Superboy #1

One of my least favorite thing about comics is when you have a great artist doing amazing covers for a book with lackluster interior art. However, you rarely see the inverse of this. Superboy #1 bucks that trend. Cover artist Eric Canete's work belies interior artist R.B. Silva's fine work. So, push ahead past the cover and get to the good stuff.

And good stuff there is. Silva's detailed but clean art is the perfect for a sci-fi heavy superhero book. A team of scientists are attempting to clone Superman, and the result is Superboy, a human/Kryptonian hybrid grown in a lab. Once hatched out of his test tube, he's put through the ringer, as the lab geeks use virtual reality to test Superboy's morals and choices. The plot draws you in, though the dialogue could use a bit more work, as the number of word balloons per page is pretty high.

My only big complaints have to deal more with writer Scott Lobdell's choices rather than a lack of skill. I'd have preferred a bit more of a tangible connection to Superman, given that Superboy is a spin-off character of the big man. My other gripe is that while some of the cameos make sense (Lois Lane shows up, investigating the lab, Caitlin Fairchild may be one of the scientists), the big one at the end, featuring all the Teen Titans, is a bit out of left field and doesn't strike me as a good choice for a book that should stand or fall on its own.

Buy again: Yeah, it won me over.

New reader friendly: For the most part, yeah.