Superboy #10

Scott Clark's artwork is generally good, but he's not doing this cover any favors. Wonder Girl's lasso thing looks AWESOME but the rest of the design is crowded to an insane degree. It took me quite a bit to piece together how many dinosaurs were in what position, and then there's more stuff in the background as well. It's a huge freaking mess.

And I don't usually linger too much on solicits, since they shouldn't have any significant impact on the quality of the comic, but this one was so laughably bad. It mentions the other Teen Titans being there, when it's only Wonder Girl and Superboy; but then to say they're trapped 'without adult supervision?' WHAT THE HELL? Wonder Girl's spent years on her own, and Superboy's been fighting his whole life to break AWAY from 'adult supervision. That's just.... so stupid.

So anyways, despite the solicit, this issue is Superboy and Wonder Girl alone. Together. On a secluded island. I'm kind of against this from the start, it feels like the relationship between the two is painfully forced due to history. It's like, Teen Titans overall is trying to reinvent these characters, yet slamming these two back together out of some sense of obligated constraining continuity.... Any time a scene has flirted with this idea, the dialogue feels very wooden since no sense of dynamic has been built between them. Lobdell's treating their relationship like a given, eschewing any sense of a need for actual CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT between the two. If anything Red Robin and Wonder Girl seems like a FAR more interesting pairing.

And to make matters worse, Wonder Girl's developments towards falling into this apparently predestined trap are painfully cliche. "Oh I hate you. Don't peek at me bathing even though I DIDN'T TELL YOU I WAS BATHING. OH WHY DON'T YOU GET NAKED IN HERE WITH ME AND BATHE EVEN THOUGH I TOTALLY STILL ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU." Just... NO. It's not only a cliche, it's an extremely obnoxious one. Maybe Wonder Girl could try this new thing called NOT BEING AN INCONSISTENT BITCH. Seriously, you help Superboy realize how little he knows about the world (Which is character development well pulled off, and apt for the specific series.) and then you turn around and send him the most mixed signals I've ever seen.

Basically, I'm sick of Teen Titans and Superboy being a constant back and forth. I want to see SUPERBOY do SUPERBOY things. He's been tied to Teen Titans since issue #1, now he's going to appear constantly in Teen Titans, so can't his own series be his own? If we were going to have Teen Titans told through two series, why couldn't Red Robin be the one to get his own? See his investigations and stuff? That'd be cool.

As for the rest, kind of dull. A T-Rex is very little threat to a girl with living invisible god armor and a boy with near invulnerability and telekinesis. So the first one catches them by surprise, but once that wears off becomes no threat. So the cliffhanger at the end has no tension, though it does raise weird questions. And if Superboy scanned the whole island, where did it AND the trapdoor come from? WelI guess those might be answered.

Guest art is really nice. Got smooth flow to combat and everything.

In Conclusion: 2.5/5

If I'm judging the idea based entirely on THIS Superboy and THIS Wonder Girl (as I rightly should) then the idea of a relationship between them is STUPID. These two are DRASTICALLY different from their Pre-Flashpoint counterparts, romance between them doesn't come naturally just because you think it should. You need to actually BUILD THE FOUNDATION, that's why it worked before. THEY BUILT THE FOUNDATION. You can't rebuild this relationship on top of the finished product from before, this is a new building. Plus I can't stand this Wonder Girl, and this issue has her at her absolute worst. The action was cool, but this issue mostly felt hollow, devoid of much of any interest.