Justin Jordan wouldn’t have to try hard to make “Superboy” more interesting than whatever Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco were trying to do with him. That said, this has been far from a flawlessly executed rescue mission.
Written by Justin Jordan
Illustrated by R.B. Silva and Rob LeanKrypto comes to the rescue as Superboy is on the trail of Dr. Psycho and the new, mysterious H.I.V.E that has infested Metropolis.
Lobdell and his tendrils have taken up a lot of real estate in the ‘New 52’. With control of both “Teen Titans” and “Superboy”, there weren’t many other places to go for stories of the DC youth that didn’t depend on whatever was happening in these titles. If you didn’t care for them, you were sort of out of luck. Justin Jordan stepped into the title last month, but between his first two issues there just isn’t that fresh new direction for the character that you look for with a new creative team taking on a book that isn’t working.
Jordan is able to bring character and humor to Superboy’s story that was severely lacking before. Behind the poorly-designed costumes and the annoyingly vague and convoluted plot that was dumped into Jordan’s hands, there is a glint of levity and the hope that there are better things to come. This issue just doesn’t house them. Jordan continues to pit Superboy against another purposely obtuse, shadowy organization of evil, propelling him through events that he does not understand with no time to really explain in any satisfying way. This is a classic Lobdell tactic going back to his Marvel days and it wears really thin.
Fan-favorite super-pet Krypto the Superdog (they’ll never call him that again, will they?), makes an appearance in the issue, to much fanfare. But even the dog is a character that couldn’t escape a questionable new visual interpretation and an overly busy design in the ‘New 52′. Krypto is a beloved member of the Superman canon, but the one present in this issue doesn’t resemble the character that readers are always clamoring for. Like everything else at DC Comics lately, this Krypto is gruff, overly serious facsimile of its former self. Krypto actually becomes a symbol for the misguided direction of modern comics, especially at the publishing company in question here.
Another symbol of DC Comics’ recent weaknesses, their ever-shifting and overlapping art teams, hampers the progress that Jordan could be making. R.B. Silva does fantastic work, but this issue doesn’t look like it’s drawn by the same clean, playful pencils of the R.B. Silva we’re used to. The bad costumes do his approach no favors, while even worse is the appearance of the diminutive Doctor Psycho, who seems to have a combination of cranial tattooing and facial disfigurement that is difficult to identify or describe. There is something going on with that guy’s head, and I have no idea what it is. An art switch occurs exactly halfway through the issue, where Edgar Salazar takes over. The Superboy that we see now, does not much resemble the one that we spent the first half of the issue with. Neither artist really ties the book together with any meaningful sense of pacing, or a clear depiction of the momentum of the events. The panelwork is all over the place and the sense of setting is lost by the end of the issue. What results is an issue with substandard contributions from some talented people that ends up being messy and difficult to enjoy reading.
There’s something going on with “Superboy” that is keeping him stuck perpetually in an ugly costume and a grim world. It’s something that Justin Jordan can’t seem to do anything about, because this certainly doesn’t feel much like a Justin Jordan comic book. Stopping short of mentioning the full editorial credits of the “Superboy” #21, it’s clear to me that there’s a commonality to the problems with the ‘New 52’ books that seem most troublesome. A commonality that has little to do with how fans remember these characters or what they’re asking to see. A slapdash visual product only perpetuates the idea that this is a book being pushed on us, rather than one that feels like it’s developing organically.
Final Verdict: 3.5 – Pass
