Credits: Written by Karl Kesel, pencilled by Tom Grummett, inked by Doug Hazelwood and edited by Mike Carlin
Cast: ‘The Metrpolis Kid’ (Who I’ll just refer to as Superboy), Bibbo, Krypton the dog, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Tana Moon, Lex Luthor II, Vincent Edge, Cat Grant, Steel Hand, Martha Kent, The Guardian and Dr Packard.
Plot: A pair of joy riders try to run a jogger over in a stolen taxi. Before impact, the jogger is saved and the taxi totally by a teenage boy, dressed in Superman colours. After stealing a kiss from the jogger and a pair of sunglasses from the joy riders, he flies off, there’s a never ending battle with his name on it after all.
In Suicide Slum, Bibbo is giving food to the homeless, because that’s what Superman would do and learns that before he arrived an old woman threw her three puppies into the river, not knowing food was coming. Bibbo dives into the water, finds the sack, but only one of the puppies survived, a bright white terrier he wants to call Krypton.
At the Daily Planet, Superboy is waiting for Lois at her desk, hoping for some flirty banter I’m guessing. Jimmy calls him Superboy and he reacts very aggressively. At one point, he’s trying to convince Lois that he’s the real deal and slicks his hair back, like Clark did and this unnerves her, not knowing what he’s doing. He is soon distracted by Tana Moon, an aspiring journalist, who’s job interview at the planet has not gone well. Superboy is immediately infatuated with her and follows her out and flies her to a nearby rooftop and tries to chat her up. The two of them get along and then are able to get onto TV with GBS news where Superboy reveals he is a clone of Superman. Elsewhere in the GBS building, Vincent Edge is seeing dollar signs. At a meeting after the TV interview, the idea comes up that Superboy could bring in a criminal fugitive called Steel Hand. Cat Grant declares that is unethical, staging a news event, rather the covering an actual one, but she is overruled and Superboy agrees to go on this jaunt, partially for fun, but mostly for Tana.
Superboy lands and faces a criminal gauntlet of violent offenders, explosives and even a reinforced bus which demolishes a building as it smashes into Superboy. It destroys his jacket, but he is fine and he quickly locates and punches out Steel Hand.
The issue ends with a few subplot vignettes. Martha and Lois are on the phone comparing notes on Superboy. Tana Moon and Vincent Edge do the same, with Edge thinking that something more news-worthy could be arranged . Superboy and Guardian catch up, Guardian warns Superboy to be careful, he had to cover him in Suicide Slum and won’t always be able to. Finally we get Lex Luthor (who for reasons I don’t remember has a broken leg) who interrogates Packard, one of the Cadmus scientists he has influence over, learns that Cadmus has no fail-safes built in, since the Newsboys freed him to early. Lex Jnr demands to know all about the clone. Packard admits, they couldn’t clone Superman, well not exactly.
Notes: This is the fourth and final of the fill in ‘Supermen’ and the one that seems furthest from Superman as we know him. This is supposed to be a younger Superman and I don’t know if this was deliberate,, but he doesn’t really look like Superman. He also doesn’t act like Superman. That is the interesting thing about this story. This isn’t a Superman with his act together, this is a brash and cocky boy of steel who doesn’t know the range of his powers, or what can hurt him, he chases women, he grandstands and ultimately he wins the day with help and luck. This is not something we’ve ever seen and it’s interesting. Superman is often seen as a paragon, the advantage is seeing a good man doing the right thing, the downside is that we don’t see the mistakes he makes, or the lessons he learns. We see that here. Superboy is being manipulated, he’s tying himself to a TV network, he’s making decisions based on a pretty face and that is a story that we’ve not seen too much of. It raises an interesting point, how does Superman know how invulnerable he is? In order to realise he is bullet proof, he had to get shot, didn’t he? He knew he was tougher than most after the bull thing as a kid, but that’s not fireproof, or bullet proof. In the Steel Hand scenes, the street blows up and the kid looks scared, we know he’s most likely able to withstand that, but he might not. This looks like the character that can have the most change happen to them and more than the unfolding story of the Man of Steel, the mystery of the Man of Tomorrow or the questions raised by the Last Son of Krypton, the Metropolis Kid feels like a more realised character we can follow and root for. Now it’s all in place and the story can really begin.
Verdict: Writing 4 out of 5– This is a little by the numbers and dated, but there’s a lot to like with Kesel’s first issue of Adventures. This ‘Superman’ is fun, silly and takes himself a little too seriously, much like an actual teenager.. The dialogue is witty and rat-a-tat enough to remind me of the early years of Lois and Clark on TV and the interesting plot points are easy to see, without being overly high-lighted.
Art: 4 out of 5 – Grummett does this sort of thing really well, he’s a good story-teller and does great Action, but I think his Superboy stuff is something of a career highlight. He draws him younger, but not 10 years old young, his facial work is good, everyone looks on model and looks great for it. The Superboy design is dated, with the jacket and the glasses, but honestly, it just means it was timely. At a highpoint for the Superman titles, this was one of the better looking ones.
Overall: 8 out of 10 – This is a great debut of a character that would stick around for a long time to come. I enjoyed the whole thing and it reminded me why I like this era so much. The whole story is good, but some issues raise that beyond just good.
Next Time: A New Era and a new way of doing business.
My Marvel Life 