chapter 197 part 1
Chapter 196: Kandor City
Superman: "A stopper?"
Touching his head, Superman looked at the stopper in the bottle's mouth.
Although his body had been shrunk, Superman's Super Strength didn't decrease as a result, so he used his Super Strength to push the stopper.
Superman: "I can't let Brainiac find out I've left the bottle."
Superman pushed the stopper open, and after going out, he closed the bottle again to prevent Brainiac from becoming suspicious.
Superman: "This should be Brainiac's Force Field device used to block attacks."
Immediately afterward, the shrunken Superman quickly discovered the Force Field generating device inside the flying object. It was a pushing device that looked like a handle.
Brainiac: "Wait, there's a buzzing fly moving around over there. Hit it for me, Koko!"
Koko: "Squeak squeak!"
Superman was planning to study the Force Field generating device carefully, but Brainiac noticed his erratic flying movements, and told Koko, an alien creature that looked like a monkey, to hit him with a fly swatter.
Smack!
Superman: "Fortunately, Brainiac didn't look closely, but his pet keeps chasing me. I need to find a place to hide."
To avoid being hit, Superman quickly flew into a bottle with an open mouth.
Superman: "This is… why does it look so familiar?"
Looking at the city in the bottle, Superman inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity. However, immediately afterward, his flying body fell to the ground. It turned out that this city actually belonged to his hometown, Krypton, and the bottle also replicated Krypton's original gravity, causing his Superpowers to lose their effect.
Later, Superman found a scientist in the bottle. After they introduced themselves, he discovered that this scientist and his father were college roommates. Superman told him about his experiences over the years, and the scientist also told him that Kandor City was the capital of Krypton, and was bottled by Brainiac before Krypton exploded.
Superman told the scientist about his current mission, and the scientist said that he had been in this bottle for years and had already figured out Brainiac's devices. He gave Superman a blueprint that could help him restore the Bottled City to its original state. However, Superman also expressed his helplessness at not having Superpowers.
Superman: "I really want to do all of this, but I've lost my Powers. The gravity in Kandor City prevents me from Flight."
The scientist led Superman to tour everything in Kandor City. They built flying machines that could fly in the bottle, raised rare moles that could eat metal in glass enclosures, manufactured robots to do farm work, and created an Artificial Sun. All of this made Superman exclaim in wonder.
Brainiac: "Very good, Koko. Next, all we need to do is wait."
On the other side, Brainiac had collected all the great cities on Earth and planned to return to his Homeworld. He and his pet Koko lay down in Hibernation Pods, and the two would wake up in a hundred years.
Scientist: "My telescope saw Brainiac enter the Hibernation Pod. This is not a good thing…"
After learning all of this through the telescope, the scientist quickly told Superman everything. Once Brainiac began to hibernate, the entire control system would only restart after a hundred years. Superman was very surprised, worried that the people he knew in the bottle would be married and have children in a hundred years, and that Lois would have died long ago.
Superman: "I have to do something. I can't let this happen!"
Thinking of this, Superman made a decisive decision. He borrowed a flying machine and metal-eating moles from the scientist, drove the flying machine to the mouth of the bottle, and had the moles eat a hole in the bottle. Superman came out of the hole and away from Krypton's gravity. Superman regained his Superpowers, so he followed the blueprint and used his body to hit the corresponding buttons. Metropolis was restored and returned to Earth.
Superman: "Now, only the last one is left."
After restoring the cities on Earth, there was only enough energy left to use one more time. He had to choose between himself and Kandor City.
Superman: "Compared to me, the people of Kandor City need to be restored to their original size more."
After considering, Superman was about to restore Kandor City when a Miniature Spaceship hit the button, and the Ray made Superman grow larger.
Superman: "Doctor, why did you do this?"
Scientist: "Brainiac won't give up easily. Once he wakes up and finds that all the cities he collected are gone, he will definitely launch another attack on Earth. Earth needs protection, so Superman cannot be shrunk!"
Superman discovered that the person in the Miniature Spaceship was the scientist. He also saw this situation in the bottle and made the decision to return Earth's greatest Superhero to his normal size and continue to protect Earth's safety.
Superman took Kandor City away from Brainiac's flying object and came to Secret Citadel.
Superman: "I promise, one day I will restore Kandor City."
…
As the first alien Villain to appear in the Superman comic series.
Brainiac's appearance left a very deep impression on readers, especially the scene where he shrunk the cities on Earth one by one and put them into bottles. This made the readers who saw this scene in The Daily Messenger Newspaper exclaim, and even suspected that New York, where they were currently located, had also been shrunk into a bottle by Brainiac, but had not yet been discovered.
Immediately afterward, the appearance of Kandor City gave readers more associations with the subsequent comic plots.
The technological level of Kandor City far exceeded that of Earth, and through the observation of Kandor City, they were able to see the level of development of Krypton in the past. Readers have always felt a strong affection for this planet that nurtured Superman. However, whether in comics or in radio dramas, only simple descriptions of Krypton have been made, and most of the plots revolved around the planet's destruction.