Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1-5

Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1-5

Originally released in 2025

Written by W. Maxwell Prince

Art by Martin Morazzo

This story was recommended to me, though all I know about it going in is the title.  It immediately sticks out that this is published under the mature readers imprint, which seems unusual for a Superman story, so I'm curious to see what it involves beyond Superman and Kryptonite.

Within Earth's orbit, a rock containing four new types of Kryptonite is discovered by Superman.  Not knowing how they'll effect him, Superman asks Batman to test them on him in a controlled environment, as this doubles the known amount of Kryptonite types. (Green, yellow, red, and black - blue, which doesn't harm Superman but acts like regular Kryptonite to Bizarro, isn't mentioned) Lex is fifteen minutes late to getting his hands on them, and he reacts in a calm and rational manner.

Bruce doesn't seem entirely convinced that Clark's plan is sane, but he agrees to go along with it regardless. Naturally, zapping yourself with unknown radioactive material isn't going to go well, though tonally, this feels like an old school story with the Kryptonite having wildly different effects on Superman like making him giant or messing with his perception of time.

Naturally, the main villain of the piece is Lex Luthor, who works with other DC villains like Dr. Sivana, Solomon Grundy, and the walking atomic bomb Chemo in order to take advantage of Superman's weakened state. Lex's portrayal here seems more like a mad artist, viewing Grunty's barely sentient ramblings as poetic.

By issue 3, there are hints that someone with ties to the Fifth Dimension is manipulating events from behind the scenes, though I don't see why this series needed to be released under the Black Label imprint.  It seems child-friendly enough; any violence is over-the-top superheroics rather than anything gruesome, there's no darker themes or foul language, and issue 3 involves Shazam/Captain Marvel and Superman having a day at an amusement park.

With the involvement of the 5th dimension, you have five guesses as to who is involved in this, and the first four don't count.  Superman's trip to the 5th dimension is as goofy as you'd expect, using real world images and references to Lewis Carroll.

Throughout the series, there's a belief that home can hurt, as mentioned in the spreadsheet above.  In Superman's case, it's very literal, though it comes up with other characters too, like Batman leaving Wayne Manor largely unchanged since he was a child due to his trauma, or Billy Batson going through several rough foster homes before staying with the Vasquez family. (Also, I appreciate the Gilbert Gottfried shout out; he's my go-to voice actor for Mr. Mxyzptlk, where I can mentally read his lines in that voice much like Kevin Conroy with Batman and Mark Hamill with the Joker)

This was a fun read, though the ending was weird - not weird in the way that you'd associate with Mr. Mxyzptlk, but weird as in it had me questioning why they'd make that creative choice. Another thing that I question is why it was released under DC's Black Label, as none of the content in the last two issues seemed to earn it the 17+ rating that it got. (The individual issues are longer than normal, but that hardly calls for a higher rating) It left me feeling like I might have missed something, though it's definitely worth reading.