Man of Steel Prequel Comic: Eight Questions Raised About the Movie

That the Man of Steel Prequel left us with more questions than it did answers is likely no surprise, and no insult to the work. It was actually quite an impressive undertaking--writing a Superman story without Superman, set in an unfamiliar version of the DC Universe and featuring DC characters who don't much resemble the versions of themselves we're familiar to (even in the New 52). But it's worth stepping back and taking stock in just what they left us asking about, since that's the kind of thing we do here. Also, we find that periodically when we try and talk these things through, we can come up with something approaching an answer. A note: we're assuming from the dialogue in the final pages (that the ice shelf under which Kara Zor-El's ship is buried is thousands of years old) that the ship was buried thousands of years ago. No particular time frame is given in the comic, with the flashback to Kara's training saying simply "before" and the flash-forward to when Man of Steel takes place being labeled "today."

What happened to all the other ships? Unless we find out in the film that General Zod and company annihilated at least a thousand Kypronian ships, it looks to us as though Superman is not only not the Last Son of Krypton, but not really anything even close. In fact, each of the hundreds of ships, each of which carried a number of Kryptonian passengers, could have terraformed a Kryptonian habitat, complete with Kryptonians. More on that later. In any event, it's interesting. So...what happened to those ships? If they're scattered to the far edges of the galaxy, there's really no reason to believe they're close enough to effectively join the battle between Superman and Zod...but could we see a bunch of them in a potential sequel down the road? It doesn't seem impossible. We also see Zod in custody in some of the trailers, along with his closest aides. Could it be that they're spirited away in scout ships the same way Dev-Em was? Perhaps Zod was more able to take over and command a crew than was Dev-Em. This is, of course, when we mention "World of New Krypton" and then walk away slowly.

What happened to the Sunstone? The rare, valuable crystal from the center of Krypton was used as a glorified picture frame for Kara Zor-El, but fans of the previous Superman movies (and Smallville) will remember it as a self-replicating building material from which Superman's Fortress of Solitude and many other Kryptonian structures were built. After the ship's crash, it's not clear what happened to this potentially powerful artifact from Krypton's history--or how the Sunstone really works in the Man of Steel universe. Could it be how Clark comes to communicate with Jor-El? Could it be something that allows him to construct a Fortress of Solitude later that isn't just the remnants of his cousin's downed ship? Or something more? Could it, given its appearance, be a variation on red Kryptonite in a later Man of Steel movie? And, of course--did it leave the ship with whoever crawled out after it crashed?

Who crawled out of the ship? It's (intentionally) unclear whether the bulky figure who crawled out of the ship thousands of years in Earth's past was Dev-Em or Kara...but certainly if it was Dev-Em, could we see that he was responsible for bringing Zod to Earth? The relationship, if one indeed exists, between Dev-Em and Zod is hard to figure out. Since Dev-Em's crimes occurred during training, the two wouldn't have served in the Kryptonian military together. Since they appear to have occurred thousands of years ago, it's hard to gauge what the relationship between the two could be, outside of something as simple as Dev-Em's murderous act being infamous and never forgotten (as is suggested in the prequel) and thus inspiring Zod in some way. Arguably the biggest argument in favor of it being Kara is that no part of Earth was terraformed to resemble Krypton. If someone like Dev-Em were on Earth thousands of years ago and in possession of the growth codex, after having already expressed his intent to use it...why wouldn't he? What happened to Supergirl? ...And whoever it was that crawled out of the ship, what happened to Kara Zor-El is a question that's pretty significant. It's entirely possible that she could have put herself back into cryo-freeze, but would she have lasted as long as she did? If it was she and not Dev-Em who crawled out of the ship--could she have survived this long? The idea of Kryptonians as functionally immortal here on Earth varies with different interpretations of the characters. In any event, it seems pretty weird to introduce Supergirl in a prequel comic, only to put her in a position that would make bringing her into a potential sequel nearly impossible. At the same time, perhaps we're assuming too much about the age of the crash site. It's hard to imagine a Kryptonian--whether they're still alive or not--having been on Earth in the distant past and not having changed the world as we know it. Is that how Zod grows his army? The aforementioned "growth codex" on board Kara's ship...could that be why the trailers seem to show a version of Zod's army that's much more significant than the number of named characters we're yet privy to? Originally meant to allow the crews to "grow" more Kryptonians to help them terraform the world they landed on, could the growth codex, if it fell into the wrong hands, producer a significant Kryptonian invasion force against a populated world? And if that's the case--does Zod need the Fortress of Solitude before he can be an omega-level threat, or does he already have a growth codex? Do Kryptonians already know about the powers? Supergirl had a dream about using her powers, bathing in the light of a yellow sun. Jor-El knows that his son will be a god on Earth. But Dev-Em doesn't understand how he managed to dent their ship with a punch, and doesn't indicate that he steered the ship toward Sol for any particular reason. So...what do the Kryptonians know, and when do they know it? Is Thanagar important? Mentioning the warlike planet of Thanagar was a nice touch for DC Comics fans...but could it be something more? Certainly the Krypton we see here doesn't seem particularly warlike, so could we be seeing a version of the world that's not yet ready for someone like Zod to be born? And if so, could whatever changes the culture from a science-worshiping, peaceful one into the "warrior culture" that's been described in previous interviews with the filmmakers have to do with an incursion from Thanagar?

Have we seen Kryptonite? In the earliest stages of the comic, we see Kara Zor-El, Dev-Em and their team training before they can be shot into space. And what's this we see them hanging around with? Certainly the idea of having an alien world where "plant" life is crystalline isn't unique to Superman in any way...but given the selection of colors, could we be seeing something that, with the right radiation applied, become the various colors of Kryptonite fans have come to know from the comics?