Superboy-Prime’s journey as a character has been a pretty unique one. He started out in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths as a hero, became a villain in Infinite Crisis, and kept on building himself as a threat throughout Sinestro Corps War, Countdown, and Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds. When last we saw him, he had been given both his greatest desire, and served his most devastation humiliation. His universe, Earth-Prime, was restored, but he was stranded there. Even worse, he was regarded as a joke, a comic fan’s cautionary tale. You see, on Earth-Prime, all of the DC Comics we know and love are presented as fictional stories, and only Prime himself knows that they’re very real. Now he’s trapped on this world, the ultimate irate fanboy.
Geoff Johns really takes advantage of the fictional nature of the DCU this issue, as Adventure Comics #4 begins with Superboy-Prime reading Adventure Comics #4. Horrified by the ending, he sets out to find out what’s going to happen in issue five. Meanwhile, back on New Earth, as the Black Lanterns claim his one-time ally, Alexander Luthor, Luthor crosses dimensions to get his vengeance on Prime.
The story has some really funny moments here (Luthor’s spot-on diagnosis of what the internet really is being my favorite), and it also features some awesome art by one of my all-time favorites, Jerry Ordway. We also get a glimpse of the team I call “Legion-3,” which we learned is the Legion of Earth-Prime’s 31st century. They’re keeping an eye on Prime, and that seems to be a nice set-up for future stories.
This is one of DC’s second feature books, in this case, the Legion of Super-Heroes. This story also picks up on Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, as Blok, Dawnstar, and Wildfire visit the former Legionnaire who has taken Mordru’s place as the master of magic. There are some really chilling things here, and although I know Johns will soon be leaving this title, I desperately hope incoming writer Paul Levitz is planning to run with this. There’s some great potential here, stories just waiting to be unlocked.
Rating: 8/10
I set out summer to review all of the Blackest Night comics here at the Realms, not knowing at the time that there would be a crossover or two in books that I review on a regular basis over at Comixtreme.com. (If you haven’t been there lately, by the way, I do a buttload of reviews on a regular basis.) This week’s Superman/Batman #66 is a Blackest Night crossover, the first of a two-part storyline by Scott Kolins, in which the Black Lantern Solomon Grundy faces the warped dopplegangers of our heroes, Bizarro and Man-Bat. Rather than re-write a whole review here, I decided to just provide you guys the link to my CX review. If you’ve been enjoying the Blackest Night reviews, just click on that for another one.
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