H’el might be the lamest character of the last decade. Probably because he looks like he belongs in the decade before that.
He’s a long-haired, sideburned, pointlessly shirtless, super-powerful albino with an absurdly complicated backstory involving time travel and genetic experimentation, a backwards Superman symbol carved into his chest (because SCARS, MAN), a ridiculous butt-cape. and a name that’s supposed to be cool because it’s almost a bad word. ‘Bad ’90s’ just bleeds from those scars. The attempt to legitimize him by having him almost marry Supergirl didn’t pan out, because it was always ‘why is Supergirl making out with that putz?’
A butt-cape. It looks like he’s constantly walking around in a towel. I suppose it’s more of a skirt than it is a butt-cape, but ‘butt-cape’ is funnier, and it’s usually flowing behind him like a butt-cape, so I’m calling it a butt-cape.
When he showed up before, his whole thing was that he loved Krypton so much he had to bring it back and stomp out Earth while doing it – pretty much like Zod from the movie. When the Supergang beat him, he escaped into the timestream, and he wakes up in Superman #23.3: H’el #1 back on Krypton with a young Jor-El. The whole issue is H’el psychically following Jor-El around, praising his genius, but when he overhears a conversation between Jor-El and Zod that reveals that H’el’s memory of his life on Krypton is a lie, and that he was just a genetic experiment sent around the universe to test Kryptonian cell absorption – hence, having Superman powers plus mental powers and time powers and really whatever power he wants to have because whatever – he flips out, incinerates Zod, snaps Jor-El’s neck and decides to rule Krypton instead of saving it… although you’d think you’d want to save a planet you’re going to rule. Apparently, this is going to be a paradox on top of a paradox that will get resolved in Action Comics Annual #2, but it’s really hard to care.
The art from Dan Jurgens and Ray McCarthy is fine, but it’s in service of Butt Cape. Now that he’s realized his H’el name is just a shortening of “House of El” and he hates Jor-El now, he needs a new name. And let it be Butt Cape.
Yeesh. It’s what Mullet Kal-El from “Death of Superman” would have looked like if they’d realized at the time that mullets are awful. But even they had the sense to put him in basic black, and leave the horrifying fashion sense to Superboy.
His name is “H’el.” I just cannot penetrate the radiating lameness to find any kind of objectivity about him. Seriously, if you like this guy, please explain to me what I’m missing. He’s the Kaine to Superman’s Spider-Man, a stronger experimental reflection of the hero we know, but crazy and evil. Although , come to think of it, New 52 Superman is actually kind of the Ben Reilly to the pre-New 52 Superman’s Peter Parker, isn’t he?
Anyway, I suppose there’s a chance that, 20 years from now, somebody could reinvent this guy to be cool, as current Scarlet Spider books are doing with Kaine, but it’s going to take a couple of decades to imagine a way to do that. Step 1: Ditch the Butt Cape.
