The Best of DC #40

In ancient Krypton, siblings Mag-El and Jaki venture into the Flame Forest in search of a strange object that fell from the sky. As they struggle to survive the forest’s dangers, the mysterious object guides them, offering protection and light—though its true nature remains a mystery. With Atlas watching from afar, the siblings must rely on the enigmatic force to lead them home, unaware of what the object truly is or where it came from.

In "All in the Mind!", Kryptonian archaeologists Min-Tor, Jan-Ar, Sala, and Lan-Nu uncover a mysterious globe that reveals the forgotten war between Erkol and Xan—and the strange legacy of a generation born with enlarged heads and no thumbs. When the children of Erkol, long exiled and unaware of their hidden telekinetic powers, learn their homeland is in peril again, they set out to return and stop a doomsday weapon, only to find their world already lost.

In "The Doomsayer!", Superman recounts the tale of a Kryptonian scientist, Dr. Mo-De, whose dire warnings about an impending catastrophe were ignored by his people, the citizens of Surrus—so captivated by the hypnotic beauty of their musical flowers that they refused to see the danger. As the fate of an entire world hangs in the balance, the story explores the weight of foresight and the cost of being unheard.

In "Jor-El's Golden Folly," Kryptonian scientist Jor-El pushes the limits of his research, defying skepticism to pioneer anti-gravity technology for space travel. When astronaut Lara Lor-Van secretly boards his test rocket, the craft malfunctions and crashes on Krypton's moon Wegthor, forcing Jor-El to venture into the moon's treacherous terrain to save her.

In "The Princess and the Glass Treeman!", Superman shares a tale from his mother Lara’s memories of Krypton—a story of Princess Reena, who ventures into a shimmering glass forest and is pursued by a thought monster. Trapped high in a glass tree, she glimpses a kiri-bird, whose urgent flight leads to El-Kin, a tree-sounder who answers the call and drives the creature away. As the Princess and El-Kin find their way to each other, the kiri-bird remains a quiet presence in the garden, its secret voice never spoken again.

In the depths of Krypton’s Scarlet Jungle, scientist Mal-Va attempts a desperate experiment to send his assistant Zol-Mar into the past for just ten minutes—only for Zol-Mar’s ambition to turn the device against them. With a mind set on glory and a hunger for power, he sabotages the machine, hoping to rewrite history and claim mastery over the past’s advanced technology. But when the device malfunctions, Zol-Mar is hurled not into the past he intended, but into a temporal abyss where time itself bends in ways no one could predict.