Part Five
\nSupergirl #17 slows Kingdom of Zod down, and the issue is better for it.
\nInstead of another chapter built around a brawl, Sophie Campbell puts Kara in the most dangerous place this story could send her: Krypton before it dies.
\nKara, Superboy, and Ursa come through the timestream with Ursa determined to save the planet. Kara knows what changing the past could cost. If they tear the time bubble, they do not just scramble history. They could be stuck in the timestream for good.
\nThen they land.
\nKara uses the S-Matrix suit, pulls a street cloak over herself, and walks into Kryptonopolis. Warm light. Orange trees. People on their way somewhere. Families. The buildings are still standing.
\nThis is not a history lesson.
\nThis is home.
\nShe thinks it is as beautiful as she remembers. For a second she even wonders about ducking over to Argo City, just for a minute, like she has time.
\nThen she sees herself as a little girl, holding her parents\u2019 hands.
\nThat was the page that did it.
\nKara knows these people are gone. She knows what happens to this city. And still there they are: Zor-El, Alura, and a kid version of her having an ordinary day she never thought she would get back.
\nThe temptation is not a speech about destiny. It is quieter. Walking the street, she starts asking whether some of this could be saved. Some of the people. Without burning the future down.
\nThen she tells herself to knock it off.
\nA voice she does not recognize cuts in: \u201cYou are placing us both in danger.\u201d She still does not know who that is. Finding Ursa is not the only problem on this planet.
\nThe cleanest look at Kara fighting herself comes when the younger Kara gets knocked into traffic.
\nAdult Kara\u2019s hand is already out.
\nThen she stops.
\n\u201cWait, what am I doing?!\u201d
\nShe thinks she should let herself fall to preserve the timeline. Who knows what she\u2019ll be altering.
\nClark does not teach her that.
\nShe gets there first.
\nThen Superboy takes her off her feet.
\nThe fight after that is the funniest scene in the issue.
\nKara sees Clark and goes right at him. She told him to stay in the bubble.
\nClark does not apologize. This might be the only time he ever sees Krypton. He is not sitting that out.
\nShe tells him they cannot just start touching the past.
\nHe has her there.
\nShe just tried to save that little girl.
\nHer.
\nSo she is furious at him for the exact thing she almost did. It is not a lecture about temporal mechanics. It is two people looking at a home they do not get to keep, and neither of them is as disciplined as they want to be.
\nUrsa is not having that argument with anybody.
\nShe came here to save Krypton. She is not blending in. That is how the local authorities find them.
\nWhen the officers grab Kara, the S-Matrix immediately defends her. She realizes that will only make the arrest worse, shuts the suit down, and tells Superboy to run. He doesn\u2019t slip away. She makes him leave while she takes the cuffs.
\nThe interrogation is the sharpest use of time travel in the issue.
\nNo name.
\nNo identification.
\nThe computer does not know her face.
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t seem to exist at all.\u201d
\nUrsa makes it worse. Their records show that an identical Ursa already exists in Kryptonopolis, so the officers start wondering if the woman they arrested is some kind of clone. They have no idea they are holding people from after the end of the world.
\nThen the door opens.
\nGeneral Zod.
\nNot the Zod the present-day heroes think is dead. This is Zod on Krypton, still a general, still at home.
\n\u201cI hope we can work together and get to the bottom of this.\u201d
\nKara\u2019s face does the work. Ursa is the one who says it.
\n\u201cZod!\u201d
\nFuture Ursa is sitting across from the man she knew before the planet died. That is a mess waiting for Action Comics #1102.
\nEarth is not quiet while this is happening.
\nThe Kryptonite infection is not a lab curiosity. Prisoners in El Caldero are growing crystals. Midvale civilians are locking up in the street. Lois and Jon are moving through the tunnels already marked by it. The Justice League is fighting infected life in the water.
\nJohn Henry Irons, Natasha, and Lana get a look at the rock itself. Steel says this is almost standard green K except for a small molecular change, and he compares what it does to a prion: it finds normal proteins and turns them into something else.
\nWhatever has happened to the Kryptonite, it isn\u2019t just sitting there weakening Kryptonians anymore. It\u2019s spreading and changing living things.
\nThe short scene with Zod\u2019s follower is the one that will probably matter later. Zod is gone. Ursa is missing. She is on a rooftop asking the only question she has left:
\n\u201cWithout Ursa, without Zod\u2026 without orders\u2026 what are we?\u201d
\nKrypton in the past looks like a place you would want to stay. Sunlight, gold trees, clean towers. Earth is sick green, tunnels, crystals, bodies that are not bodies anymore. Bruno Frenda and Joe Quinones on the interiors, Luis Guerrero and Quinones on color. The split in the palette is doing as much work as the script.
\nThe page that stayed with me was not a punch.
\nIt was Kara in Kryptonopolis, looking at her parents and the girl she used to be, and walking anyway.
\nThen she gets arrested and ends up in a room with Zod before Krypton dies.
\n4\/5
\nQuieter than the last few chapters, and more personal. Kara gets her home back for one issue, the infection keeps eating the present, and that last page hands the story to Part Six in the ugliest way it could.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part Five Supergirl #17 slows Kingdom of Zod down, and the issue is better for it. Instead of another chapter built around a brawl, Sophie Campbell puts Kara in the most dangerous place this story could send her: Krypton before it dies. Kara, Superboy, and Ursa come through the timestream with Ursa determined to save […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":false,"total_views":0,"today_views":0},"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemaandcapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}