As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m not hugely impressed with this recent habit of taking chapters of an ongoing story out and putting them into one-off “Specials”. I find it throws off the momentum and sequencing of a title, even if it falls as a bridge between two arcs proper – as New Krypton Special does. You’re left wondering whether it’s an essential part of the story that’s been pulled out to emphasise its importance, or whether (as in the case of last week’s Jimmy Olsen one-shot) it’s there more to add colour and background for the more dedicated reader.

In this case, I’d have assumed before reading it that it was going to be the former – when in fact, it’s more about the latter. Nothing happens that you’d miss if you just went on to the next issues of Superman and Action Comics, it’s more about establishing the tone (and certain character beats) of the story to come. As it happens, it’s not a bad read. It’s fairly padded out, which only strengthens the argument that it should have been kept to the main titles – a number of scenes have no real reason to drag on the way they do, and thus feel suspiciously like page-filler (the dialogue-free opening of Jonathan Kent’s funeral also feels like it’s copping out of working on bringing out genuine emotion, instead falling back on the time-honoured device of silence).

The sequence that works best, however, is the middle section of the issue – Clark’s conversation with Zor-El and Alura in Kandor itself. It’s the mixture of Clark’s joy at having fellow Kryptonians around, and the increasingly ominous tone as we realise that their presence really isn’t going to turn out to be a good thing for Earth – aptly demonstrated by one Kandorian’s killing of a blue whale.

(Incidentally, while I previously complained about the apparent lack of relevance in killing off Jonathan, I’m starting to see the point of it as this story kicks into gear – killing him has put his very existence, and more notably his influence on Clark, into the spotlight, and we’re presumably going to see the difference between an all-powerful Kryptonian that was raised by the Kents, and ones that weren’t. Let’s hope that we get a more convincing range of Kryptonian characters than a simple one-note “non-understanding alien” take across the board, though.)

The other moment that leaps out comes right at the issue’s close, when the identity of the previously-unnamed “General” is revealed. I have to say that it says a lot about this character’s prior lack of relevance that he can have appeared on-panel unrecognised by simple virtue of not naming him (the reader could be forgiven, in fact, for wondering if Thunderbolt Ross hadn’t crossed universes) – and even the earlier conversation between the Lane sisters didn’t have me twig, although it was probably supposed to. What really strikes me about the closing scene, though, is the way Luthor is used. It would seem that, after a hazy few years where his status has never quite been clear, the final shackles of the Byrne-era “corporate criminal” have been cast off, and he really is back to being an habitually-jailed scientific genius. Not before time, to be honest – Morrison’s All-Star version (clearly an influence here, down to the orange prison suit) showed that it’s an interpretation that can still work, and indeed arguably works better than any other.

It’s a good-looking comic, too, by virtue of the fact that the Superman stable currently has by far its strongest set of artists since the days when Jurgens, Grummett, Bogdanove and Guice were the four main pencillers. It’s a shame, though, that while Pete Woods and Renato Guedes offer no small measure of consistency in their styles, it’s not matched by Gary Frank – whose work is excellent, but stands out as markedly different from the other two, and so gives the funeral sequence an even stronger impression of being something that should have been in the pages of Action, but simply didn’t fit.

Against my expectations, this really isn’t an essential chapter in the ongoing story, and so – especially at the price – I’d hesitate to recommend it unreservedly to anyone looking to get onboard with the new story. But for the current Superman reader there’s a good amount of colour established, and it does the job in a tidy and professional way.

Okay, so, before I get going, a word about spoilers – yes, I will be discussing what happens at the end of this issue, so if you don’t want to know, then look away now. On the other hand, despite what CBR might say about the New York Daily News’ story yesterday, if you’ve actually been paying attention to Action Comics over the past six months, it’s not a surprise at all. Hell, I actually thought it was going to happen last month, based on the cover – and indeed, based on solicitations of this month’s one, which shows Clark at a funeral (a funeral which, incidentally, is nowhere to be seen in the issue – I get the feeling the covers are a month ahead of the actual story).

