Adventures of the Super-Sons #2 – Peter J. Tomasi, Writer; Carlo Barberi, Penciller; Art Thibert, Inker; Protobunker, Colorist
Ray – 7.5/10
Ray: Coming off a flawed first issue that emphasized Damian’s worst personality traits, the second issue of Adventures of the Super-Sons thankfully moves the plot into high gear and focuses a little more on the boys working as a team. When we left off, they were attacked by a team of child-sized supervillains themed to major Justice League enemies, but as the opening segment shows, not all is as it seems. The opening sequence focuses on an alien world of intellectual green-skinned beings whose young grew up watching dispatches from Earth. They learned all about Earth’s heroes and its villains – and one young alien became particularly obsessed with getting to Earth and becoming a supervillain. He became this new “young Lex”, who is first seen this issue brutally beating young Jon Kent. The team quickly beats the duo, capturing Jon and trapping Damian in unbreakable tape. Taking them hostage with the help of last issue’s c-list supervillain Puppeteer, they aim to get their hands on Jon Kent’s Hypercube. This series picks up a lot from both the previous run and Tomasi/Gleason’s Superman run.
Once they’re on board, it becomes clear just how far this young alien Luthor will go when he quickly eliminates Puppeteer once he’s overstayed his welcome. While most of the young aliens are die-hard supervillain cultists just like the leader, there’s one exception – the kid cosplaying as the Joker. Maybe he grew up admiring the more prankster-like of the three Jokers? We’ll see, but he’s become seriously disturbed with his boss’ increasingly murderous approach and approaches Damian for an alliance. With Jon and Damian trapped on an alien vessel The end of the issue has Jon exposed to Red Kryptonite, which results in a call-back to one of the most iconic Silver Age Superman stories of all time. And that basically sums up this book – it’s silly, it’s over the top, and it’s at its best when it embraces that vibe and tones down the caustic sarcasm a bit. If rumors are true, a very different Jon will be returning soon, so we should enjoy this carefree kid version while we can.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
