Kneel Before Zod

General Zod was once Superman’s fiercest foe, ready to fight him tooth and nail for the legacy of their homeworld Krypton.  That’s changed in recent years as the warrior now appears to have everything he could want:  A wife, a son, his own House,a planet to rule over – New Kandor, and an army to defend it.  Yet he’s plagued by a restlessness about what to do next as well as threats both within his mind and without.  While visions of Jor-El taunt him and point out his shortcomings, the Khunds have decided that New Kandor will make a nice addition to their own empire.  Is this the beginning of Zod’s end, or will he triumph and make everyone kneel before him after all?

If nothing else, “Kneel Before Zod” shows that Joe Casey can still write a coherent comic.  Which was something that I had serious doubts about after experiencing the mess that was “Junior Baker the Righteous Faker.”  The jury is still out on whether he can write an interesting one as it feels like we’re just watching the title character react to stuff that happens to him here.  He doesn’t drive the narrative and it doesn’t feel like there’s a real point to anything that’s going on.  Until you get to the end of the volume and realize that the whole miniseries was really about getting him out of his current status quo and back into one that better positions him as an antagonist to Superman.

In that regard:  Mission accomplished!  In what feels like the most perfunctory way possible.  Not that the art from Dan McDaid really elevates anything here either as while he’s good with the storytelling and the cosmic setting the man doesn’t deliver things with a lot of style outside of the occasional weird alien design.  It all leads me to say that what I’ve read here doesn’t make me excited for seeing anything that follows up directly out of it, which makes the whole thing feel like a failure after all.