By: Jeff Lemire (writer), Marco Rudy (artist), Jaime Grant & Dominic Regan (colorists)
The Story: Could this be the death of Superboy—again?
The Review: Crossover stories can be fun, wild events, but they definitely have a downside as well: call them forced tie-ins. It’s one thing to have certain titles leech into each other during a crossover, if the characters and their individual plotlines make sense within the larger story. It’s another thing when an ongoing story is completely derailed to fit in an event that has little bearing on the title’s long-term interests.
That brings us to this issue. Of course, the entire Superman family has been wrangled into joining the whole “Reign of Doomsday” extravaganza, and that includes Superboy. Setting aside the idea that Doomsday is a shallow character who nobody much cared to see return in the first place, the bigger problem is Superboy just started his solo adventures. It seems too early to get him involved in his role model’s big conflict.
It also flies in the face of the tone Lemire already established for this title. Superboy brawling with Doomsday just feels like your garden-variety, mindless action, which goes against the carefully plotted supernatural/sci-fi adventures Lemire has going so far. It’s obvious this Doomsday thing comes from left field; he literally appears out of nowhere, randomly attacks Superboy for a while, then teleports out on his way to the real match-up in Action Comics #900.
Perhaps the worst thing about this tie-in is it makes Superboy cannon fodder for Superman—never a strong light for a sidekick. At no point in this matchup do you feel he’s on a level playing field (Doomsday gets telekinetic eye-beams, for crying out loud), so it’s just a game to see how quickly Doomsday can beat him to a pulp.
Lemire tries his best to give Connor some heroic moments by having him repeatedly narrate his concern for the innocent bystanders around him, but this hardly rounds out his character in any way. After all, we’ve gotten to the point where Superboy comes off more introspective and broody than Red Robin in their heart-to-heart at the start of the issue. The conversation works, but feels like Connor’s getting angsty over nothing, which is pretty usual for him nowadays.
At least Simon Valentine’s visit to Ray Palmer (AKA the Atom) stays on-point his ongoing story. Palmer treats him with appreciable frankness and respect, which seems to bring out the best of Simon’s character. He comes off much more humble and likeable talking to an intellect equal to his own, and you really hope he doesn’t get relegated to becoming a Lex Luthor analogue in the future.
With Pier Gallo on a break this issue, I think I can safely say my problem with the art lies mostly with Grant’s colors. Granted, Rudy’s sketchy style doesn’t feel appropriate for this title either (at times it gets so messy, you can’t tell what’s happening), but Grant’s pale and dim choice of colors make the whole thing look too moody, and at times even faded and tired. I’d be seriously interested in seeing what a different colorist can do to bring more life to the art.
Conclusion: I noticed Superboy is nominated for an Eisner Award for best new series—my sincere congratulations. But I’ll be frank and say I don’t think it deserves to win, especially against much more lively, better-plotted titles that aren’t burdened with an early crossover.
Grade: B-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – “Are you just a mindless monster?” Do you just want to kill and destroy?! Is that really all you are?!” No, Superboy—Doomsday goes on killing, destructive rampages because it’s part of his liberal-elite ideologies.
Grade
Conclusion