Review: Superboy #1

I’ve mentioned previously that the DC relaunch seems conflicted with regards to origin stories and new readers. Play to the faithful and assume prior knowledge enough to hit the ground running or risk loosing out on core audiences and tell new readers all they need to know from the off? Both approaches seem to have their dangers. Superboy is one of the few books that has opted to go for a straight up origin first issue, and from the looks of it, it was the right choice too. Superboy himself seems fairly radically changed in the nuDCU  (likely as a result of the so so reception of his last ongoing) so the fresh introduction seems the right sell.

The story itself doesn’t exactly brave exciting new territory:  Superboy is a clone, half kryptonian DNA  from big blue himself and half human DNA from…well, nobody knows, and that’s where the book is most interesting.  To start with, Superboy is in a glass tube full of goop, which is a pretty cliché image for a pretty cliché set up involving morally grey scientists meddling in things beyond their ken. Are they playing God? Are they involved in amoral bio-weaponry experiments? Wait, of course they are! This is a cliché clone story! It’s all a bit obvious a set up and it’s a shame because Scott Lobdell does find room in his script for some genuinely interesting twists on the formula which go a long way to saving the book.

The first success is in Superboy’s narration. Though not much of a talker, he’s definitely something of a thinker and much of the script is spent on narration explaining, amongst other things, the strange effects of mixing human and alien DNA that result in fun sci-fi ideas like the apparently brain dead clone being fully aware and conscious and possessed of telekinetic abilities.  Another fun take on the clone scenario is presented when Superboy is somehow able to recall knowledge and ideas far beyond his experiences thanks to his human DNA – possibly taken from someone with an advanced grasp of science but no human empathy. Of course, this being DC and a Superman related book it’s not hard to see where Lobdell wants that particular idea to take us, but it’s a fun idea anyway. Elsewhere, Lobdell plays knowingly with the smalltown America origin story to good effect, which left me initially baffled but once it twigged the sequence is rather cunning and darkly funny.

However, the  subversions don’t really go far enough to escape the overhanging cliché of the setting. The same goes for the supporting cast who range from the rank pulling superior who misses the point to the good scientist in a bad place via the concerned whistleblower and the demanding CEO who wants results now, damn it.

R.B Silva’s art, unfortunately, didn’t do a great deal for me. Without being poor, it was kind of unexciting and a bit of a struggle to remember. Compared to the likes of Animal Man, Swamp Thing and Batwoman, it stands out for not standing out at all. There was also an unfortunate nineties tinge to the design of the science labs which were staffed by a collection of shoulderpads, pounches and silly masks. That said, it was clear work and the storytelling worked but beyond that it was forgettable.

Overall, Superboy wasn’t a book that can be easily dismissed because it did interesting things with a generic template but is it worth buying? Probably not just yet but if the team play up to their subversive strengths in future issues this could be something worth picking up in the future.