Thursday, May 13, 2010

Superman #699

Superman #699: Writer: James Robinson. Artist: Bernard Chang.
Last Issue: 8 out of 10.

Review: (You should definitely read Supergirl #52 before this comic)We start this issue off with Gen. Zod and his military men fighting side by side with the recently arrived Superman against Brainiac's robots. Supes expresses his anger at Zod for leaving Kandor aboard Brainiac's ship, just so he could attack Brainiac, but Zod gives no thought to Superman's whining. Eventually, Brainiac decides to see what all of the hubbub is about, and once Zod spots Brainiac, he makes a beeline for him and attacks. With Zod out of the picture, Superman orders the Kryptonian soldiers to hold the line against Brainiac's forces while he finds and rescues the bottled city of Kandor. Supes eventually finds Kandor and using his mental link with Tellus of the Old Legion, asks Brainiac 5 and Supergirl to report to his location. Meanwhile, Mon-El(who was trapped in some sort of Brainiac torture device)is reliving strange memories from his past, focusing on the time he was held captive by Gen. Lane and his monkey scientist. Mon-El goes over several conversations he had with Lane, the monkey and Metallo and begins to realize that while they were experimenting on him, there is a very good chance that they managed to acquire some of his DNA... Either that or the talking monkey has some sort of weird fetish concerning the reproductive organs of a male Daxamite... The more time Mon thinks about that situation, the closer he comes to regaining his consciousness. The Old Legion is still running around Brainiac's ship fighting robots, when an enormous robot strolls over ready to make them pay for their transgressions. Before the robot can make mincemeat out of them, Mon arrives on the scene(I guess he woke up)and tears the robot apart. By this point, Supergirl and Brainiac 5 have arrived at Superman's location, and he gives them Kandor and tells them to get off of Brainiac's ship and to head back to New Krypton. They go, and manage to re-enlarge the city back in the spot it was taken from. The Old Legion tell Mon that he has to go to the future with them and the bottled cities aboard Brainiac's ship. Mon is hesitant, but ultimately decides to go with the Old Legion. Superman finds Zod and Brainiac still fighting and adds his muscle to Zod, double teaming the mad Coluan. While all of this is going on, Lex Luthor takes the bottled city he stole in Supergirl #52 and begins to enlarge it, before abandoning ship. This issue ends with the rapidly enlarging city bursting through the roof of Brainiac's ship, causing it to begin to plummet towards New Krypton.

What I Thought: This issue was a little better then SG #52, but considering it was the penultimate part of the Last Stand storyline, I was kind of hoping for more. I think the problem with this story, for me anyway, is the fact that there is just WAY too much going on at once to keep the story cohesive. There's the TOTALLY unnecessary Old Legion, there's Mon and the back story(which I had all but forgotten)about him and the monkey, as well as Supergirl and Brainiac 5, Lex Luthor, Kandor, Superboy(who is hanging around for no reason I can figure), and the list goes on and on... All they really needed was Brainiac and Lex stealing Kandor, and then the Superman family responding in kind... Simple, no? Instead we get a big convoluted storyline with dozens of unnecessary characters all over the place.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.And this is the reason I'd never be a criminal in Metropolis... Imagine that sight coming at you with a full head of steam!

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