Warning: this article contains spoilers for Superman #28!
With the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Teen Titans, Young Justice, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Suicide Squad, it isn’t as though DC Comics suffers from a shortage of capable super-teams. But even considering that illustrious company, the new group of powerful aliens who just teamed up in DC’s flagship Superman series is impressive. The timing is interesting since it marks the end of Brian Michael Bendis’ tenure writing the series. This final big entry into the Man of Steel's corner of the DC superhero pantheon sets the stage for events that will echo throughout the rest of the company's history.
In the finale of the “Mythological” storyline, written by Bendis with art by Ivan Reis, readers get the denouement of Superman’s struggle against Eisno Alkor the Synmar Utopica. The Synmar are a race of advanced humanoid conquerors capable of watching civilizations in other parts of the galaxy. They observed the destruction of Krypton, as well as the arrival of an infant Kal-El on Earth. Alkor was created as a countermeasure to the eventual threat of a being as powerful as a Kryptonian fueled by a yellow sun. With the help of the Synmar military, Superman manages to overpower Alkor into surrendering, which is when the United Planet Brigade arrive on the scene.
Though the other members of the brigade are completely unknown, readers will recognize the provenance of several members. Earlier in the series, it was revealed that the Synmar have a history of conflict with the winged Thanagarians, so the presence of a leader in traditional Hawkman armor isn’t surprising. Then there’s Prince Zerep of Tamaran, a completely new character from the homeworld of popular Teen Titans member Starfire. Sharing Tamaranean physiology, Zerep possesses the same power set as Starfire, including energy absorption and channeling, flight, along with superhuman strength and durability. This gathering represents some of the supreme powers of the DC Universe offering up their delegates - there's even an armored Dominator near the front of the group.
This is very much a preliminary encounter - the Brigade arrive after Superman has solved the conflict, so readers only get a taste of their membership rather than their abilities. Nevertheless, the prospect of new characters from strange worlds banding together in a superhero version of Star Trek’s the United Federation of Planets is exciting. It was Superman's son who originally prompted the formation of the United Planets, being offered a place in the Legion of Superheroes soon after to celebrate the profound impact the group has on the future of the galaxy. While it's a diplomatic organization intended to avoid massive conflict, it also makes sense for member worlds to contribute warriors to something like the Brigade.
DC's galactic peace-keeping has traditionally fallen to the Green Lantern Corps. or lone heroes like Superman, so it will be interesting to see how a group as powerful - and, crucially, influential - as the United Planet Brigade changes the balance of interplanetary relations, and how they'll interact with established heroes and villains. For now, fans can only speculate, though since Bendis recently announced his move to writing DC's Justice League, it's likely he'll be exploring exactly the scale of conflict that will see these characters return.