Superboy #31 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Aaron Kuder
Art By: Jorge Jimenez
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 14, 2014

Who Sucks More?

When last we left our slightly more tolerable Superboy, he had come back to our present time to cause some trouble.  Once here he tried to takeout Guardian; Star Labs head of security, but was to weak to do anything but look pathetic.  In the end Jon Lane Kent was taken in by Star Labs, and even though they know that he's not Kon, they want to help cure him of his genetic disorder that's killing him.  Oh and it seems that Kon is haunting this second rate Superboy, weird right?  Man I hope STAR Labs understands what they're getting themselves into.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

The story begins with the head of STAR Labs, NYC talking to a mysterious benefactor named Josiah who wants to meet with Superboy.  I wish this wasn't so ominous because when Jon feels threatened he gets murdery.  But at least for the moment Jon isn't well enough to have company since his body is eating his energy faster than he can consume it, so at least for today murder is still off the menu.  It looks like STAR Labs is up to something though because they have a guest coming that the head of the facility compares Superboy's powers to.  Can you guess who it is?  If you don't want to know stop reading, and don't look up.

So an ambulance rolls into STAR Labs, and is taken down to a subbasement, where we learn that very stupid people can get decent jobs too.  Once the armed guards take control of a containment vessel the ambulance just brought in, they begin snapping pictures, and then they have the bright idea to open it up and punch the monster while his buddy films it.  This is exactly why the DCU needs super heroes.  So as you can imagine, some dummy touches Senior Parasite, and the pandemonium begins.

Okay let's get back to Superboy.  Since he collapsed at the end of last issue after being haunted by what seems to be the ghost of Kon, Jon has been hooked up to a neutrino shower making sure his body is getting enough energy.  Well he's pretty good after this, but to keep him rockin' STAR Labs has built a battery undershirt that looks bulky as hell, but once he's got his own threads on, you can't even notice.  So it's an all purpose undershirt.  You can play softball with it, go dancing, it doesn't matter because nobody will notice.  Well now that he's all dressed and ready to go it's time for Parasite to enter the room, and the two square off.  Well we all know that Parasite can suck, but as it turns out Jon Lane Kent can suck even more, and when it looks like he isn't able to suck anymore.... Well then it's time for a little heat vision to tear Parasite apart.  Holy Shit!  I know he's a psychopath and all, but he's been pretty good for two issues.  Poor poor horribly gross Parasite.

In the end Superboy is fully charged after his suck fest, and somehow instinctually knows that Kon is reaching out to him, and that in order to cure their genetics, they need each other.  So I guess next time we'll be hunting down Kon, who we found out at the end of Teen Titans Annual #3 is still kicking and somewhere out in space heralding for The Oracle.  So that's it for now, and for the most part we got through this without a huge psychotic episode, so that's something.  See you next month.

Bits and Pieces:

While I'm enjoying Superboy being a bit more tame than he's been lately, I'm afraid that we're going to leave STAR Labs NYC without a Static Shock cameo appearance, and that seems like a waste.  But for this book we've down played the whole "I'm being haunted by Kon" bit, to a more open smash and bash fight issue which isn't a bad thing at all, and since it's actually against a villain, it's a welcome change.  So I'm still loving Kuder's Superboy, and am really going to miss his writing when he's gone.  Hopefully Jorge Jimenez sticks around because his style really works for this title.  So go check it out, it's definitely the best Jon Lane Kent you're going to get.

7.3/10