By: Scott Lobdell (writer), R.B. Silva (penciller), Rob Lean (inker), Richard & Tanya Horie (colorists)
The Story: She’s melting—melting!
The Review: From the start, this series has emphasized Superboy’s disconnect from the “outside.” His virtual existence has prevented him from taking a position on the big moral compass one way or the other, and so far, we’ve mostly gotten hints that he leans toward the dark side. Now, you don’t get to have “Super” in your name unless you have some tendencies toward the heroic, but whether the real world will bring that out of his is a different matter entirely.
That’s the question we run into in this issue, when he manages to escape the depths of the Earth, only to realize the surface has its own set of hellish experiences. His first real introduction to humanity is through young swingers Tony and Allison. Tony reacts to Superboy naturally—and violently—but the surprisingly well-spoken Allison offers a more mixed experience. She starts out flirty and wise (“We’re just regular people around these parts. Fragile, even.”), then turns flinty (“—you freak!”) once she suffers the side-effects of Superboy’s powers.
Before he gets the chance to figure out this tricky situation, Superboy gets confronted by another Pen 51 resident, a buxom, fiery, redheaded alien (not Starfire, unfortunately) who tracks him down to…well, she doesn’t give a very good reason, actually. She accuses him of following her, while the facts are clearly the other way around, and their brief confrontation does little more than establish Superboy’s Kryptonian heritage, which we all, old and new readers, knew anyway.
The scene illustrates the biggest problem this series always had: more talk than plot. Superboy’s relentlessly dry narration and the repetitive dialogue take up so much space the present story seems thin in comparison. The characters don’t seem satisfied until they reiterate the same point a few times, with a big dose of melodrama: “…they would have told you the truth about what you are—an amalgamation of races spliced together for reasons none of us dare to imagine!”
Another major problem is the incessant analysis of Superboy’s telekinetic powers. It acts as the underlying subtext of nearly every single scene in the issue, and it does absolutely nothing except establish Superboy has no idea how powerful he is—and neither do we. He says, “I need to think about my powers before I can use them,” but that seems to go against every incident where his powers went out of control because he wasn’t thinking about it.
At least we finally get a glimpse of Superboy’s conscience when he expresses remorse over the melting of his unnamed, alien attacker. Again, this goes against the complete indifference he’s shown so far to others (remember the woman he left to burn to death in his V.R. program?), but nonetheless, it’s good to see him worried about “the risk I am to the rest of the world.”
Silva’s work is clean and lively as always, especially with Lean’s lean (wah-wah) inks and the Hories’ vibrant colors, but there’s a certain sameness to the way he draws faces, particularly the women’s, that make you feel if you removed their hair, you’d have no idea who’s who. And his naturally upbeat style just clashes with the mopey, angsty tone the script offers.
Conclusion: As rudderless and repetitive as ever, three issues hasn’t been enough to establish a clear agenda or personality for our star. Underwhelming on nearly every level.
Grade: C
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I’m sorry, but a “Scoogie” just sounds like a dirty sex act.
– I notice there’s a new tradition of villainy in comics nowadays: the breezy sadists, who act nonchalant and unaffected as they commit the most gruesome acts. In addition to the smarmy duo in this issue’s opener, check out the Body Doubles in Resurrection Man and “Dog Team” in The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men.
– Not sure how I feel about Lobdell’s use of Gen13 character Caitlin Fairchild in this title, but it’s good to see her integrated in the DCU, regardless.
Grade
Conclusion