An ambitious attempt to merge human and Krytonian DNA appears to be a massive failure. With no apparent sign of brain activity the experiment the scientists refer to as “Superboy” is bound for an autopsy table. But as with all things, fate intervenes, and what seems like a mindless piece of meat turns out to be so much more.
Placed in a virtual environment to monitor his skills and abilities, the young Superboy is more aware of his surroundings than he lets his captors know. It is obvious that he is much more intelligent than he is willing to reveal. He knows he is nothing more than a lab rat to them, but he cannot determine why, so he pretends to play their game and sinks into the boredom of the mindless tests they put him through.
The day soon comes when he is presented with an opportunity. A man named Templar visits the lab and orders Superboy’s release. A task set before him, with the reward being his freedom. Templar has a few unusual problems he wishes Superboy to eliminate, those problems being the Teen Titans.
“This close to the glass, I can hear Templar as clearly as if he were whispering in my ear. Every day I’m getting stronger. I am learning more about my powers. If resolving a situation for him is going to get me out from under these people once and for all…? That’s a small price to pay for freedom.”
I didn’t have high hopes for this book at first glance because I’ve never been a big Superman or Superboy fan. I usually find the Superman family of characters rather boring and outside the pages of Justice League my interest in Superman is almost none. But I was happily surprised with this reboot of the Superboy series. It looks like they have kept much of the Superman/Superboy clone background in tact and gave it a pretty interesting spin.
There are a few secrets and plot twists in this issue that I purposely left out of this review to avoid spoiling any of the surprises that the writers have in store. I wasn’t however a big fan of R.B. Silva’s art in this issue. It’s a style that I am just not fond of, but my distaste of the artwork didn’t take away from the overall enjoyment of the story.
The greatest thing about this gig is that I get to read and be exposed to different elements of the comic book world that I usually don’t get to experience. DC’s New 52 so far has been a great surprise to me. The books I have read have been good, with amazing opening story lines that if I had unlimited funds, I would keep buying every title I’ve read to date.
This certainly wasn’t my favorite book out of the new number ones, but it was far from the worst. It is well worth the read and any former Superboy readers should find this reboot very enjoyable.
Wow, the art looks wicked in this title!