The Superman retrospective is over, but we have a final epilogue in this miniseries.
But I have to make a correction on my previous statements, because I mentioned that I would be covering the “World of Krypton” miniseries.
That one is historically significant because it was the very first miniseries ever published!
It was originally conceived to be published on Showcase, but was moved to the miniseries to coincide with the release of the Superman movie (although the comic ended up being published a bit later).
I’m not reviewing that one because it’s mostly a retelling of stories about Jor-El that had already been shown in other issues and, well… because it’s a pretty good miniseries.
What I actually wanted to review is a series that I misremembered was called “World of Krypton”… but it’s “Krypton Chronicles”, published a couple years later.
And this one is far, FAR more bonkers.
Krypton Chronicles #1 (1981)
by E. Nelson Bridwell & Curt Swan
cover by Rich Buckler
You can understand my confusion: “World of Krypton” told the story about Superman’s immediate family, but “Krypton Chronicles” is going to talk about the history of the ENTIRE world of Krypton!!!
At this point Clark Kent was already a reporter, but he’s summoned by Morgan Edge (who also owns the Daily Planet) together with Perry White to give a special assignment…
When reading the rest of the review, keep in mind that the assignment was to combine Roots with Shogun.
I’ve never seen either of them but I’m very aware of the cultural juggernaut that is Roots, as well as being bummed that LeVar Burton is not going to show up in this comic.
Credit where it’s due: of all the incredibly dumb ways “Clark Kent is Superman’s close friend” have been used over the decades, this might just be the most believable and credible.
There’s a slight problem though.
By this point in the comics, Kandor had been restored to proper size and placed in another dimension. It’s accessible only occasionally, and if it wasn’t for Supergirl he would’ve completely forgotten.
The two fly to Kandor (on a spaceship, because it orbits a red sun) and provide Nelson Bridwell an occasion to flex his famed knowledge of continuity, because A LOT of minor characters have cameos here.
This is also the issue where the planet where Kandor was relocated gets its proper name.
Supergirl’s father (who remember is Superman’s uncle) is the one to provide some information about the El family going further back.
Also, in case you don’t know: Superman’s father is Jor-El Junior, because his father was also named Jor-El.
That leads to our first flashback, about Superman’s great-great-grandfather Gam-El.
He’s not a new character, he was introduced in a Superboy story in 1963.
And he’s the one to rebuild the city of Kryptonopolis that was destroyed “in the Last War”.
A move which wasn’t exactly universally praised, because some guy ended up placing bombs there.
Being remembered for the rest of Krypton’s history won’t mean as much as you think, Gam-El.
Although the city WILL be the capital for about a generation, so congratulations I guess?
Poor Gam-El still gets no respect.
We then move to Superman’s great-great-great-grandfather, Tala-El.
Since at this point world leaders were unable to decide what form of government they want, they decide to ask Tala-El’s uncle who happened to be a priest of Rao, Krypton’s sun god.
At this point Krypton had already almost 10,000 years of history and was a highly technologically advanced civilization.
And they’re going to decide their form of government on the weather.
Sounds legit.
I would question how smart of a decision it was to let the weather decide this…
…but considering all the other candidates were too dumb to consider this option, maybe it was for the best.
Next up is Pir-El, his father. If you’re keeping track, we’re already at Superman’s great-great-great-great-grandfather
But also, if you’ve missed him: he’s the grandfather of the guy who would later rebuild Kryptonopolis. Maybe that would’ve been worth mentioning during his flashback that the grandfather was the guy in charge of the war that destroyed the city!?
Also worth mentioning: these guys were using superweapons a couple of generations before deciding the future of their civilization based on the weather.
As you might have noticed, the story substitutes several words with their Kryptonian equivalent, like units of time; there’s a glossary at the end of the issue.
It’s VERY distracting! While I appreciate the effort, it’s kind of meaningless when the story is already translating their words into English.
To the point that for a moment I thought they were talking about “humans” as if Earth people, but they’re still talking about Kryptonians.
And now you know that Superman’s great-(x4)-grandfather used chemical warfare to win a war.
