Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

New Super-Man #9

By Avi Weinryb
March 13, 2017 - 00:12

Kong Kenan wanted to be a normal kid. Growing up in China, he never expected to be imbued with immense super powers and inducted into a local version of the Justice League, with Lex Luthor as his benefactor. But when Lex shows up to spirit him away to Metropolis, with the hopes of making him an all-powerful rival to Superman, Kong is willing to do what it takes. Perhaps it will give him the power he needs to find his mother’s killer and avenge her death. But at what cost?

Writer Gene Luen Yang is adept at interesting a fresh cast of characters, with several new faces cropping up in this issue. The opening pages are very creative, with text color-coded to represent either spoken English or Mandarin, with some dialogue cutting between the two. When a character reveals he was faking bad Mandarin in order to suss out peoples’ true thinking, it’s a fun surprise. There aren’t any real jolts in this issue until a gateway to an alternate dimension/form of Hell is cracked open and something terrifying yet familiar leaps out. As a reader, I was definitely taken aback!

All in all, we get a fun tale, with an intriguing villain in Lex, a basic but promising hero in Kong, and a hilarious, fun mentor character to be found in Kong’s elderly master. Whether this series comes into its own remains to be seen, but the journey demonstrates much potential as the adventure unfolds.

Viktor Bogdanovic delivers some solid illustrations via his pencilwork while Jonathan Glapion joins him on inks. The result is fully-realized work that does not fail to capture everything from mundane lunches to action-packed melees. The final page is more breathtaking for its content than its qualities, but the issue itself is a formidable composition.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12