Comic Vine Review

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Convergence Superboy #1 - The Hero's Return, Part One

3

Don’t call him the Metropolis Kid! He’s SUPERBOY! But what happens when the Super leaves the Boy?

The Good

There’s a certain art to making characters extremely likeable in a short amount of time without resorting to cheap tricks and easy tropes. Rather than focusing overly on Superboy’s current state in whatever event he was snatched out of for Convergence, we get to delve into his state after a year under the dome and, for him, that’s a year without the powers that have defined him since his creation and allowed him to exist the way he wants to exist. Fabian Nicieza does a fantastic job of showing us just what it means for this poor clone to lose the one thing that, in his mind anyway, is the reason for his entire existence. Nicieza does a great job of contextualizing who this person is without actually showing much of their own inner-monologue, which is an interesting tactic as it gives us a more unfiltered look at who he actually is by showing how OTHER people perceive him.

Karl Moline provides pencils this issue and does a great job blocking the action, once it kicks off, and that’s no small order considering who’s involved with said action. There’s a great sense of place that gives a sense of almost realism to the action, which involves a great deal of unreal participants. We also get a great example of power management from Superboy and whenever he takes center stage in the issue, he’s got a great look to him. José Marzán Jr.’s thick, defined inks help give the issue a real sense of weight and power, again, especially where Kon-El is concerned and Hi-Fi’s colors are bright and bring a palpable sense of wonder, even hope, to a very dour time.

The Bad

Context is still important to a story, and it is something missing from this issue. Essentially everything that isn’t Superboy is difficult to understand and even harder to care about from the bizarre, psychic scientist trying to help him to the two fighters who appear to challenge him mid-issue. They come off as characters driven by the script rather than the other way around, and while that’s somewhat by necessity given the limited scope of the book, there’s got to be a middle-road between having one incredibly well developed character and having several poorly developed ones.

The art suffers similarly as anyone who isn’t Superboy gets short-shrift, many times lacking detail or definition and making it hard to see both who they are and what’s going through their minds in a given panel, making a great many things feel hollow.

The Verdict

Making this incarnation of Superboy interesting is a feat unto itself and deserving of praise, but there’s just not QUITE enough here to leave enough of an impact in terms of the characters. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell who books like these are for as new readers won’t have the slightest clue what’s going on, but longtime readers, or fans of the character, won’t get enough of said character to be fully satisfied. There’s a great issue somewhere in here, but it lacks the time to grow and develop and it feels like the creative team did what they could to tell as compelling of an issue as they could.