final showdown in the four-part New Krypton series finale War of the Supermen, with Earth and its superhero population battling the Kryptonian invasion and Superman going mano-a-mano with General Zod. Eventually, after the Kryptonian war portrayed in War of the Supermen (described as a “100-minute war” in the context of the story by DC Comics), the Man of Steel and his allies defeat General Zod’s invasion, with the majority of New Krypton’s population either killed, sent to the Phantom Zone alongside Zod, or apparently fleeing from Earth.

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World of New Krypton Is a Superman Comic Book Story Like No Other

The overarching New Krypton is not only unusual among comic book stories in effectively combining four individual runs into one massive story, but its scope was so massive as to take over two years to complete between them. Not since the combined runs of The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen had any Superman story tried anything so ambitious, and even without Superman’s death and resurrection, the New Krypton story stands out from virtually every other Superman comic book story ever written with its universe-wide impact and gargantuan final battle.

While Superman himself is the main character of the New Krypton run, the sheer scale of a new population of Kryptonians suddenly sharing a solar system with Earth impacts virtually the entire DC roster. Like with any war story, the line between hero and villain is not always entirely clear, particularly with General Sam Lane’s underhanded plans for Earth’s military response to the aggression of Zod’s Kryptonian forces. Above all, though, New Krypton is a story that tests Superman like never before.

World of New Krypton Challenges Superman Philosophically & Physically

Superman has always been about inspiring the best in people, but the story of World of New Krypton calls upon him to do the unthinkable – become a soldier under the command of his sworn enemy, General Zod. Even though Superman sees doing so as a means to the end of achieving peace between Earth and New Krypton, it’s anything but easy, and his loyalty to his adoptive home world hardly endears him to the population of his original home world. Still, Superman remains as stalwart as ever in trying to mend fences between Earth and New Krypton, and at times, his greatest acts of leadership involve pure diplomacy, as seen when Superman faces an interrogation on New Krypton, and keeps true to his world the night before by remaining in his cell all-night with no bars or other security restraining him.

Of course, the big pay-off to the entire New Krypton arc is the finale battle of War of the Supermen, which is every bit as epic as its title implies. Even with Zod’s long-standing history as one of Superman’s most definitive enemies complete with having all of his powers, there has never been a more thunderous smackdown on the pages of a comic book between Superman and General Zod as seen in War of the Supermen. In every sense, the two-year long, four-story based New Krypton arc belongs in the top five Superman comic book stories ever written, and it is simply without compare as the most large-scale, massive, and truly epic Superman comic book tale of all-time.