Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Superman 2023 Annual #1.
Summary
- Lobo's status as the last Czarnian is challenged in Superman 2023 Annual #1 when Brainiac reveals a bottled Czarnian city.
- Lobo's DNA suggests that there might be others from Czarnia, contradicting his belief that he is the last survivor.
- The violent nature of the Czarnians may lead Lobo to potentially kill them all to ensure his own survival.
The "Main Man" Lobo is about to undergo a major shift in his status quo — thanks to Superman's enemy Brainiac. The Man of Steel and the Main Man have long been associated with one another, usually as adversaries. Despite this, the two characters share a common link as the supposed sole survivors of their respective worlds, Krypton and Czarnia. The key difference between them, however, is that Lobo was responsible for the death of his people in at least one reality.
Lobo's status as the last Czarnian comes into play in Superman 2023 Annual #1 by Joshua Williamson, Mahmud Asrar, Jackson Herbert, Caitlin Yarsky, Max Raynor, Edwin Galmon, Dave McCaig, Alex Guimarães, and Ariana Maher. The final scene of Superman 2023 Annual #1 reveals that Lobo is not the Last Son of Czarnia as he believed. At some point in the past, Superman's nemesis Brainiac trapped a Czarnian city in a bottle, just like the Kryptonian city of Kandor.
The brief scene shows Brainiac observing his captives waging war on one another in a massive city-wide battle. The comic concludes with Brainiac saying that it is time for this hidden city to be revealed, so that he can uncover a great secret hidden on Earth.
Lobo Is No Longer the Last Czarnian
Earlier in the annual, Lobo is captured by Superman's enemies Dr. Pharm and Mr. Graft, and the Main Man becomes an unwilling test subject. The two supervillains successfully steal a sample of Lobo's blood and were stunned to find a hidden sequence in his DNA, "like a kind of tracker." They speculate that all Czarnians might have the same sequence, prompting Lobo to assert that he was "the Last Son of Czarnia" and that "My world is dead!" Lobo turned out to be wrong on both counts.
It should be noted that the Czarnian people have been portrayed in radically different fashions over the years. Originally, they were a race of pacifists, whom a young Lobo mostly killed off as part of a high school science experiment. However, in the current DC Comics Prime Earth reality, the Czarnians are depicted as being as violent and war-like as Lobo himself and are frequent enemies of both the Daemonites and Thanagarians. The Czarnians shown in Superman 2023 Annual #1 are clearly cut from the same anti-social cloth as the Main Man.
Will Lobo Change When He Discovers He's Not Alone?
While Brainiac controlling an army of Czarnians will likely have dire consequences for the people of Earth — and Superman — the revelation that he's no longer the Last Son of Czarnia probably will not change Lobo much. Unlike Superman, Lobo has never experienced much angst in being the last of his kind. Given the change in the violent nature of the Czarnian people, however, there's a fair chance that Lobo might kill them all himself, if only to ensure his own survival.
Superman 2023 Annual #1 is now available from DC Comics.