I’ve been researching a ton of Brainiac stuff recently and remembered I had this on my shelf. It’s short, but good! I like Johns’ take on Brainiac being the boogeyman of Krypton, though I think having everything in Brainiac’s ship looking like it came out of Geiger’s Alien doesn’t work. Brainiac, physically, has always blurred the lines between organic and machine, but the art of Alien was used to enhance the themes of sexual violence in the movie. Even here, Brainiac is a very asexual character, so it feels like someone saw Alien and imitated the imagery here just because they thought it looked cool without considering how well it suited the characters and story. The story kinda glosses over Brainiac’s origins too, which is pretty weird considering he’s the main antagonist here and even has top billing in the story title. Maybe this was to further support the boogeyman theme Johns is going for, but Brainiac has some pretty interesting lore that makes him a good parallel to Superman. It’s a shame we didn’t get that here, but Johns more than compensates with the supporting cast.

Clark and Lois have great workplace banter, Clark’s relationship with his father is really touching and SO much better than what we got in Man of Steel (yes that movie still upsets me), and Kara gets a nice mini-arc processing her fears of getting attached to a new home. It rare we get to see Clark be a parental figure to Kara and the way he supports and believes in her is so sweet. I didn’t get the cool Brainiac adventure I was looking for, but I see why everyone else loves this story. The cast is really lovable here and makes me want to keep reading for their sake, something I might just do to get my reading goal this year.