Superman #23.3 H'El

The greatest cardinal sin a writer can commit when he attempts a time travel story is make it so complex the reader can never make head or tail of what is going on.

And sadly, that's exactly what Scott Lobdell has done.


After the poor veering to parody crossover that was H'El on Earth, I had wished we never saw H'El again. But sadly, Lobdell seems utterly fascinated with the character and goes through many many hoops to keep him relevant.

As a prelude to the Krypton Returns arc, this story may serve a good basis - but only if you can make sense of the writing and the timeline.

And that is the hardest thing to do here. I had to read the book thrice to even understand what He'l was so mad about suddenly.

Sigh. Well, here's the gist of it.

H'El is in a containment chamber being analyzed by a young Jor-El and the spends the first few pages telling us how amazing and unique H'El is. Jor-El jumps from normal conclusions to crazy ones by claiming that the person came from the future and so, Krypton blows up. Well, he's shut down by the council and accused of treason by one general.

As he goes to a ship chamber, he's met by Zod (I think it's General Zod as he's addressed as Dru, but the drawing makes him look older than Jor-El, which Zod isn't) and H'El's astral projection (which had been following Jor-El up to now. I have no idea why he claims he doesn't want to change the past. He wants to save Krypton. Or did I miss something?) recollects that there's something familiar about the room.

And here's where everything goes to hell. Apparently Jor-El was carrying out an experiment to see how different environments would affect Kryptonian physiology and he was going to use Apparently, H'El was a guinea pig.

Or maybe not. I can't be exactly certain but it appears H'El had deluded himself into believing that he was Jor-El's friend and his launch was cheered by millions while actually, he had been a mere lab-rat for Jor-El's study that somehow veered off course and landed on Earth (how coincidental is that?).

Well, as you can guess, H'El is pissed.He psychically kills two scientists with him then makes him way toward Jor-El. He first roasts Zod and then....wait for it............

He breaks Jor-El's neck.

And then in classic villain about-turn, he declares he will rule Krypton.

I just scratch my head and decide to never read anything Lobdell ever writes again.

So, I give this 2 out of 10.