Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #3 Review

   

   
   

Written by: Kenny Porter
Art by: Jahnoy Lindsay
Colors by: Jahnoy Lindsay
Letters by: Lucas Gattoni
Cover art by: Jahnoy Lindsay (cover A)
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: June 13, 2023

Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #3 finds Conner Kent settling into his new role as a guest member of the Cosmoteers, taking down Dominator operations across the galaxy. But not all is as it seems.Is It Good?

Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #3 is fine. There's nothing technically wrong with Kenny Porter's story, Jahnoy Lindsay's art looks great, and the plot moves at a respectable place with the promise of a big conflict around the corner. The "oomph," the emotional punch, is missing, something to excite a reader. Technically, this is a good issue, but it's a forgettable one.

When last we left Conner Kent, aka Superboy, he convinced the Cosmoteers he wasn't an enemy. The last cloned son of Krypton and the ex-Dominator bio-weapons decided to join forces to save civilians and stop a Dominator-X attack. Conner is now enjoying his time as the powerhouse on a hero team whose mission is to dismantle the Dominator infrastructure across the galaxy. Unfortunately for Conner, he's about to learn that trust can sometimes be misplaced. Meanwhile, Dominator-X's failures to capture the Cosmoteers land him in hot water, forcing him to take a drastic step.

All the piece parts are present in Kenny Porter's script to give you a banger of a Conner Kent chapter in his solo mini-series. There's plenty of fist-smashing action, you get a few moments of self-reflection where Conner realizes his mission to forge a new path masks a deeper problem, the Dominator's actions raise the stakes considerably, and a twist comes into play to raise Conner's challenge even higher.

Porter's pacing is solid, the dialog/narration work, and the plot progression feels like it's going places. Again, all the pieces are there.

So, what's missing? Conner's taking everything that's happening to him too casually. He's not expressing much emotion to anything happening around him, other than brief flashes of determination to beat the bad guy. His loss of self drove him away from Earth, but you don't see him acting like he misses his family or that he has a direction to work towards. Conner is a reactive character in his own title, and he's just not that interesting here.

Well, at least the art is visually interesting. Jahnoy Lindsay makes great use of battles to pump excitement and energy into the comic at every opportunity. The character designs look great, and the overall look of the book is visually appealing.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces:

Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #3 gives you all the basics of what you want out of a Conner Kent comic. You get big action, strong dialog, plot twists, and great art. Unfortunately, the issue lacks heart, and Conner is the least interesting aspect of this comic.

6/10