This article contains major spoilers.
Ever since the Rebirth era kicked off back in June of 2016, one of the greatest mysteries plaguing readers has been that of the true identity of Mr. Oz. Having been seen in a variety of DC titles, this hooded figure has been manipulating events from behind this scenes, capturing the likes of Doomsday and Tim Drake for his own purposes.
Naturally, many of us expected the big reveal to come in this past spring’s “Superman Reborn” crossover, but as awesome of a read as that was, it unfortunately didn’t happen then. Instead, we were given a heads up that the hood would come off in September and, thankfully, Action Comics #987 kept that promise.
If you were one of the many who suspected that Ozymandias of Watchmen fame was the man if question though, it turns out that you were wrong. Actually, the answer is even more shocking: Mr. Oz is – get this – none other than Superman’s father, Jor-El!
When you really think about it, we should’ve seen this coming for the past few months, given how Oz had been behaving in recent Superman books, often acting as protective of both Clark and Jon Kent. In his own twisted way, everything he’s done to this point has been in an effort to look after his family, obviously having lost all of his faith in the people of Earth.
Something else that writer Dan Jurgens did exceedingly well in this week’s issue was playing on the old conspiracy theory trope that worldwide calamities are all connected. In this case, that rung true and Jor-El himself is responsible for countless disasters and atrocities.
On the one hand, showing Big Blue’s pappy in a villainous light will be deemed as blasphemy by some, but on the other, it’s certainly making for one hell of a reading experience. Without a doubt, Superman mythology has now been completely turned on its head and I, for one, can’t wait to find out what led Jor-El down this path and how he survived Krypton’s destruction.
Action Comics #987 is now available in comic shops.
Published: Sep 13, 2017 11:40 am