Dru Zod pushes further to take control of the ultimate weapon. Seg and Nyssa battle to stop Brainiac from taking over Seg’s mind entirely. Kem and Adam undertake a mission together.

Last time out, we saw Dru Zod proving that it isn’t courage he lacks as he went to face down Doomsday with a new, untested experimental weapon. This week, we find out that Zod doesn’t just want to be abele to knock out the beast and unleash it on whoever gets in his way – he wants to actually be able to control it. In order to do that, his scientists must pry apart the secrets locked in the creature’s brain and find out about its history.

And it turns out that there’s quite a bit – unlike the Snyder version of Doomsday which was just a freak combination of a dead Zod and Lex Luthor’s DNA in a regeneration chamber, it turns out that Doomsday in Krypton has a much richer history, tied not only to the history of his home planet but also intimately with several of the great houses of that planet. The story which unfolds is a little cliched, but nonetheless holds weight and more importantly adds some heft to the character of Doomsday himself. This isn’t just some mindless beast which exists purely to destroy – Doomsday has a history, an identity and a purpose. The question is whether and how Dru Zod can bend those things to his own ends.

Meanwhile on Wegthor, Kem is taking charge of a mission to hunt for the Sagitari left in hiding on the moon by Zod when he was attempting his double cross. Now that the space elevator is broken, they’re stranded up there with the rebels and posing a potential threat. Adam volunteers to go with him on the mission, and we get to see a little more of exactly who Kem is and who he has become over the course of his experiences. Though his life as a conscript has made him rougher and more durable, it hasn’t quite sanded down the human edges of the character, something which brings him into conflict with Adam who mistakes this compassion for naivety. It’s great to see these two characters get to spend time together, away from Seg who always tends to overshadow them when they’re on screen with him (by dint of being the main character and having a grand destiny), and the writers and actors have a lot of fun with it.

Then there’s Seg himself, slowly being taken over more and more by Brainiac and desperate to stop him getting back to his skull ship whatever the cost. On the run with Nyssa and their son, they take refuge at the only safe place they have left as they try to get the last bits of Brainiac out of Seg’s head. But alas, things are never quite as simple as they might seem.

Verdict: Still pulsing along on various different narrative courses. The decision to make Doomsday an actual character with a past is particularly pleasing. 8/10

Greg D.Smith