Superboy #2 – Review

By: Rob Lobdell (writer), R.B. Silva (penciller), Rob Lean (inker), The Hories (colorists)

The Story: Get a dime every time someone mentions “telekinesis” and you’ll be rich in no time.

The Review: Crafting well-rounded characters takes a great deal of balance in a lot of respects, but probably the most difficult balancing act of all is giving consistency to the character without making them predictable.  At the end of the day, you do want them to be memorable, and staying true to their core personality will do that.  On the other hand, you don’t want them to grow stale, their actions becoming so obvious that readers know the punchline before the setup is done.

Lobdell hasn’t quite managed to figure out how to strike this balance, but he’s getting closer.  The debut issue had Superboy vacillating between the curious innocent and the clinical clone, always a jarring adjustment for you to make when he makes the switch, and making it a little hard to get a handle on the essence of his character.  Most of that innocence has been shed, leaving behind a mostly analytical kid whose inexperience makes him a tad arrogant.

Now we get into the issue of where Superboy’s likability will come from.  We all know the drill about his genetics: half the greatest mensch in the world tossed with the biggest jerk in the world.  At the moment, the Boy of Steel has little resemblance to his namesake, bearing more of Lex Luthor’s aggressive, big-wordiness (in response to Rose’s taunts, he says, “Why don’t we resolve this right now.”).  It’d be nice to see more of the hero lurking inside at some point.

Sadly, it may be another month or so before we see it, as the series seems to be going at a pretty slow pace.  We don’t get much further than we did last issue.  In fact, Lobdell even backtracks for a while to show us more of Superboy’s unrestrained power when he was initially released.  This issue serves mostly as a reemphasis on that point; the impromptu mission to quell a prison riot doesn’t really advance the plot so much as highlight the potential of Superboy’s powers.