10 Comics to Read After ‘Krypton’ Season One

Now that Krypton has ended its first season on a heck of a cliffhanger and won’t debut new episodes until 2019, it seems likely fans of the series will want some ideas for what comics they could read to get their fix.

Krypton centers on Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), Superman’s grandfather, during his younger years on Krypton. It deals with political and cultural divides on the planet as it transitions from an authoritarian theocracy to the sterile, science-driven dystopia seen in most other iterations.

Besides the everyday issues of Krypton itself, there are larger-than-life issues facing the team; Brainiac (Blake Ritson) is coming to bottle Kandor City, and longtime Justice League ally Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos) has come from the future to tell Seg about a time-traveling threat that may prevent the birth of Superman — and by extension erase all the times he has saved the universe from the timeline.

That… did not go as well as planned in Season One, and the season ended with a spectacular cliffhanger: General Zod (Colin Salmon) is in charge of Krypton, Adam Strange is in Detroit — now a part of Brainiac’s collection, Seg is trapped in the Phantom Zone, Superman’s cape now bears the House Zod crest, and Doomsday is coming.

We’ve got a short list below…

Worlds of Krypton

Whether your Krypton is that of John Byrne, Paul Kupperberg, or any of the other options out there in one of the most constantly-reinvented parts of the DC Universe, you can get a glimpse of that take in Worlds of Krypton, a new trade paperback just released in March and timed to the release of Krypton’s series premiere.

This comic also collects “The Greatest Green Lantern of Them All,” a story about the Lantern who was responsible for protecting Krypton’s space sector and how he managed to ensure the world’s legacy by making sure baby Kal-El escaped the explosive death of the planet.

The Man of Steel (1986)

John Byrne’s reinvention of the Superman mythology following the events of DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths began with a major overhaul of Krypton.

Rather than a world of colorfully-dressed Supermen, Krypton became a sterile science-worshiping dystopia, and ultimately the direction in which The Man of Steel took things shaped some of the concepts — clone organ banks, underground cults, and dangerous military experiments like Doomsday — that would come into play in a show like Krypton.

Man of Steel (the movie) was written by Krypton executive producer David S. Goyer, and the look and feel of Goyer’s Krypton — on the show but especially in the movie — is very obviously Byrne-ian.

The Death of Superman

If you want to know what the monster Doomsday is like in his original iteration — the one that producers and cast members on Krypton say inspired them the most — it all begins here.

The “Death of Superman” story tracks Doomsday, a mysterious killing machine, as he emerges from beneath the streets of Ohio and charges across the country to Metropolis, destroying everything in his path as he worked his way toward a final, fatal confrontation with the Man of Steel.

One of DC’s best-selling stories of all time, “The Death and Return of Superman” saga was recently reprinted in a series of graphic novels with matching trade dress and a number of never-before-reprinted stories included. One of the books, published under the title Superman: Doomsday, collects a number of odds and ends featuring the creature, including stories about his origins on Krypton, early battles from years before he faced Superman, and even a confrontation with Brainiac.

World of New Krypton

When the Bottle City of Kandor was finally grown to full size and thousands of Kryptonians populated Earth’s moon, it quickly turned into a chaotic mess as Kryptonian culture and politics threatened to literally take over Earth as the Kryptonians — some of whom were not as noble as one might hope — began to develop super powers.

Here is where the relatively modern take on the guilds was shaped, and so if you liked Krypton but kind of wondered about some of the specifics of the culture, this is a good place to start.

“Brainiac”

Geoff Johns reinvented Brainiac during his run on Action Comics, and it turned out to be so popular that it almost instantaneously became the definitive take on the villain.

The Collector of Worlds was powerful, creepy, and serpentine — and, yes, this is far and away the most influential version of Brainiac in shaping the way the character looked and acted on Krypton.

The story was also the direct inspiration for Superman Unbound, a direct-to-video movie from Warner Bros. Animation.

