Man of Steel # 3 – RIP to the Classic Superman Artifact

Brian Michael Bendis continues his tour de force for Superman in Man of Steel # 3 and for this issue, he ups the death count thanks to his new character, Rogol Zaar.

In this issue, the new villain makes his way to Antarctica where he finds Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. He also makes quite the entrance wouldn’t you agree?

The vicious attack wrecks pretty much everything within the Fortress of Solitude including our favorite Kryptonian robot Kelex.

It takes awhile for Superman to return to his base of operations because at that time he was doing an investigation on a string of fires which may be connected to something deeper. He even brought in Batman to help in his investigation. When Superman arrives at the Fortress, everything’s destroyed.

That’s right, the Bottle City of Kandor is no more thanks to Bendis and his creative team. It’s a huge blow to Superman too because he hoped to find a way to get the city back to it’s natural size and state after what Brainiac did to the world years ago.

Before the New 52 era however, Superman managed to find a way to restore Kandor after his “final” battle with Brainiac. This resulted in a “New Krypton” story arc where thousands of Kryptonians relocated near Earth and where General Zod almost successfully took out Earth and Superman.

The Bottle City of Kandor or rather the Russian city of Stalingrad was also an integral element in Mark Millar’s Superman Red Son storyline; in this story of the Soviet Superman, Lex Luthor and Supes make a final battle where Superman almost comes out victorious until Lex Luthor pulls out his trump card which caves Superman in.

Intense right?

There’s a lot of other stories that involved Kandor but the bare bones thing you need to know is that the city gives Superman hope and at the same time connects him to his Kryptonian heritage.