Krypton:
The Complete Second & Final Season review by Bobby Blakey
“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”
I love all things comic book related and although I am not a huge Superman fan I still dig seeing his universe get the live action treatment. The last few years have been Superman filled with not only the theatrical turns in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Jusitce League, but also more recently in the CW series in not only Supergirl, but also the current Crisis on Infinite Earth crossover event. In 2018 SyFy Channel took fans into a new direction in the Superman universe with the series Krypton. Sadly after two seasons the series was canceled, but now you can complete your series with Krypton: The Complete Second and Final Season.
Krypton follows Seg-El, the legendary Man of Steel’s grandfather, who is faced with a life and death conflict – save his home planet or let it be destroyed in order to restore the fate of his future grandson. With Krypton’s leadership in disarray and the House of El ostracized, Seg fights alongside Earthly time-traveler Adam Strange to redeem his family’s honor and protect the ones he loves while saving the future of his legacy from DC Super-Villain Brainiac. Season two brings us back to a changed Kandor, locked in a battle over its freedom and its future. With Zod now in control, he’s on a ruthless mission to rebuild Krypton according to his ideals and to secure its future by conquering the universe. Faced with a bleak outlook, Superman’s ancestor, Seg-El, attempts to unite a dispersed group of resisters in an effort to defeat Zod and restore hope to their beloved planet.
I admit that the idea of this series and it working was a bit far-fetched for me as I felt that there just wouldn’t be all that much interesting to work with taking Superman out of the equation. While it did take a couple of episodes to suck me it I really ended up digging the first season. It wasn’t one that I was still fully on board with at the end of the season until they announced the addition of Lobo for season two played to perfection by Emmett John Scanlan.
Sure he wasn’t perfect, but as a fan of the old Bisley Lobo stuff most notably the Paramilitary Christmas Special issue I felt they nailed the character in personality and overall look perfectly. Sadly we didn’t get near enough of him, but was excited that they were at one point going to do a spin-off show, but alas that was cancelled as well.
The tone of the show continues to remind me more of shows like Stargate than a superhero show but that is a good thing. Instead we have a sci-fi show that makes sure you remember that we are in the world of the man of steel while still being its own thing. It’s pretty interesting to get to see more of the Krypton life styles and culture in this take to kind of make the history of Superman feel even bigger if that is possible. The character designs and looks of everything look great and fully captures everything we have seen throughout the comics and previous films to what Krypton was all about offering up a fully realized world that you buy into. This season was more about the all out war against Zod and made for a bit more exciting this time around especially with a great version of Doomsday. They even dive into his backstory and give him some great screen time and have probably delivered the best live action version to date.
I know this show wasn’t perfect and I never got fully invested in the main characters but it had so much potential that really started to shine through this season. Sadly it is not to be so at least we have the first two seasons to enjoy and who knows maybe Lobo will still creep up somewhere else someday and still be this good. Travel to the Man of Steel’s home world and grab your copy of Krypton: The Complete Second & Final Season as well as Krypton: The Complete Series when they hit Blu-ray and DVD on January 14th from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.