Cary Bates has had a long, incredible career with DC Comics. He sold his first work to them, the idea for the cover to Superman #167, way back in 1964 at the tender age of thirteen, and sold his first story four years later. He went on to write dozens of titles, including Action Comics, Flash and Jonah Hex, with a career that lasted into the ‘90s.
The sixties was a strange landscape of bazaar material at DC, due in large part to Comics Code Authority restrictions. During that time, when Mr. Bates was first making a name for himself in the world of funny books, it wasn’t strange to see our heroes shrunken, turned into animals, made enormously overweight, and suffering from hundreds of other strange afflictions, many of which were explained away as stories from alternate dimensions. What better writer then to reintroduce the long dormant Elseworlds imprint than Cary Bates?
For those who didn’t pick up on that last statement I’ll retype it, but lets get some worthy lead in rocking the house first. Cue fireworks, cue inter-species cage matches, cue the return of Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens for one final performance... Elseworlds has returned. For many of us raised on the comics of the ‘90s, Elseworlds is fondly remembered as one of the few bright spots in a sea of speculation fueled promotions. But how does this latest release hold up to the best of yesteryear?
Meh, it’s alright. The basic premise of Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #1 (of 3) is that Jor-El saved not only his son, but himself and his wife as well. The story opens with their momentous arrival on Earth, and the ensuing flurry of press and paparazzi that follows. We’re introduced to this story’s version of several key characters including Lex Luthor, the Kents and Lana Lang, but in order to pull this off some incredibly large leaps of logic are made.
Cover art to SUPERMAN: THE LAST FAMILY OF KRYPTON #1 by Felipe Massafera
Lara-El decides to have her only son raised by an Earth couple in order for him to... I have no idea. Fit in? Assimilate? Avoid obnoxious press? She gives a little speech about why she would give Kal-El to the Kents (and seriously, what are the chances she’d pick them?), but in the end it seems to be nothing more than a way to move the plot forward while including ‘The Gang’. This is only one example, but a telling one. The direction itself is interesting, but why shoehorn so many traditional elements into it?
Not to say it doesn’t have some cool moments. There’s freaking sex on the surface of the sun and that alone gains at least four points. The art by Renato Arlem is no slouch, either. He delivers a very Chaykin-esque style, giving plenty of time to important details that add enough personality to move this book beyond bland and into a work interesting and enjoyable to look at.
In the end this isn’t, at least so far, the triumphant return I would have wished for Elseworlds, but still worth a shot for anyone looking for a departure from standard Superman narratives.
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Sadly, this isn't so original of a story, its the Kryptonian version of Escape from the Planet of the Apes.