Adventure Comics #4 – Johns Takes a Dookie.

Adventure Comics #4 ( DC – Johns / Gates / Ordway / Wiacek )

The return of Superboy! Superboy-Prime, that is! The grasp of BLACKEST NIGHT knows no bounds, and it is now at the doorstep of Superboy-Prime. Believe it or not, Prime has met his match. The Black Lanterns know his deepest, darkest secrets and force Prime to feel emotions he’s long discarded. Plus, in the Legion of Super-Heroes co-feature, Dawnstar is on the trail of the person – or people – who have been causing so much trouble for the Legion. But does she get too close to the truth? Her Legion teammate Wildfire comes to her rescue, but are the duo able to discover just who is behind this villainous plot to destroy the known universe?

It been no big secret that I love the new Adventure Comics.  I love the Conner Kent character and Johns’ new take on the L.E.G.I.O.N.  It was great to see Conner getting his life back on track and playing a part in the DCU.  In fact, Adventure Comics #3, where Conner Kent and Tim Drake reunite for the first time since Conner’s return, may be one of my favorite single issues from 2009.

Last week  Adventure Comics #4 hit the stands and the cover alone made me want to lose my lunch.  I really thought we were through with Superboy-Prime.  I thought he was a great baddie in Infinite Crisis, decent in the Sinestro War, but then he got played out in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds.  In my opinion, the best story with Superboy-Prime was when he was introduced in Kurt  Busiek and Stuart Immonen’s Superman: Secret Identity.

Here in Adventure Comics #4, readers take break from reading the adventures of Conner Kent (who we buy the book for) and are shuffled off to Earth-Prime were Superboy-Prime is reading the events of Blackest Night (Earth Prime is our Earth and the events of the DCU can only be read in comic books) and freaks out because the sees his fate.  And the Black Lanterns show up.

It’s really not worth going into the story anymore, because it’s just not that interesting.  But we are treated to more cheesy dialog and crappy one-liners from Superboy-Prime and he tries to make us believe he’s a hero.  Superboy-Prime even admits in the first two pages that he’s a complete joke.

Seriously, enough is enough.  We cheered at the end of Crisis of Three Worlds because we thought it was the end of the character, now we have to have him again.  Johns is the king of making the lame cool again, but I really don’t see that happening again with Superboy-Prime.

Kill him off…leave him dead.

Grade: C-

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