So, yes, as we’d all guessed from the “hints” dropped in previous issues (let’s face it, subtlety has never been Geoff Johns’ strong point) Jonathan Kent bites it in the closing pages of the story. But while it’s been on the cards for months – all those lingering camera shots, and indeed the simple fact that the Kents were spotlighted in a story that apparently had nothing to do with them – I’m still struggling to figure out exactly what the point is.

See, in the previous versions of the Superman story in which Jonathan has died – that’s the first movie, Smallville and All Star; I’m not counting pre-Crisis continuity, because both parents died almost off-camera originally – it’s been a defining moment in a young Clark’s life. It’s the point at which he realises that there are some things that he is simply powerless to prevent, and some people he will never be able to save. I really don’t see, though, any reason for him to go through that lesson as an adult. What does it add to the character, with everything he’s already experienced? Worse, this is the first time we’ve seen Clark’s father die as a direct result of his being there. A heart attack seems to be the standard way of killing the character, and it works because it’s something that Clark just cannot prevent. Here, though, said attack is suffered after Jonathan has exerted himself saving Martha from an explosive device launched by Brainiac as a final act of revenge. In other words – if the Kents hadn’t adopted Clark, Jonathan would still be alive. And that just doesn’t work with Superman. You can’t go piling that kind of guilt onto his shoulders – he’s not a Marvel character, you can’t ever have him question whether he should be doing what he does. Coming from someone who’s generally shown a good grasp of the background and motivations of DC characters, it’s a disappointing misstep.

And of course, coming so soon after All Star, the issue can’t help but invite comparisons to Morrison and Quitely’s version of the same story – it even features the near-identical image of a previously-unaware Clark suddenly flying home at breakneck speed (Gary Frank does well here to convey the torment on his face as he does so, but it’s still not quite up there with Quitely’s flame-licked image). The thing is, while this Action run is superficially a technically well-crafted story (and I don’t mean that as an insult – many people struggle to make comics any good even on that superficial level), it doesn’t have the heart that it thinks it does. I found Morrison’s version genuinely moving – I feel like this, however, is trying to yank at my heartstrings with the payoff, but without putting in the effort to earlier get me emotionally invested in the story.

As a conclusion to the “Brainiac” storyline, meanwhile, this feels a bit weak. After building up the threat of Brainiac for months, it transpires that he’s… well, not much of a threat at all, really. Superman ends up defeating him rather easily, and it’s only by virtue of the closing pages that he’s left having any kind of impact on things. There’s a nice moment with Clark and Kara (her rehabilitation continues), but little else of any weight – and indeed, it feels like the death of Jonathan has been tacked on to the story to give the impression of a substance that isn’t really there beneath the surface. It looks great, and it apparently does the job that a straightforward superhero story should – but call it heart, or depth, or resonance, or anything else: there just seems to be something lacking.

DC appear to have been taking a looser approach to continuity of late. Perhaps it’s an acknowledgement that a succession of Crises have failed to sort things out once and for all, or simply that DC’s “shared universe” has always been somewhat less grounded in reality than Marvel’s, but I’ve noticed a growing attitude of “if the stories are good, precise continuity linkups don’t really matter a great deal”. And such an approach, whereby each new creator gets to do their own interpretation, rather than rigidly following everything that’s gone before, is holding an increasing appeal as far as I’m concerned. No, it’s not the way comics have worked in the past – but the DC universe, in all its forms, is pretty bloody old now. Some of these characters have existed for a very long time now, and Crisis or no Crisis, it’s increasingly difficult to reconcile character histories when they’re spread over such a long period of time. What I think we’re seeing, therefore, is a shift to more mythological status for the really big characters – rather than a fixed story, instead it’s the rough elements that are fixed in place. It’s an approach that certainly worked with All-Star Superman – and I’m seeing the influence of that title quite strongly on the “proper universe” Superman books of late.

