Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #1
Scheduled to arrive in stores: June 4, 2025
Cover date: August 2025
“Chapter One: Krypton”
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Mike Norton
Cover: Jae Lee
Variant Cover: Dustin Nguyen
Reviewed by: JP Rocha
The story starts with Krypto and his life with the Els. There is clearly a conflict between Jor-El not only among Krypton’s leaders but other citizens as well. As a result of Jor-El’s concern for Krypton, he, along with his wife, began designing escape ships for the inhabitants of Krypton to escape. Early projections indicate a problem with re-entry, so Jor-El begins to design smaller prototypes to address these issues.
With a prototype ready for a manned (dogged) test flight to the moon and back, Krypto is chosen. Jor-El and Lar-El are monitoring the test flight, they also make sure Krypto can keep in contact with them on the ship’s monitors. After successfully clearing the atmosphere of Krypton, the ship starts to move off course despite all the gauges reading correctly. The result is not a mechanical error, they instead discover that a rogue wormhole has begun to draw the ship in. In order not to frighten Krypto, the Els remain calm until the signal is lost.
Krypto cannot do anything else but wait. Eventually, the ship makes it to a planet, crash-landing into a river. The pod opens, allowing Krypto to escape and swim to shore. Once on the shore, we see that he landed on Earth and is only 50 miles from Metropolis.
Krypto finds his way to the city only to find little compassion from its denizens. Scrounging for food scraps in the garbage, he is chased away by a homeless man into a street where he almost gets hit by a car. This action shepherds Krypto to the least likely of kids.
Story – 4: Over half of this story is the setup of Krypto’s life on Krypton. The first half also establishes the political atmosphere on Krypton in response to the work of Jor-El and Lar-El. We see that the Els love Krypto, and he loves them. He is a loyal and brave dog, and even after the Els disappear from the monitor, he does not seem to panic.
This story is meant to be fun, but there are parts that take you out of the story. Space dogs are a fun comic idea and a Superman staple. That said, there is a dichotomy between Krypton and the dogs depicted, as we see Krypto interact with another dog. A “purebred continental retriever,” to be exact. Space Dogs that act just like Earth dogs that have modern Earth leashes and harnesses, and Earth dog breed types.
Outside of what Krypto experiences in the story, we do not get any deeper insight into the Els or the happenings of Krypton. Once the monitor goes out, communication from Krypton is cut. Our last information from Krypton comes from Krypto’s ship monitor. It seems the Els are concerned with launching other prototypes without mapping the wormholes around Krypton.
Something that the Els say before the monitor was cut is their concern about where or when the wormhole will send Krypto. From what we can guess, judging by the dress, storefronts, and the cars, Krypto has found a past Metropolis of some kind.Art – 4: The story starts off with a splash page of Krypto passed out in his bed with his favorite toy in his mouth. This image is designed to establish Krypto’s world and how he fits in it. Which we can see is comfortable. Overall, the issue’s art is good, and Krypto looks great. Mike Norton’s storytelling flows well. By the nature of the book, Krypto must carry the action, and outside of the El’s interactions, there is no dialogue.Cover Art – 4: The main cover by Jae Lee. Jae Lee’s style has a Rockwellian feel with a gothic twist. Many of his covers have a theme of forward momentum, and in general, always to our right. Jae Lee brings that style to this cover. Lee’s city design fits our understanding of Kryptonian architecture. His design for the spaceship is almost tropical fish-like. There is also a bird in the image that looks alien but still bird-like.
The variant cover by Dustin Nguyen is a great alternate cover option for Krypto fans. It depicts a triumphant Krypto emerging from his rocket. This is a great Nguyen-style cover.
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