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As Superman ’78 finally brings the Last Son of Krypton face-to-face with Brainiac, he discovers the villain may have resurrected someone shocking.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Superman ’78 #3, on sale now from DC Comics.
Superman’s origin is perhaps the most iconic in superhero comics, with Kryptonian scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara sending their infant son to Earth moments before their home world was destroyed. The story has been retold in virtually every medium, serving as the extended prologue to the 1978 Superman film. However, the comic book series Superman ’78, which picks up after the events of the first two Christopher Reeve films, just dropped the bombshell that Jor-El and Lara appear to have survived Krypton’s destruction to reunite with their son on a preserved piece of their doomed planet.
After Brainiac detected Kal-El’s presence on Earth, the extraterrestrial conqueror deemed the Last Son of Krypton an invasive species. Rather than risk further destruction befalling Metropolis in the crossfire of a showdown against an army of Brainiac’s drones, Superman allowed himself to be taken prisoner and whisked off-world. Finally meeting Brainiac’s true form on the conqueror’s spaceship as it departs from Earth, Superman is sent to be catalogued on Krypton in the bottled city of Kandor. And as the Man of Tomorrow acclimates to his new surroundings, he is reunited with his Kryptonian parents in Superman ’78 #3, by Robert Venditti, Wilfredo Torres, Jordie Bellaire and Dave Lanphear of A Larger World.
Remanded to Kandor, a shrunken Kal-El is greeted by Jor-El and Lara, who appear just as they did at the moment when Krypton was destroyed. As Superman dons a traditional outfit befitting a member of the House of El, Lara recounts that, as Krypton was destroyed, Kandor — and Jor-El and Lara within it — were preserved by Brainiac, who shrank the city and stored it in his archives. And, as Kal-El’s parents realize their son lost the life he built on Earth, Jor-El vows to find a way to escape Brainiac’s clutches to give his son another chance.
In the first two Reeve Superman films, the Man of Steel was able to communicate with facsimiles of his parents through an advanced hologram program in the Fortress of Solitude. It was the only way Kal-El knew of his biological parents and their home world; that same computer was sacrificed to restore the Man of Steel’s powers in Superman II in time for him to confront the Phantom Zone villains. With this shocking turn, Superman appears to have finally reunited with the family long thought lost, albeit within the confines of Brainiac’s makeshift menagerie.
There’s no indication the Jor-El and Lara that Kal-El encounters in Kandor are an elaborate ruse by Brainiac. The two visibly care for their son and are determined to escape Kandor, although Brainiac has so far outsmarted them and Superman every step of the way. But with the family reunited, Brainiac may have underestimated the House of El as they seek to utilize science to outwit him.
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