Who is this ominous villain?
Is it Sarge?
No.
Is it Rosemary, the telephone operator?
No.
Is it Penry, the mild-mannered janitor?
Could be....
But it isn't!
It's... Jor-El?
Seriously? I have to say that my initial reaction is to be underwhelmed by this development. Perhaps some of you are more open-minded about it than I am.
Replies
Blecch.
(I was expecting Ozamandias.)
Looks like he's plucked mid-decomposition!
Note: For maximum effect, you should imagine the first post being read by the voice-over guy from this.
Maybe it's this version who's really mad at being ignored for half-a-century!
Didn't they just Mopee that story away instead of trying to explain it?
I think it's an interesting development for the Superman books -- and should result in a lot of soul searching on Superman's part. It's more interesting, for the purposes of Superman, at least, than Ozymandius, who would only elicit a "Who??" from anyone in this universe. At least Jor-El is someone Superman can react to in shock.
On the other hand, I don't think he's the genuine article, and will eventually be revealed to be an impostor. (And perhaps that impostor is Ozymandius! Or, as others have suggested, Roz-Em, a Kryptonian originally exiled for impersonating Jor-El's identical twin brother, Nim-El.)
I'm with you, Rob. I don't think it will turn out to be the original Jor-El, even though if you look at Mr. Oz's word balloons over the last few months he seems to think he is. He kept putting down "humans" for being inferior, for example. But there's a jillion ways this can be explained away, as we've seen before, and I really don't see them changing the origin story that dramatically.
It actually strikes me as sort of a repeat of what they've done with Thomas Wayne over in the Bat-books. They didn't return "our" Thomas Wayne to life, but they invented a version that has occasionally interacted with Bruce, so that we can see that drama without changing the origin story. I expect similar here.
Perhaps I am less offended than others because I half-expected this, or something like it. (Nim-El, Roz-Em, that lookalike from Kandor -- there's a long list of Jor-El fill-ins.) The "humans are inferior" lines sorta ruled out Ozymandias for me, because he'd have no reason to say such a thing. The clues in the last couple of months were pointing to a Kryptonian from Superman's past, one who knew him intimately, so Jor-El -- or a Jor-El fill-in or imposter -- seemed the likeliest course.
Which, as Rob says, still doesn't rule out Ozymandias as having a puppet-master role. He is the smartest man in the world. Well, one world, anyway.
There was a Nightwing & Flamebird story arc in Superman Family where they fought "the Crimelord of Kandor" and it turned out to be an other-dimensional Jor-El so DC has gone down that path before.
Despite the reveal, though, Mr. Oz's actions don't add up yet. Why did he kidnap Red Robin? At the time I got the impression he could see future events and was preventing Tim Drake from doing something to impact his plans, but now I don't get it.
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