Adventures of the Super Sons #1 Review

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Art team: Carlo Barberi, Art Thibert, Protobunker, and Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 1, 2018
Reviewed by: Jon Wayne

Full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of the Super Sons. The dynamic between Jon Kent and Damian Wayne written by Peter J. Tomasi in the previous series was always so amazing that it quickly became one of my favorite books DC put out. I was upset when it DC canceled that series for many reasons, but chief among them was that I thought the book had finally hit its stride. Early on in that series Jon and Damian were often clashing, more partners than friends. Yet over the course of those 16 issues, they grew closer through their shared exploits and, despite Damian’s resistance, clearly became best friends by the end. I was also one of the many livid fans online that beat up on DC until they announced we were getting a new Super Sons maxiseries, and now here we are at issue #1. My good friend, and Weird Science editor-in-chief, Jim Werner knows how much I love this duo and offered to let me review this book for the site. I accepted instantly and could not be more thrilled to be doing so. Without further adieu, let’s dive in!


Longtime fans will feel at ease quickly, and new readers will understand what makes these two Super Sons just so great. We open to a perfect little meta moment from Tomasi as he has Jon munching on some popcorn while Damian pretends to handle a situation on his own. It's probably just me, but I pictured Tomasi writing this while eating some popcorn reading the mean tweets thrown at DC when they canceled the original book. It was a move done to accommodate Brian Michael Bendis’ takeover of the Superman books, but it was quickly seen as a bad choice and DC clearly heard us fans who wanted more Super Sons because within a month or two this new series was announced. 

Anyways, this first sequence is basically the essence of this series and the old one in a nutshell: Superboy and Robin kick some ass while pranking each other the whole time. Also, gotta give Tomasi brownie points for making this series feel like a part of the larger DC universe by making references to current events in the DCU. Namely, Robin not being a featured part of the Batman’s life at the moment in King’s Batman. Tomasi does come from an editorial background, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but honestly not all writers bother anymore.

We get a brief interlude which flashes to our heroes’ likely antagonists for this series, before cutting to the boys getting out for summer vacation. Jon‘s friend Georgia invites them to a party, but Mr. No-nonsense Damian quickly refuses and reminds Jon of their many other tasks ahead. We get some solid callbacks to the previous series which helps to make the transition from that to this feel seamless. 

After that, we head off to the big fight scene of the issue while still getting some great banter between our boys. If you read my reviews, you know I don’t like to spoil stuff, but rest assured the ending is the perfect cliffhanger and is also something I asked for over a year ago! I was so excited when I saw it, and I know everyone who grabs this #1 will feel the same way. Almost forgot to mention that the art was very good as well. While Jorge Jimenez will probably always be my favorite artist for this book, he’s busy with Justice League, and Carlo Barberi is an amazing artist in his own right. No complaints here.

P.S. If you guys ever want to talk comics, Super Sons or otherwise, shoot me a tweet @the_jon_wayne


Bits and Pieces:

One common complaint friends of mine had about the original series was that the dynamic between our titular characters basically carried the book. While I agree with that to an extent, I also felt like that was the kind of the point. As long as it gave us fun action/adventure stuff while showing meaningful character development for our leads, there’s not much more I could ask for, and it delivered on that premise each and every month. Frankly, that is more than what many books from DC have given us lately. Luckily, this series opener does not disappoint, and I’d be surprised if anyone could put this issue down without a smile plastered on their face. 

9.3/10