Mind Over Matter
Ken Lashley's given us some terrible covers on Ravagers, but lately he's definitely stepped up his game, and his Batwign covers are phenomenal. This Superboy cover's not quite up to those standards, but the boldness helps make the generic concept work fairly well.
The interior art for this issue... is a mess. A good chunk of the issue is done by series regular R.B. Silva, and it looks how I'd expect from him, but suddenly it jumps into Kenneth Rocafot's art, who has a wildly different sstyle. I mean, there's some similar layouts and linework, but Silva's style is heavy on the solid patches of color, very minimal details; while Rocafort uses a massively wider color gradient to create more intricate details. But Rocafort is still an improvement... for a few pages, then there's an equally drastic switch to Chriscross. I'm also generally not a fan of Chriscross, so this transition was particularly frustrating. And of course, there's not plot distinctions to justify the changes.
A lot of this issue is a big fight, but the fight's not particularly interesting. The art uses a lot of close ups, and it severely diminishes the scale of the fight. There's not a lot of big smashes or far throws because everything is so close up. And it's obvious early on that nothing Superboy can do is really doing anything, it's all up to Dr. Psycho to find the man behind the monster, and once that's done the fight's pretty much over.
In Conclusion: 3/5
Guess what? There's a secret evil organization with an acronym name using teens as weapons. But it's not N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Way to think outside the frigging box. There's not an abundance of atrocious dialogue as with most issues, but so far I'm not to impressed by Justin Jordan's takeover of the series. We're treading the same ground right away with very little new to make me interested.