Does the fact that this is a mind-controlling chemical make it better or worse?
That’s when the explicit relationships end, because now we get mentions of earlier Superman ancestors without learning much else besides their occupation.
So up to this point the House of El has, in order from more to less recent:
-Krypton’s greatest scientist for 3 generations
-the guy who rebuilt Krypton’s capital
-the guy who chose their form of government
-the Krypton pope
-the general in charge of the last great war
-the guy who discovered nuclear energy
-the guy who cured world hunger
-the guy who revolutionized medicine
-Krypton’s greatest theater actor
-Krypton’s greatest writer
You might have noticed that the story focuses on Superman’s male ancestors only.
Which kind of makes sense considering Kryptonian women don’t even get the same last name as the men so OF COURSE their accomplishments wouldn’t be recorded to the same extent, but at least one of famous Els is a woman.
The result, however, is that apparently this family is the only one who ever managed to do anything on Krypton. It’s going to get even more ridiculous in the other issues.
That was the oldest ancestor that Superman’s uncle knows about, but the story has to end on a cliffhanger.
Historical significance: 1/10
Other than an extremely minor follow-up mentioned later, this kind of goes nowhere.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
All things considered, the ridiculousness of just how important this family was to Krypton is left to a relative minimum. At least when compared to the other two issues.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
Did you notice there isn’t much of a story here? There’s the supposed threat of someone trying to sabotage this visit, but it’s so minor it’s barely noticeable… and trust me, the resolution isn’t going to be anything revolutionary.
Superman doesn’t seem to have any particular attachment to all these ancestors we are learning about; which makes sense given these are people he has no personal connection to, but it doesn’t make for a compelling story.
Plus as I mentioned the constant use of Kryptonian terms is VERY distracting, and honestly at points it even makes the story sound a bit amateurish. A few terms here and there add a bit of color, but considering that all the explanations for the terms are relegated to a glossary at the very end doesn’t help readability.
And speaking of the glossary at the last page of the issue…
There are several interesting tidbits, which I’m sharing here because the scans I have are atrocious:
- The Kryptonese alphabet had 118 characters. By comparison, the Khmer alphabet only gets up to 74.
- “A double letter indicates a strong emphasis on the sound”
- Despite its complexity, Kryptonese plurals are done just by adding O at the end of the word like English does with S.
- “Kryptonopolis” is just an English approximation because “the original Kryptonian name is difficult to pronounce”.
- “Rokyn”, the name of the planet where Kandor is restored, means “Gift of Rao”. Also, Ro is “the possessive form of Rao”.
- Members of the Science Council serve for life. Even Krypton had trouble with term limits, uh?
The glossary even resolves an EXTREMELY minor error in the Supergirl serial.
Her very memorable Lesla-Lar had a name that broke Kryptonian conventions, because Kryptonian women don’t get regular last names… their last name is their father’s complete name (hence Supergirl is Kara Zor-El, not Kara-El).
Bridwell’s solution? Orphans get a regular last name, thus explaining Lesla-Lar by saying that “Lesla took a surname from the family of her best friend, Zora Vi-Lar” (who we will actually meet later in the series).
I hope that only applies to orphans whose the father is unknown, otherwise it would be quite messed up to not even allow an orphaned girl to keep her father’s name when the other girls have one!!!
Superman’s great-great-grandfather Var-El is said to have disappeared in mysterious circumstances. He doesn’t appear in Krypton Chronicles… but on DC Comics Presents #37 that was published the same month (!!!) we learn that he accidentally teleported himself to Earth.
The story doesn’t say what happened to him; Superman’s guess is that he died when he tried to teleport himself again.
It’s also highly suggested that this is the whole reason why Jor-El knew enough about Earth to send his son there.
You might expect this to be a Bridweell story too, but it’s by Jim Starlin (plot) and Roy Thomas (script).
His fate is not revealed until issue 74 in 1984, where we learn that Superman’s great-grandfather is still alive… except he sacrifices his life in the end.
This time the story is by Bob Rozakis and Dan Mishkin; I didn’t expect so many writers to be interested in Superman’s great-grandfather.