Overview: On the first day of summer break, Jon and Damian run into a little trouble.
Synopsis (spoilers ahead): Jon, eating popcorn from afar, asks Damian if he needs his help. While swinging away from a gold Superman statue that has come to life, Damian reluctantly agrees. Jon tells him that he should ask nicely. Angrily, Damian yells for him to “stop stuffing your $#@! face and help me take down your dad!” Jon responds that the stature is not his dad and if Batman knew that Damian curses so much these days.
With Jon now joining the fight, Damian heads off to find the villain responsible for making this statue come to life. After kicking down a door, Damian captures the villain, the Puppeteer. Jon and Damian leave him with the authorities and head to school.
On the dark side of the moon, a mysterious person tells his crew that they have arrived to Earth and found Superboy and Robin. As he looks angrily at Jon’s and Robin’s faces, he mutters that they will be “super-dead.”
At the West-Reeve School in Metropolis, classes have ended for the summer and all the doors spring open with excited students running toward their vacations. Well, all students but one; Damian. He exits the premises slowly while discussing with Dr. Medley his final essay on quantum theory. He tells her that he is happy to stay and explain his position if it would restore his proper score on the test. She responds that he already received a 100 percent on his test. She asked only for a paragraph for the extra credit project, and instead, he gave her a 120-page college thesis. After exiting the building, he responds that she should consider it her summer reading and give him his extra credit.
With so much excitement, Jon asks Damian if he is excited about the summer. In typical Damian fashion, he sarcastically responds he is “over the moon” and cannot wait to spend more time with him. They head into a Wayne Enterprises helicopter and head back to their HQ.
Jon and Damian become reacquainted with their HQ because it was out of commission for a while since Kid Amazo tore a hole in the hull (as seen in Super Sons #16). Damian explains that Wayne Enterprises is one of the leaders in semi-self-repairing structural engineering, due to Bruce and the Justice League having many headquarters. With this technology, their HQ was easily repaired.
Damian gets an alert that there is a mindless villain at the mall of Metropolis. It seems that the monster is not malevolent, but civilians may be in danger.
On-site, Jon tells the monster that he probably does not realize that his actions will cause harm to others. Surprising to Jon, the monster replies that he is aware of his actions. From across the street, a man shoots Damian in the chest. Immediately, he is wrapped head to toe by rags. Jon goes to Damian’s side and sees if he can remove these rags from his friend.
However, they are met with The Gang: Shaggy Boy, Ice Princess, Kid Deadshot, Joker Jr, and Rex Luthor. Rex explains that they are not from Earth; in fact, they are light years away from their homes on a hunting trip – hunting Jon and Damian. Rex opens a box and exposes Jon to gold Kryptonite. He explains that there is a theory that gold Kryptonite takes away a Kryptonian’s powers. The issue ends with Rex testing his theory – brutally punching Jon in the face.
Analysis: I really enjoy how Carlo Barberi draws Jon and Damian. The way he draws their bodily movements really accents their emotions that Peter Tomasi is trying to convey. The art is one of the few bright spots in this book.
I like the interactions between Jon and Damian. Their rapport is unique, and they somehow are friends despite the extreme variance in their respective personalities.
However, I do not like this story. Are the villains a younger version of the Legion of Doom? In the Super Sons title, we already had Kid Amazo and Kid Bizarro. Personally, I do not want to see Jon’s and Damian’s villains be child versions of Superman’s and Batman’s rogues’ galleries. That concept just does not interest me at all.
Side Note: Readers are most familiar with normal (or green) Kryptonite. This is the most common type of Kryptonite; all it does is nullifies a Kryptonian’s powers temporarily. However, there have been other forms of Kryptonite used throughout DC history. The last time (according to my research) where gold Kryptonite used was in “Action Comics Annual Vol 1 #11.”
Final Thoughts: I am holding out to see where this story goes, but I really do not like this first issue in this maxi-series.
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