The End Approaches

The story of the Kryptonian Nightwing and Flamebird seems to be almost over. It's been an interesting experiment, putting a couple of untested characters in the lead of what should be the premiere superhero comics. It's hard to say whether or not it worked; it's easy to say that it was never intended to be permanent.

The question then becomes: what happens to the two of them? I imagine they'll survive their scuffle with "Rao" and go on to play a part in War of the Supermen. Whether they make it out of that alive is hard to say. Chris is going to have to face his birth father at some point. That's a given. The confrontation has been brewing for a while and it's bound to be messy.

Thara is going to have to deal with Alura, too. After all, Supergirl's mother blames Thara for her Zor-El's murder. So that won't go well either. Still, both of these encounters will almost certainly happen.

But after War of the Supermen? It's hard to say where things will end up. It's distinctly possible that Kandor stays in the bottle. It's distinctly possible that it has to stay in the bottle for whatever reason. Really, I think when this is all over most things are going back to the status quo: Zod and his goons go back to the Phantom Zone, Alura and everyone else (save Supergirl) get stuck in the bottle, and Nightwing and Flamebird become the heroes of Kandor.

Still, I'd like to be wrong. I'd love for their to be a real shake up in the way things play out. But how often does something so radical -- not to mention permanent -- actually happen in comics?