Superman #18 (June 1988)
Superman #18 (June 1988)
RETURN TO KRYPTON! In Action #600, a wave of cosmic kryptonite radiation reaches Earth and Superman naturally concludes that the only way to survive it is to reverse his original space-trip and go back to the place where Krypton used to be before it went boom. I have no idea how that makes sense but I don’t care because this issue is awesome.
For this mission, Superman recruits the help of Hawkman and Hawkwoman (they still owe him one from that one time they left him stranded in the middle of space without air). Once they reach their destination in their Hawkship (seriously, it’s shaped like a hawk), they are all shocked to see that Krypton looks decidedly non-exploded. It only looks that way, though: this is actually a non-solid mass of dust and asteroids left in the wake of the explosion that sort of looks like a planet. Superman insists on going out there with a protective suit, despite the Hawkcouple’s protests.
As he floats in the giant cloud of kryptonite, Superman hallucinates an alternate reality where Jor-El found a cure to the Kryptonian plague and the entire planet’s population got shipped off to Earth rather than just one dumb baby. Once they get here, though, the Kryptonians are appalled by the barbaric humans’ poor taste and immediately set about redecorating their cities as futuristic places. Jor-El stands up to the oppressed humans and becomes their protector, fighting a long war against the other Kryptonians until he singlehandedly murders all but two of them. The end twist is that those two are… the leader of the evil Kryptonians, Lara, and her six year old son Kal-El. Jor-El lets out a Vader-esque “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Superman wakes up from that crazy dream and goes “Well, I guess I’m cured now, back to Earth.”
Plotline-Watch:
This is a pseudo-sequel to the amazing World of Krypton miniseries – it’s even drawn by Mike Mignola! There will be an Elseworlds annual expanding this premise a few years later (Mignola only did the cover on that one, sadly).
Also, I feel compelled to note that the Hawkpeople in this issue are still supposed to be just some evil imposters posing as Hawkman and Hawkwoman, according to a later retcon. Why didn’t they just ditch the delirious Superman in the Krypton cloud, then?
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