Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #5
Scheduled to arrive in stores: December 17, 2025
Cover date: February 2026
“Book Five”
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Cover: Martin Morazzo & Chris O’Halloran
Variant Covers: Juan Ferreyra, Alex Eckman-Lawn
Reviewed by: Adam Dechanel
The end is nigh!
The Kryptonite Man, infused with the different variations of the radioactive shards is joined by Toyman’s army of Superman androids and Lex in his war suit.
Superman endures attack after attack from the different foes and even the arrival of Batman, Lois and Jimmy aren’t enough to turn the tide.
Kryptonite Man uses his vision powers to bathe Superman in barrage after barrage of radiation. Lex mocks Superman, who grows weaker and sicker by the minute until he spies that Batman has brought an army of Fortress bots and Krypto into the battle.
Lex seizes the opportunity to hit Superman with a pink pathogen and though it isn’t kryptonite, his compromised immune system almost immediately begins displaying signs of infection.
Lex bleats about his superiority and expresses disappointment that the rainbow K appears to be useless and the weakened Man of Steel realizes he may still win the battle. Shouting Fle-Lak, Clark brings Kal-Elf to our dimension and his maniacal magic and fifth dimensional shenanigans bring an end to Kryptonite Man and the army of androids.
With the last of his strength Clark hurls Lex into a prison cell and collapses. Much to the horror of Lois, Jimmy and the rest of his friends, as Clark’s life ebbs away Kal-Elf fades from existence.
Batman refuses to give up experimenting on Clark with the Fortress bots and the colorful shards of Kryptonite. Bruce discovers that Lex infected Superman with a childhood Kryptonian disease while he was compromised.
Could combining the shards and their various side effects create a cure?
The End…?
Story – 4: I won’t pretend my synopsis does the book justice! The blinding of the audience with linguistics and physics defying science is astounding this issue. Overall the structure of the story is quite simple, and on one level, a little disappointing with its predictable direction (until the twist). I half cringed with the reference to Pink Kryptonite but how the pathogen is used and how it leads the story into a new direction was much appreciated.
That twist and what it means for Lois left me wanting a sequel, so it succeeded in drawing in this old curmudgeon!
Art – 3: The huge chunks of dialogue and exposition really detracted from how fun the art in the book is. I was quite disappointed that this was the end as it felt like it had enough material packed into this issue that could have benefitted from an extra chapter. For example, a lot of the action sequences were inferred as there was too much dialogue to accommodate.
Cover Art – 5: I really like this cover. I wish it were the one I’d seen on Book One. The Ominous nature of the gray tone, infected by the rainbow of color is actually really appealing and as a reader definitely draws my attention.
Variant Cover (Juan Ferreyra) – 4: I want to love it but I feel like the motion lines spoil the intent of the image. Perhaps jaded by my comments about the interiors lack of battle scenes. It’s really well composed and illustrated but those intrusive lines feel a little excessive.
Variant Cover (Alex Eckman-Lawn) – 4: I like the art but I’m confused as to how it links into the book. Clark looks very young here and though it is an arresting image with some beautiful artistic flair, it doesn’t seem to fit with the book itself.
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