Booster Shot

In recent months, a time-travel adventure to the day of Krypton’s destruction inadvertently created an alternate timeline where General Zod managed to rise to power not just there, but throughout the universe.

Sounds familiar?

It was not Adam Strange, but Booster Gold — a character who has drawn frequent comparisons to Krypton’s version of Strange.

“Booster Shot” was the final full arc on Action Comics from writer Dan Jurgens, who created both Doomsday and Booster Gold.

The Man of Steel (2018)

We know fairly little about it so far, but Brian Michael Bendis’s The Man of Steel will add to the existing mythology of Krypton in the most current version of the comics.

Bendis, one of Marvel’s most prolific creators of new characters and concepts for 18 years, is making his jump to DC at the end of the month, and the six-issue weekly series featuring art by Ivan Reis, Doc Shaner, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, Kevin Maguire, Adam Hughes, and Jason Fabok will kick off with tweaks to Kryptonian mythology and the introduction of a monstrous new foe, who might serve as one of the future threats on Krypton.

“I called up, and I said, ‘I’m not pitching, but have you ever done a story about what really happened to Krypton?’” Bendis told ComicBook.com. “And then Dan [DiDio] did this voice, and it’s a voice as a fellow author you know this is the good voice. He just goes, ‘Why, what really happened?’ And then, you know you’re going to have a good time. That started the ball rolling for here and just dealing with the … and opening up the historical precedent of what happened with Krypton. What were the other elements in the universe going on during that? How did other people react to it when it happened? Not only is it, obviously, a genocide of the highest order, but that kind of thing affects the entire galaxy, and we’re going to see how that’s been playing out over the years.”

The Omega Men

There have been several hints dropped that The Omega Men could appear on Krypton.

The Omega Men are, relatively speaking, small fish in a big DC pond, so their frequent mention has led some fans to believe that there are specific plans afoot.

Series star Cameron Cuffe, responding to stories about the Justice League and Green Lantern Corps being name-dropped on a recent episode of Krypton, tweeted back that “Our show takes place in a fully realised DC Universe. The Justice League, The Omega Men, The Green Lantern Corps… these things are all very real in the world of our story.”

“That’s something that would be a natural fit for us,” showrunner Cameron Welsh said of the Lanterns back in March.

DC Entertainment VP Dan Evans at the time hinted that the Omega Men would likely appear before the Green Lanterns, assuring fans that this show would be massive, and that there were plenty of different characters at their disposal.

“DC isn’t just Earth, it isn’t just Metropolis or Gotham. The DC universe is huge, it’s multiple universes,” he said.

The Omega Men, first created in 1981 by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton, have been rarely seen in recent DC history. Former Kyle Rayner joined the team and headlined a maxi-series in 2015, the critical acclaim for which was instrumental in helping make writer Tom King one of DC’s biggest names.

That series is available in a complete trade paperback.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton

Another story by Geoff Johns, “Last Son of Krypton” dealt with the rivalry between Zod and Superman as it entered a whole new generation, with a son born to General Zod.

The Phantom Zone, Zod, and themes of Kryptonian culture, honor, and family are big parts of the story — and it was cited as one of the key influences on actor Colin Salmon’s take on Dru-Zod.

“When I started to do the work and I looked at, you know ‘Last Son of Krypton’ comics and stuff and got started doing more research with some friends of mine who are really expert on it,” Salmon said. “I started to realize who this character was.”

The Last Days of Krypton

Technically a prose novel and not a comic, Kevin J. Anderson’s story centers on Jor-El and Dru-Zod, the deterioration of their friendship, and the complex politics of a Krypton on the brink of disaster.

Again, this features many of the same characters and concepts as Krypton does, and while Seg does not play a significant role, it is interesting to see another story take on the discovery of the Phantom Zone, Brainiac, the the politics of Krypton, and Zod’s brutal and uncompromising rise to power.