Poor Jon Kent. What is he, the Duncan Idaho of the Superman Universe?
Picking up this volume and reading it as if it is some accessible story is somewhat misleading, since we are at once given the impression this is a new introductory story to Superman and his friends and family, yet it also contains enough self-universe-references to confuse the careful reader who has unsuspectingly checked this out from the library (combined with the notion this was apparently in the continuity of Action Comics ... if there is such a thing anymore). This story gives us a lot to dislike: uncertainty where this falls in the Superman Universe/history/continuity (is it a relaunch or not? it never seems to know); the embarrassing characterization and drawing of Cat Grant (seriously, this is truly horrendous); the "I know everything" description of Brainiac yet his inability to plan for Superman doing the only available, obvious thing to stop him; the incredible actions of Superman in the epilogue; the "oh, so everything just got majickally fixed, then?" idea how Superman "saves" Metropolis (but he can't do that with Kandor? or did he? we just don't know); the characterization and drawing of Cat Grant; the overly stilted dialogue between Superman and Supergirl; and the characterization and drawing of Cat Grant. There are a few nice moments sprinkled sparingly, and the dearth of dialogue at times makes it a fast read, but overall it's a bit of a mess. We totally "get" what it's about from the unnecessarily violent opening sequence, but then we have to wade through an uncomfortable hashing out of fairly predictable events (and an uncomfortable framing of Ma Kent that's almost as off-putting as every panel of Cat Grant). It's a nice idea (meeting the "real" Brainiac), but we've seen this on Voyager and First Contact and lots of other things. Disappointing storytelling and artwork.
