Super Sons Annual #1 Review

Dog Days...and Nights

Written by: Peter J. Tomasi

Art by: Paul Pelletier, Cam Smith, hi-fi , Carlos Mangual and Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: November 29, 2017

Annuals Week is never a great time for those following their regularly scheduled books. However, some times you do get a gem that makes you glad that the particular month you are living through has five weeks in it. If you ask me, I like the Annuals that give you a fun time, but also give you a little something to grab onto that actually expands the series it's a part of. Character moments, a little more background, a new villain...the list can literally go on and on. So, why do we always seem to get nonsense? Beats me, but I'm not the one making the sausage, I'm the one trying to tell you if it tastes good. So, does this Super Sons Annual taste good? Let's find out...



If you haven't heard yet, this Annual is all about the Super Pets!  Yep, the lineup is a combination of classic and new and really, can you even say "Super Pets" without smiling?  I bet you can't!  We get Krypto, Titus, Flexi, Streaky, Clay Critter, Bat Cow and ...Detective Chimp!  I said it in my Metal #3 review, it's tough for me to criticize anything with Detective Chimp in it!  Yea, that was a setup for me to criticize this issue.  I really enjoyed most everything about it with the exception of two things...the overall story, but mainly, the villain.

We start out with Jon and Damian doing their Super Sons thing, stopping a bank robbery while also seeing that someone (or something) is doing a little dognapping.  While Tomasi doesn't go fully to the "Damian is short" bag of tricks, he does rely a bit too much on a joke throwing shade at Jon.  It is repeated enough in a couple of pages to make me roll my eyes and actually made me wonder why the two boys were in the issue at all.  I know what you're thinking, "It's their book", but the story is about the Super Pets and I wish it would have just been about them.

Speaking of the Pets, Tomasi establishes the dognapping through the opening scenes and newspaper clippings and after Jon goes home and falls asleep, Krypto springs into action!  He heads to Gotham and gets the Gang back together.  It's not as easy as it would seem as we see the last time the team was a team, they ran into the Legion of Super Pets of Doom led by Dex-Star and not everyone made it out alive.

The gathering of the Team is the big draw of the issue and while the concept is a ton of fun, reading page after page of growls and screeches wasn't as great as I had hoped.  I did like seeing them all together, and I will never get tired of watching Krypto flying Titus around in his harness, but after all of the time spent with it, there was little time for the actual story and villain this Annual was built around.

We finally do see the villain and really, he is as generic as they come.  It's an alien who wants to save the dogs from human servitude and the problem is...he doesn't seem bad at all.  Usually in a story like this, you get a little misunderstanding that leads to a laugh in the end.  Not here!  The Super Pets jump into action and beat up the alien and eventually imprison him  Where is Mr. Oz to show the Universe that not only are the humans of Earth selfish and bad, but the animals are as well?!?  Oh well, the issue ends with a cute scene of Damian demanding that Jon find a place for all the dogs and Krypto and Titus paw bump.

I appreciate the fun that Tomasi is trying to have here.  I would prefer this story over a bunch of other Annuals I have read in my day, but it was a story that could have been told in 8 pages and stretching it out to 40+ seems a bit wrong to me.  Still, it looked fantastic and I can't get too upset with anything with the Super Pets in it, but I just wanted a bit more story and villain development.  Please don't think I'm a Scrooge!

Bits and Pieces:

While I appreciate the light nature of this Annual and adore the Super Pets, I can't get fully behined this.  The story could be condensed to less than ten pages and not miss out on anything and the Villain is not developed enough to make me care and besides, he seems like a good guy!  If you need some Super Pets in your life, you can check this out, I just don't know if it's worth the $4.99 price tag.

6.0/10