Another Dea Vu All Over Again
Why is it that Ken Lashley can deliver stunning covers for Batwing, but only pulls off mediocre ones for Superboy? This one just feels rushed and bland; and the linework is messy.
But on the interior art, in some ways I would say R.B. Silva is at his best this issue. The facial expressions are stunning in an issue where it's definitely appropriate, and KRYPTO IS FLUFFY ADORABLE but still a badass wolf when need be. I don't totally remember Krypto and Superboy interacting all that much in H'el On Earth, but then again it was generally Superboy's parts that were the most forgettable. But although the art itself looks really nice, the panel layouts are all sorts of crowded and confusing. Generally the focus is way too zoomed in, and it makes the fights incredibly awkward, but that's not even the only flaw in the layouts. A lot of this issue is just a visual mess.
And the story isn't completely fantastic either. There's a definitely strong emotional content to Sarah's story, but it's really bogged down by a lot of weak storytelling. For one, almost every time the issue is ready to give you a big plot twist, it's really obvious a few pages beforehand. Either that or there's little bits that make little to no sense. But the biggest problem for me was that this issue felt like deja vu the whole time. Superboy and Dr. Psycho encounter an invulnerable big scary monster thing covered in spikes and spewing hate and confidence; but it's really powered by the psi powers of someone tampered with by H.I.V.E. But this time Krypto was there. It just feels like lazy storytelling the way these two issues are presented back-to-back.
In Conclusion: 2/5
The art looked nice, and there was some gripping emotions at the very end; but overall this issue was presented as quite a bit of a mess on multiple levels. Justin Jordan's really starting to feel like he's not really different at all than Scott Lobdell or Tom DeFalco on this series.
