Superman’s gotta leave the planet for reasons so it’s down to his recently back from the future son, Jon Kent, to pick up the mantle and be Earth’s new Man of Steel. Meanwhile, a banana republic tyrant is doing dodgy stuff with metahumans and who decides to target Jon once he involves himself in his bizness.
I was hoping Tom Taylor’s Superman series was going to at least be on the same level as his Nightwing, if not better, but this first book is unfortunately… not great.
Taylor writes a really good Jon Kent. Jon’s likeable, humble, kind, relatable, and all round the perfect Superman replacement. Most of this book is concerned with table-setting and that’s all well done. Superman and Jon’s scenes are sweet, the new character Jay is a fine addition and his character is nicely developed, but the overall change to the status quo is very superficial. Out are Superman, Lois and Lex - in are their near-identical proxies, Jon, Jay and Bendix. So it’s basically the same characters/dynamics as the usual Superman books but with different names - a disappointingly unimaginative choice to take the series in.
The central story is very weak: Bendix rose to power in Trumpian fashion on the island of Gamorra and is experimenting on the populace, turning them into metahumans, for unknown reasons. He throws the occasional metahuman at America, again for unknown reasons - a firestarter in California and an earthquake-generator at Smallville - that Jon deals with easily, and that’s it. It’s a fairly insubstantial storyline that’s relegated to a B-plot while all the soap opera-y stuff takes centre stage instead.
It’s been established in previous books that Jon’s gay (or bi, I forget) and it’s not a point Taylor plays up much in this book - nor should he, his sexuality’s not a big deal. But that kiss - the one that made headlines a few months ago - comes out of nowhere. It’s not built up to, it’s not a convincing culmination of will-they/won’t-they moments, it’s just very sudden and feels contrived - like DC/Taylor were looking to make the internet talk about their book and this was a cheap way of doing that.
Hopefully with all the setup out of the way, there’ll be stronger storylines for Jon going forwards, with Bendix’s stuff getting more attention and less focus on the soap opera fluff. For now though, Superman: Son of Kal-El, Volume 1: The Truth is an unimpressive start - it’s got solid art throughout, some good character writing, but also has a very forgettable and underwhelming narrative that makes what should be a fresh new start feel like a stale product that’s been repackaged.
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