Krypto #136: Kancer's Competition

From: Action Comics #789-790 (May-June 2002)

Origin recaps before we go any further:
Ok, so we know that Joe Kelly wants to play with our super-dog, so I think we can forgive him for more or les repeating a beat from Jeff Loeb's first Krypto story, i.e. having Superman bring him to the park to play fetch, then having the dog run off to find a monstrous villain in the woods.
I would never go to the park if I lived in Metropolis. It's nice to see Clark trying to cajole Lois into letting him keep Krypto at home, and teaching him to not crush everything he puts in his mouth. The monster that makes him pop out the cape instead of Mongul Jr. is Kancer, a creature grown from Superman's cells who thinks of him as a father and is completely demented. And Kancer isn't too happy to have been replaced as Superman's kin/pet.
As the fighting continues, Krypto is on hand to bring Superman melee weapons like a city bus:
But he gets his head stuck in Kancer's grip. Superman's been training his super-dog, however, and he can make him bark like nobody's business.
That's the little-seen supersonic bark! Kancer runs off, but Krypto tracks him to the Gorge, a pocket of Hell in the European micro-country ruled by Zod, from where Kancer was sent by the demon formerly known as Guy Gardner... look, I don't know all that much about this era of Superman. Just go with it. Krypto once again scores the cover...
...but doesn't do much in this part of the story. All we need to know is that he fights Kancer some more, but Superman stops him before he kills him.
The pooch is sent home. This is enough positive attention for Kancer to sacrifice himself for Superman. He sits on the Gorge's throne in Guy's place, which releases him from the after-life where he can be on the side of the angels once more. Or something. Whatever. A pretty good showing for Krypto, and that's all I care about.

Comments

snell said…
Wait...Superman had his own Venom? Which was also vulnerable to sound?!?!? Man, the stuff I missed when I was outta the game...
Siskoid said…
Same. I completely missed out on the Cartoony But Dark era of Superman.
It's actually pretty good. I wish it'd ended three months later, so we could have seen the Russian Zod vs Black Adam