Superboy – The Boy Of Steel review

Publisher:  DC Comics
Writer:  Geoff Johns
Artist:  Francis Manapul

A Brief History of The Boy Redundant

OK, so for those not in the know, the current incarnation of Superboy was conjured into life as part of the “Death of Superman” storyline, and his “big reveal” was that he’s a clone of Superman, but with powers based on ‘tactile telekinesis’ (it’s comic book physics dude, live with it). Of course, the whole clone thing naturally resulted in several years of “Oh my god, I’m a clone” moping, which Superman tries to fix by giving Superboy his own Kryptonian name; Kon’El. Yes, that’s an anagram of Klone. Because Superman is a dick. More recent plot events in the DC Universe have revealed that Superboy, now going by Conner, is not actually a clone of Superman, but a human clone mixed with Superman’s alien DNA. The human? Lex Luthor. Yeah.

Finding What Works

So, what we’ve got here is a character who was conjured into existence in a desperate attempt to bump flagging sales of the Superman comic line, before being roughly sidelined by editorial when they realised that people were still more interested in Superman Classic than any of the New Coke variants they’d thrown up in his place. After years of sitting around doing nothing of interest, the Teen Titans finally got a much needed reboot (which you must read, if only for Tim Drake being an utter badass; “Dude, I lie to Batman.”), and Conner finally found a place in the DC Universe. He developed an incredibly sweet relationship with Wonder Girl, a strong friendship with Tim Drake, an actual personality of his own.

Superman himself has been the subject of several recent attempts to go to the roots of the character, and lay down the fundamental precepts; one of the most compelling is Marc Waid’s excellent Birthright, which gives us an incredibly pure and profound sense of who this guy really is, and why he does what he does. Along the way, it also gave us an actual sense of Lex Luthor, and his place, both as Superman’s nemesis, and as an actual presence in the DC Universe as a whole. Which is a long winded way of saying that Geoff John’s Superboy: The Boy of Steel reads a lot like a deliberate attempt to do for Superboy what Birthright did for Superman. Geoff Johns strips the character right down to the basics, and reveals another facet of the enigmatic Luthor along the way.

More Dickery

So, does it work? Well, yeah. Mostly. And that’s not bad going. Unfortunately, where it fails, it fails quite spectacularly.

The core of the story, the character study of Superboy as a young man trying to define a personal identity whilst standing in the shadow of gods and monsters, is played out really nicely. Johns uses a running motif of Superboy’s paired checklists; ‘What Did Superman Do?’ and ‘What Does Lex Luthor Do?’. It’s a wonderful dramatic device that constantly works to expose those elements of Superboy’s character that are most clearly drawn from his origins, and those that are uniquely his.

Sadly, what I felt was most fascinating about this concept, the idea of Superboy finding a glimmer of something admirable in Lex Luthor, is the part that turned into an absolute clusterfuck. Johns essentially tries to sell us on the idea of Luthor as a man who sees himself toiling to improve the lot of a disempowered humanity who have signed over their agency to the godlike figures of superheroes. It’s an angle on Luthor that’s been played with before, the mortal man trying to tear down the gods and free humanity to reach for the stars, and the problem is that it just doesn’t work, most conspicuously because there’s nothing actually stopping people like Luthor from making the world a better place. He’s just being petulant.

So Johns has to find some kind of excuse for why Luthor isn’t changing the world, if that’s what he’s so obsessed with. This has been done before, and in the hands of better writers it works, because they cast Luthor as a genius, but one who is insanely, obsessively, driven. A man whose life revolves around hatred, fear, and damaged pride. In this incarnation, however, we see none of that. Instead, Johns pretends, for a little while, that Lex could have some glimmer of actual humanity in him, and then snatches it away, with a “No, he’s actually just a dick.” Not driven, psychotic, or possessed of an utterly corrupted morality… just a dick. Snatching candy from a kid dickery, that kind of straight up unpleasantness that hasn’t even the shred of something admirable in it.

Now, maybe that’s the point, but it doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t hang together, or in any way create a character I can actually believe in, and when one of the defining points about your hero is that his nemesis is also the man he was cloned from, it’s pretty fucking important that you make that nemesis believable.

OK, massive sidetrack about the specifics of the villain aside, there are other complaints as well. First off Braniac’s in here, but for absolutely no good reason. He basically blows up an army base, punches Conner once, and gets beat up by Krypto. Now, granted, Krypto is pretty bad-ass, but that’s a poor showing for a villain of Braniac’s caliber. This guy should not be acting as Lex Luthor’s fucking taxi service. The only real reason for his inclusion seems to be as a way of setting up plot for a completely unrelated story arc. There’s a similarly dangling arc involving the “weird kid” in the class that never sees any resolution, though perhaps that was setup for later issues not collected in this trade.

But in all honesty, it does make me sad to see these problems, because so much of what’s here is good. The stuff between Conner and Cassie (Wonder Girl) is really smooth, Martha Kent is awesome, Krypto is doubly awesome, and Johns does a good job of really getting us inside of Conner’s head. There’s also a nice scene with Tim Drake, and the introduction of Lex Luthor’s niece, which is a piece of brilliance.

I can’t quite bring myself to love it, but I do like it. As a character study it very nearly hits the nail on the head, and is only sunk by a horribly golden age depiction of such an important villain. Which is a real shame, because it also gives us lines like “Miracles don’t exist, but Lex Luthor does.” That’s damn close to being one of my favourite portrayals of Luthor, just about ever.

Even if you’ve been away from DC comics for a long time, this thing is a good read. Flawed, but fun, easy to get into, and mostly free from larger concerns of any overarching metaplot. It flows well, the characters are engaging, Francis Manapul’s artwork is just gorgeous, and it’s got a super-powered dog in a red cape fighting dinosaurs. Which isn’t bad going really.