With two issues left before he steps away from Superman, Brian Michael Bendis has Superman’s newest alien threat landing him in his worst nightmare.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Superman #26, from Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis, Danny Miki, Alex Sinclair, and Dave Sharpe, on sale now.
With two issues left before he steps away from Superman, Brian Michael Bendis is unleashing hell once more on Earth in the form of a mysterious and very violent extraterrestrial. As the creature, whose named Synmar, approaches the planet, Superman has no clue where it came from, who it is or what are its true intentions — well, apart from wanting to kill him.
But rather than risk another calamity by engaging in battle in Metropolis in Superman #26, Superman teleports himself, and his newest alien threat to a place considered his biggest nightmare: the Phantom Zone.
Kal-El has Kelex trying to decipher why it’s hurtling towards the Fortress of Solitude like a comet so he decides to meet the alien head-on in space. It changed courses for the Daily Planet as he went to work as Clark Kent so clearly, it’s locked onto his signature. It does seem like a personal vendetta, which culminates in the alien using a weird energy ring to incapacitate Kal and drop him to Earth after first contact is made. But as they fall to the Daily Planet, the Man of Steel has Kelex activate a failsafe that transports both of them to the Phantom Zone.
However, with Superman depowered there, the being starts pummelling him, not giving Kal a chance to establish a line of communication — not that it cares to speak, after all. Much like Rogol Zaar, this alien wants Superman dead just as much, which means it could be another creature Jor-El pissed off in his past, or from his recent space exploration.
That said, this alien underworld is the worst place to go to as we don’t know what other aliens reside there. Seeing the House of El sigil might also lure other Kryptonians — such as Zod loyalists — in to kill Superman, and again, he doesn’t want to be somewhere where he’s vastly handicapped against such a powerful opponent. Apart from Rogol showing how strong he was there, Smallville fans would recollect there were wraiths present there too, so ultimately, it’s just bad terrain for Kal to be walking.