The 100 minute war continues as the now homeless Kryptonians move to invade Earth. Contrary to the events in Brightest Day, Earth has a Military Base on Mars with Soldiers waiting for the Kryptonians. The two armies begin engaging each other with murderous intent, leaving the question of where Superman and Supergirl are. The story continues the trend of silent pages filled with Space battles until it's convenient to move the story to a location with sound. In this battle an upset Supergirl lashes out at Superman when she sees a surviving Kryptonian flag. It's amazing that the flag survived a blast that destroyed a race of super people, but that seems to have escaped the writers.
After calming Supergirl down---with his fists---Superman figures out what's bothering her. Supergirl feels responsible for the destruction of New Krypton and doesn't know what to do next. Superman and her decide that the best thing to do is to stop both sides from killing each other before two planets are destroyed. They enter the battle and do what Superman does best, show restraint. Not only must they be careful with the Earthlings, they also must show a different amount of care when dealing with the Kryptonians. 
This next part is important to discuss, so consider this a spoiler warning. More will be discussed about the spoiler through the rest of the review, so if you wish for the story to remain un-spoiled I recommend to stop reading now! At the end of the book, Lex Luthor launches a missile into the yellow sun turning it into a red sun. Red sun, if you don't know, strips Kryptonians of their powers.
The writing of this story continues to be choppy at best. Every time Sterling Gates (Supergirl) and James Robinson (Justice Society of America) go to Lois Lane and the U.S. Military, the pacing and flow of the book has become broken. Lois' involvement in the story feels forced and completely ridiculous. Her father is waging the war on the Kryptonians and her husband is Superman, yet she feels like she has no business being in the story. My biggest problem with the writing is how they handled turning the sun red. For starters, that would essentially kill all the vegetation on the earth and would definitely affect the planet as a whole i.e. the temperature of the planet, the oceans, the people, etc. Everything would be affected. It seems really short-sighted to basically kill the planet in this way. More than likely, it would be just a temporary effect---but even then it would devastate the planet.
Secondly, the Kryptonians store yellow sun rays in their body. Sterling and James would have you believe that they would instantly be stripped of their powers leaving Superman and the rest of his race floating in space powerless. Again, this is really short-sighted from two writers that have been penning the franchise for nearly two years.
Due to this series being weekly, the artist has switched from the first issue. This chapter is penciled by Eduardo Pansica (Supergirl) and he seems to share a lot of the same struggles as Jamal Igle (Supergirl). Both Superman and Supergirl are recognizable in costume alone. They have three facial expressions that they share: Sadness, Anger and Confusion. Blond, a.k.a. Kevin Senft , does a consistent job on the coloring and giving the book a united feel from issue to issue.
This book continues to ignore and defy the real world physics set in the DC Universe, making it more of a fantasy story than a superhero war book. The writers are unable to demonstrate that either side of the battle knows how to fight a battle. The attempt is to establish Zod and Lane as the villains and that everyone else is collateral damage, but neither are developed enough as characters to do that. This story continues to destroy any work that was done to the Superman franchise. Reading this story, it felt like a nineties comic book: Lots of fights and explosions with no repercussions for anyone's actions. I half expect Supergirl to be posing seductively at the end of the next issue; it's that preposterous. DC has managed to take an event that could have over-the-top action and made it down right ridiculous.
Story – 1.0
Plot – 1.0
Art – 3.0
Coloring – 7.5
Overall – 3.1
I refrained from making any Red Son Superman puns because I didn't want the two to ever be associated with each other. Now however, you should go read Red Son Superman. Follow Dustin on Twitter and ask him anything on FormSpring.