The latest issue of Action Comics – which actually appears to be the first salvo in the Robinson/Johns run on both main titles – is certainly a case in point. Take, for example, the presentation of Jonathan and Martha Kent. Has anyone ever been able to nail down these two characters for any length of time? Their latest incarnation, courtesy of Superman Birthright, was as a slightly older version of their Smallville equivalents. But here, in much the same way as Jor-El was given a movie-esque overhaul at the beginning of Johns’ latest run, they’re tweaked yet again – still similar to the Birthright versions, but older (and with some clear foreshadowing that Jonathan won’t be around for much longer). And you know, I’m not sure it really matters. You can raise all sorts of questions about how each successive decade of continuity is supposed to tie into the previous one – but much as I’ve got a soft spot for the science-driven Superman stories of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, for example, they’re not hugely relevant to the current character, and I don’t see that it’s beneficial to anyone for readers to have to rely on vast amounts of prior knowledge in order to pick up on a run. As long as the creator’s own run is a self-contained, decent story that doesn’t contradict itself, that should be the key.

Of course, even as you’re shifting familiar elements around, it’s possible to overdo the references to the past. Johns builds up a new core Daily Planet staff here, and while it’s the source of some decent light material, I’m not sure it hugely works. Taking his cues perhaps a little too strongly from All-Star, we get the return of Steve Lombard (still as one-note a character as he was in the ‘70s – I can’t help but feel he’s only there as a recognisable link to All-Star, heat-vision-related prank and all) and Cat Grant, along with ‘90s supporting character Ron Troupe. It’s a collision of eras that doesn’t really come off, not least because much of Cat’s character is based around an event (the death of her son) that happened way before any of the Birthright or Infinite Crisis reality-shifting was done – a hangover from the past, in other words. And while we’re at it, since when did Clark become the bumbling, blue-suited buffoon again? One of the strengths of his recent portrayals was as a strong individual in his own right, the Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter.

Still, if there’s one praiseworthy element of this version of Clark, it’s in Gary Frank’s visual portrayal. I don’t know if it’s his decision or Johns’ to have Clark and Lois drawn to look almost exactly like Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder… but damn, it works, even as you’re left feeling like it shouldn’t. Over-reliance on shoehorning in movie lore was the undoing of the infamous Last Son arc, but Frank’s work is so good that it’s hard to dislike. And a visual interpretation is just that – there’s no real need to read too much into how the character’s being presented. It makes for an instantly iconic and “classic” looking Superman, and that’s fine by me.

Hmm, I’ve managed to get this far on a discussion about continuity without actually talking about the plot of the issue. Ah, well. Suffice to say, it’s a new Brainiac story, and one that looks set to finally address the background story of the Bottle City of Kandor in modern continuity (as opposed to simply plonking it in the middle of the Fortress one day, which is the way it’s been done up to this point). And it’s quite well-played, actually. Johns is at his best when he strips stories down to a simple, effective level – because, as a continuity nut himself, he’s well-versed enough in DC history to know which elements work best – and of particular note is the opening sequence on Krypton, showing the theft of Kandor as a more horrific event than it’s ever really been portrayed before (including some interesting material with Zod, the villain given a bit more dimension than in his last appearance). Meanwhile, as with the surprising Toyman story last month, Johns looks to be drawing all the disparate versions of Brainiac into a coherent, singular one, so it’ll be intriguing to see where he takes it. Again, though, it’s in unleashing the shiny terror of Brainy’s intricate machinery that Frank excels – he really is turning in some of the best work I’ve seen on a DCU Superman title for a while. With Renato Guedes down for James Robinson’s Superman run, it’s a very encouraging time artistically for comics’ most iconic figure.

I’d hesitate to call this a truly great comic, but it’s well crafted and constructed, and generally shows the more appealing side of Johns’ writing. If this is the style in which the Super-books are aiming to spend the foreseeable future, then I’ll happily get on board with it - this is Superman, after all, and I’d rather have entertaining stories that follow continuity loosely than dull ones overly concerned with fanboy-pleasing minutiae.