Cover art to Superman: World of New Krypton #2 by Gary Frank
© DC Comics
Now that Superman has taken his place on New Krypton as a soldier in General Zod's military, Kal-El shows everyone that there are other ways to handle a situation than with violence. Given a squad of immature soldiers to lead, he embarks on his first military outing, proving some points to his crew and also standing firm in his opposing attitude towards Zod. Ultimately, you can take the name Superman away from him and just call him Kal-El, but he can't stop being who he is and (title or no title) that leader is showing his face to his new community. Tensions between him and just about every inhabitant of New Krypton are still running strong, but we're kind of getting to see the beginnings of Superman digging his heels in a bit and saying that things don't necessarily have to be the way they are. He has to change the attitude of New Krypton and that won't be easy. Oh yeah, and to complicate things even more, there's some civil unrest by New Krypton's Labor Guild. Is it any wonder that the Guardians of Oa are monitoring things from afar and are mulling over having one of their Green Lanterns check things out?
This issue brings more of Superman's ideals into contact with the new Kryptonian society. Just letting Superman's personality and ethic system come into play with the people of New Krypton is a nice reaffirmation of why Superman is the best of the best even when you're not talking about his powers. Having him in a situation where everyone is as strong as he is but no one seems to think like he does changes his role from what you're used to and it's handled well by Rucka and Robinson.
Cover art to Superman: World of New Krypton #2 by Gary Frank
© DC Comics
Too much time is spent on things that are already well established. Yes we know his disagreements with his Aunt over the conduct of her actions as leader of New Krypton. Yes we know that he doesn't trust General Zod at all. These plot points need to be taken to the next stage and the story needs to get moving a bit. The art is fine but I'm finding it a bit "blah" (especially with the nice covers by Gary Frank as a comparison).
This issue isn't a "rock your socks off" book by any means but the overall story line keeps you more than interested. The next stage of the story that I asked for above looks as if it might happen next issue. After having shown us what everyone's different take on things are, there's finally some situations for this to matter other than a verbal argument. I'm liking the way that Krypton's lowest social caste (The Labor Guild) are discovering thoughts of revolution and Superman's take on this should be interesting next issue. If not for the tone of the series to begin with, I might've given this a slightly lower grade than it ended up with. As it is, this second issue continues the enthusiasm I had about the series to begin with and I enjoyed reading it. I'm grading it at a B-: Not overly mind-blowing but still solidly entertaining.