The last time I read a modern comic book that starred Conner Kent, the results were… less than ideal. So less than ideal that I’ve been scared off of reading the ongoing title of one of my favorite characters (Tim Drake: Robin) because the same writer has been at the helm of that series.

But things are different now!

No longer under the Dark Crisis banner, we are moving on to DC’s Dawn Of DC line-up, a series of books more oriented towards focusing on the positive aspects of comics, and not being too dark or brooding or tied down to whatever Crisis event DC is undergoing next. I’m actually even surprised this particular book is given a Teen rating because it feels like an accessible book for kids, but I guess there is some death in it.

Anyway, when I saw that Kon-El was back, given his own six issue mini-series under this label, well… I just had to give it a try and hope things shook out better this time.

TITLE: Dawn Of DC – Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow

Writer and Artist: Kenny Porter and Jahnoy Lindsay

Publisher: DC Comics

Protagonists: Superboy

Antagonists: Aliens! Dominator X! Cyborg Superboy!

Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow opens with Conner stopping in Metropolis to pick up coffee for Ma and Pa Kent. He is quickly attacked by Dr. Polaris, and before Superboy can even start to fight back, the rest of the Super-family shows up. Clark, Kara, and Jonathan make short work of the villain and save all the civilians while Kon-El is stuck doing little more than watching.

In a post-Rebirth world, Superboy is no longer sure where he belongs, other than on the farm with Superman’s parents. But after a quick pep talk from them, he knows what he has to do: find his own Metropolis!

Unfortunately, when he arrives at the Fortress Of Solitude, he finds every other distress signal on Earth already being handled by other heroes. So he broadens his scope to the galaxy at large. He finds an unidentified alien world requesting help, and with the help of a faulty zeta beam bracelet, he teleports off to make a name for himself as hero to those who don’t yet know the hopefulness of his S-shield.

What he finds is an army of cloned and super-powered monstrosities, as well as a brash “hero” team calling themselves The Cosmoteers. The Cosmoteers themselves were part of the clone army created by Dominator X, and after freeing themselves, they made it their mission to free the rest of the clones… and kill any in the army who won’t accept freedom.

Superboy’s obviously not too down with the killing part and makes it his mission to change the Cosmoteers ways. Their leader, Travv, is not quite so willing to change. He uses the time working with Conner to make a brainless Superboy clone body, then murders a Green Lantern and abandons our hero on a barren planet.

The final fight sees the technopathic Travv transport his consciousness into the empty Kryptonian clone body he made, effectively becoming Superboy’s version of Hank Henshaw!

All in all, this is ultimately a story of growth. The story is not particularly subtle about it at all, but this is an arc of Superboy initially trying to find a way to relive the past–his days with Young Justice and The Titans, his days as a well-known hero–until he figures out what he should be doing is moving forward as an inspiration and a new hero on his own.

It’s honestly not entirely dissimilar to what Dark Crisis: Young Justice did with him, but it’s handled several hundred times better. In that story, Conner was portrayed as a regressive, borderline bigoted, idiot. In this story, he’s a hero through and through, just facing a bit of self-delusion. There is much more tact and nuance involved. I really appreciate the hopefulness of this series, even if it is a bit heavy-handed.

The tale introduces several new characters who may impact DC going forward; we will see how that shakes out. We have the remaining Cosmoteers, Pira and Rotur. Dominator X and his Infinity baby. And, of course, the Cyborg Superboy, Travv. I imagine the last of those will be relevant if/when Conner starts making more regular appearances again. Or he won’t! Modern continuity its… not really much of a thing.

As for the art–always the hardest thing for me to criticize because it’s so often either just “I like it” or “I didn’t”–this is fine. There’s a grainy, sketchy quality to the art where everything feels a bit rough around the edges, but there are also moments where characters are making big, exaggerated, cartoon faces (most notably in issue three with a generic alien general). The two aspects don’t always seem to mesh well together.

Lindsay does get the youthfulness of Conner down well, though, especially in his face. I think a lot of people forget he is eternally 16 years old, and has not physically aged since his introduction. But Lindsay is on that. There are some storytelling issues in the art where I didn’t always immediately understand what was happening in the panels, but on the overall scale, this is closer to “I like it” than the opposite.

OVERALL

It really warms my heart to see Kon-El being written well again, and in a series that actually wants to tell a fun, developmental Superboy story instead of one that just seems like it has an axe to grind against fans. Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow is a solid upper mid-tier mini-series that is well worth your time, and I hope DC has more plans for the character in its wake. If not, well it’s still a good ride.