Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Superman: Son of Kal-El #13 Review




Dream A Little Dreamer


Written By: Nicole Maines, Tom Taylor
Art By: Clayton Henry, Marcelo Maiolo, Matt Herms, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 12, 2022


For this issue of Superman: Son of Kal-El, we're going to see the introduction of the TV Superhero Dreamer, into the main DC Continuity and it's always fun to have characters jump across mediums, and not only that but they're the ancestor of the Legion of Super-Heroes character, Dream Girl. I just hope that with this introduction it feels like this issue is doing more than meandering around because we've had the Rising threatening our Man of Steel's world for over a year now and for whatever reason it always feels like Jon Kent is standing in place while discovering what kind of Superman he's going to be. Let's jump into this issue and see what this issue holds for us.


So as we saw in the previous issue, Jay Nakamura's identity has been revealed and like Jon had to go through when Clark Kent revealed his and his family's identities to the world, now Jay has to deal with not having any kind of secret life and the notoriety that this reveal brings him, which leads us to the main location of our story, the Fortress of Solitude, where Jon will take his boyfriend to keep him nice and safe until this whole thing blows over..... or until Henry Bendix is brought down and outed as the villain he is and it's here that Dreamer is waiting for Jon with a vision of the future that needs to be averted because...... get this, the Justice League dies. So yeah, with what's currently going on in the DC Universe, it really just took the wind out of the sails of Dreamer's reveal because while stopping this threat might be cool because of what could be the ramifications since we know that the Justice League have already "died" because of the Great Darkness and Pariah, this ultimately falls flat.




While this dream of the future is the main action portion of our Son of Kal-El book, even the concept of what goes wrong to get our heroes dead and Bendix on top of the world comes off odd in that I'm not sure how or why it started and way that we dismantle the Justice League and Jon Kent just comes off super easy and makes Henry Bendix the biggest bad we've ever seen..... even though I can't say I've seen that so far in the book, especially since the Rising is taking forever to rise. Beyond that though, we have people standing around and talking in the Fortress, letting people know that Jon knows Dream Girl and that he can't possibly take on Bendix by himself, which we've all seen already so ultimately, there isn't a lot to this issue instead of impending doom..... which comes off silly.




All in all, I do love the art in this book and the inclusion of Dreamer into this title and being the place for their big introduction is pretty cool, but we don't do much in this issue but introduce the character and by the end of the book, beyond Dreamer telling you what they dreamed, which I'm sure most people love to hear about other people's dreams...... and it's one of their powers, we essentially stand around and talk about things we already know in the book about Jay Nakamura, Jon Kent, and Henry Bendix. Like I said in the write-up, the future doom comes off a bit silly and we never get any kind of detail about what sets it off, beyond a mysterious murder. I can only hope going forward, where Jon tries to prevent this future from happening that we get some good storytelling in what is actually going on in the background to lead to this threat that would shock the DC Universe....... even if we already know that it doesn't matter because the Justice League are currently dead for our big event.


Make sure to listen to our Weekly DC Comics Recap and Review Podcast to hear us talk more about this book.  Just look up "Weird Science DC Comics" anywhere you listen to podcasts or click here for podcast links and more: https://campsite.bio/weirdsciencecomics



Bits and Pieces:


While I do enjoy seeing Dreamer added to the mix of Superman: Son of Kal-El and having their introduction into the DC Universe, there's little to this story overall beyond an over-the-top dream that comes off really exaggerated about what could happen and ultimately makes Henry Bendix the scariest villain in the world, without actually having to do anything to really show us over the past year. It's a bit disappointing overall, but at least Dreamer came off cool and the art was great, I just wish the story was either of those two things though.


5.9/10

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