Last Son of Earth

[arbre_rieur]

Superman: Last Son of Earth was an Elseworlds written by Steve Gerber. When a cataclysmic asteroid heads for Earth, Jonathan and Martha Kent rocket their biological son Clark away from the planet. The lone infant reaches the planet Krypton, where his ship's landing is discovered by the aliens Jor-El and Lara.







The ship's only supposed to stay in orbit for three weeks, waiting out the tides and quakes the asteroid would cause, then return to Earth. At that point, what survivors there are on the planet could find and take care of the child.

However, the "asteroid" turns out to be some sort of warp anomaly, and its wake creates a wormhole. The ship passes through it, into Kryptonian space. Its crash causes a quake, which Jor-El goes to investigate.















Young Kal-El:



I wish the artist hadn't drawn Kal-El so similar to non-Elseworlds versions, down to the spitcurl. It makes it hard to remember that he's in fact not Jor-El and Lara's biological son, and that he's human.





He uses the ring to deal with the problem of Krypton's imminent explosion.









All these pages are from issue 1, which was 48 pages, so this post should be within page limits.

Comments

[proteus_lives]

Loving it.

I like Lara's head-dress, her instant dislike/atraction to Jor-El, his dry wit and his "I apparently love this strange little half-monkey" scene.

And the whole "We can't express emotion" confession scene. Darling.

[stig]

The detail of Lara not having eyebrows - one of the most expressive parts of the human face - is very clever.

[keeva]

A lot of those are directly from John Byrne's version of Krypton.

[stig]

That last panel would be a very nice ending if this was a humour comic.

"You people have become fearful of change and lethargic in your culture! I'm going to solve your apathy!...But first, a good night's sleep."

Also, are they trying to tell us that Kryptonians are basically Republican with a tendency for slight liberality?

[seriousfic]

Or an insanely extreme nanny state.

I think more people would listen to Jonathan Kent if it weren't for the hairstyle he burrowed from a drunk Willie Nelson.

[thatnickguy]

Wow, I've never even heard of this before. Nice hidden gem, there. I'll have to see about tracking this down.

[fifthie]

Holy shit, this is fantastic.

80s Krypton may be weird as hell and kind of creepily offputting but you could sure do some great elseworlds stories with it.

[20thcenturyvole]

Oh, man. I normally wouldn't have even bothered to click the cut, but for some reason I did and I'm glad because this is really cool. I love the worldbuilding!

[filkertom]

Yowzah. Never saw this one, and between Gerber and my general love of Elseworlds I definitely need to get it.

[q99]

That's one of the best elseworlds I've seen.

[nezchan]

One of the things I find most interesting in this is it varies from the "Clark is fated to be Superman" trope. Yes, he becomes a hero, but he becomes a man in his own right, pursuing his own interests first. In the mainline universe he takes a career in order to further his heroics. Here, he's already an archeologist before becoming a hero, and afterwards he remains one, just with some extra advantages.

Also, the devastation was wrought by the Clone Wars? I thought the cartoon was better than the movies?

[cainofdreaming]

Maybe the only broadcast bits that reached Krypton were those that featured Jar Jar?

[nezchan]

THOSE MONSTERS!!

Although seriously, I could see a planet being devastated by Attack of the Clones. Maybe Jor-El just got the name wrong.

[thanekos]

It's amusing how many ' Krypton isn't destroyed ' outcomes lead to ' Kal-El, GL of Sector Krypton '

.. okay, so the only other one was that reality the Key whipped up, but there's also that one Maggin story involving the Guardians..

Either way, it's a more interesting fate than ' Kryptonian glass-blower '

[megami18]

Cool story!

[minyandu]

Awwwww, this one looks beautiful and interesting.

[icon_uk]

Very impressed by this...

[geoffsebesta]

+1 to the "This looks cool."

[leorising]

Joining the "really cool" chorus!

[jedd_the_jedi]

A lot of Elseworlds concepts are just plain bonkers, but this one makes a lot of sense as a "reversal" of sorts. The art is also lovely, and it's very well-written.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Interesting. So this isn't actually a direct reversal of the Earth/Krypton situation, because Earth DOESN'T explode, and Krypton would still have if not for Kal. Intriguing.