Superboy 7

Conner Kent wakes up to a world of devastation, a Smallville seared from the face of the Earth.

Conner Kent explores a lonely spacecraft above the Earth with new friend Psionic Boy, super-teen from hundreds of years hence. The psychic senses two lifeforms.

Conner Kent finds his friend Lori Luthor, alive, cowering. From him. She says this is a hell he caused. Deliberately.

Conner Kent and Psionic Lad find only one being …

Yup, it’s one of those back and forth comics. Writer Jeff Lemire seems fond of them, having used the narrative trick just a few months ago in Superboy #3. It worked well enough then, it works OK here, but I’d like to see the technique rested for awhile before it becomes a writerly tic. There’s always one scenario that’s much more interesting than the other – in this case, the Superboy apocalypse – leaving half the story feeling a little also-ran.

It’s not that Superboy and Psionic Lad wandering through a spaceship is dull, especially as drawn by guest artist Marco Rudy. But it’s like a ‘drop intro’ in a news story – a long preamble that takes an age to get to the point. I wanted to be watching future versions of Tim Drake and Supergirl attack Superboy alongside such intriguing figures as Elongated Lass and Negative Boy, learn what has led present-day-pal Simon Valentine to don a Luthor-style warsuit and start spouting malicious thoughts.

When the truth is revealed, we see that Lemire has played fair. I’m sure sharper readers than me will have made the lateral leap necessary and predicted the story’s revelation. They’re less likely to have foreseen the story’s ending, which deepens the riddles centred on Smallville since Lemire began this series with artist Pier Gallo (who returns next issue).

Rudy, meanwhile, has illustrated the last two issues – Superboy #6 featured a battle against Doomsday – providing a darker style that has served Lemire’s more intense scripts well. Daniel HDR, a talented artist whose recent fill-in efforts across the DC Universe should bag him a regular gig any day now, provides superb additional pencils, inks and graytones for pages 16-19, over Rudy’s layouts. Rudy also colours some of the book, along with Jamie Grant and Dom Regan. Because DC give no credits breakdown of who did what, it’s tough to know where to lay specific praise. Happily, it’s all great. The future scenes are rough-hewn both in lines laid down and approach to colouring; the space sequence has more precise placement of tones, with delightful Sixties-style concentric circles representing Psionic Boy’s mind waves.

The two styles serve Lemire’s script well: the grubby kineticism matches the anger of the future sequences, while the neat lines and pop art stylings complement the outer space mystery. There is one moment when the space sequence gets the tougher treatment, making for a cathartic burst of horror.

This issue’s narrative doesn’t leave much room for Conner Kent to show his goodness, the way he constantly strives to help those around him. It does, though, show the steel within the boy. Recently nominated for an Eisner award for Best New Series, Superboy is one of the best superhero books DC is publishing. If you haven’t tried it, give it a go.