Man of Kryptonite: Metallo, as usual. A Freak Lab Accident involving Kryptonite turns Russell Abernathy into the latest version of the Kryptonite Man. Combat Breakdown: After Superman resorts to charging straight through Luthor's Kryptonite-powered warship, the two of them wind up on a beach, Superman depowered and Luthor's armor in tatters. They resort to just punching each other unconscious.

Tom King does Superman and it's exactly what you'd expect. It's less "Superman defeats the villain" and more "Superman proves over the course of a very long day that he really is just the nicest guy." I'll admit to growing weary of King's foibles over his lengthy Batman run, and Superman: Up in the Sky features many of them.

Success!

The little girl herself is more of a plot device than a character and I hated that Tom King tried to make up for that with the overly-cutesy final issue where we get annoying kid-exposition with patient adult Superman. That was so tedious. Bash Brothers: Practically any superhero in the DCU at one point or another, but most of the time with Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Batman and Supergirl. Atrocious Alias: One comic featured a retired villain called " The Molester," which he intended to mean "The Annoyance." The Boxing Episode: Chapter 3 sees Clark forced into a literally out-of-this-world boxing match against an alien mercenary named Mighto, who was hired by Alice's kidnappers and only offers to tell Clark their identities if he can beat him in a boxing match without his superpowers, including his Super-Strength. Clark gets clobbered through the rounds as Mighto ends up being much faster and stronger, but his utter refusal to go down and give up on Alice ensures he ends up winning just by sheer attrition.

Clark gets called by Bruce to Gotham and is informed about a couple and two of their foster girls being murdered. Another girl Alice was abducted but one survived after being shot, and he wants him to find out the details from her. The injured girl admitted at the Gotham Mercy hospital states that they hid in a bush after hearing loud noises and screams. After being shot, she saw Alice being taken by a spaceman who flew away towards the sky.All Gravity Is the Same: Zigzagged. While Krypton's higher gravity is an explanation for a Kryptonian's improved biology compared to humans (even when ignoring the presence of a yellow star), all works that take place on Krypton essentially treat it as just a weird looking Earth. Radion, an enemy that hadn't been seen since Bronze Age storyline Krypton No More, makes a short-lived reappearance. We see him pitted against monsters in the fight for this single girl, and we also see him in these classic battles with other supes like Flash. Does it matter who is fastest in the world? It IS Flash, as we all know, but if Lex Luthor says he is going to donate 100 million to charity if Superman wins, Superman will do The Impossible, and he will win. That kind of story is meant to be inspiration to kids, to us. King takes us through the Thousand Deaths of Lois Lane, his endless need to protect her. He helps us see the real heroes, which in this book is the military that beat the Nazi threat to the world in WWII. That was the spirit of Superman, King says, those acts of self-denial and altruism. Brainwashed and Crazy: Given how long running his series has been it's inevitable that this trope has come up a few times. Perhaps the most famous recent event to feature this is during the OMAC Project storyline, where Max Lord is controlling him to demonstrate why superheroes can't be trusted (since they can be turned against Earth by Mind Control, and the next guy might not be him and have more sinister plans in mind) and tells Wonder Woman that the only way to stop him is to kill him- and to the horror of Supes and the rest of the League, she does just that.