Review: Superman: Son of Kal-El Vol. 2: The Rising hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

I don’t think any of us actually expected Jon Kent would remain Superman forever, thought I am glad to see Tom Taylor’s got at least one miniseries extra after Jon’s tenure as the “main” Superman ended. But while it lasts, the Superman: Son of Kal-El series has proven a lot of fun.

As is not surprising necessarily, Taylor’s emphasis in Superman: Son of Kal-El Vol. 2: The Rising is on relationships. That’s Superman Jon Kent and Nightwing Dick Grayson, primarily, whose Taylor-written titles cross over in this volume, but Jon and Aquaman Jackson Hyde, Nightwing and Lois Lane, Batman and Lois Lane, and underlying it all, all the Kent family and Lex Luthor.

Between Lex the Justice League anti-hero and Lex the Legion of Doom adherent of Perpetua, it’s been a while since we’ve seen the “regular” corrupt businessman Lex Luthor of the Byrne era. Though Taylor continues to steer the story back toward Jon’s enemy being a foreign dictator, Lex looms large in this one, even if only the secondary threat.

I’d be happy to see Taylor steward Jon Kent for a while; though the writer’s attention seems to be largely on Nightwing and his ilk post-Dark Crisis, I’d be open to seeing what Taylor could do writing the Man of Steel proper, too.

[Review contains spoilers]

It seemed as though Taylor was setting up Henry Bendix, of Wildstorm fame, as Jon Kent’s Lex Luthor — an enemy who fought this Superman not with powers but with intellect, and with his position of power masking his evil deeds. But as the saying goes, why have a substitute Lex Luthor when you can have the real thing? Indeed from the jump — perhaps because Lex is considerably more fleshed out and familiar to us than Bendix, not to mention Lex’s separate conflicts each with Clark-as-Superman, Lois, and Jon — Lex is inescapably more interesting and more terrifying than Bendix ever is here.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

If Taylor is making the mistake of undercutting his own key villain, he’s at least doing so with gusto, starting with the Killing Joke-esque “I’ve been thinking about what you want” prison conversation between Clark-Superman and Lex, through to a “murder with plausible deniability” scheme in the classic Lex style and on. We could probably use a little more refresher as to where Lex has been and how it is he got back on his feet to be building a new Lexcorp tower, but the message is certainly clear: Lex Luthor is back.

It seems at the beginning Taylor might be penning a new-style Superman (Jon)/Lex relationship, where even if Lex eventually wants world domination, he recognizes in Jon an ally to at least prevent the world from imploding until that time. But by the end, Lex is up to his old tricks (I literally think he did this one to Clark before), exploding a villain in Jon’s face and letting the world think Jon killed him. In a screed that seems near ripped from the headlines, Lex insinuates that Jon’s youth has caused him to be “manipulated by older people with their own agendas” and suggests, with irony known only to the reader, that Lex doesn’t consider Jon with the same regard as Lex supposedly did his father.

Lex’s comeuppance, at least in this volume, comes not from Jon, but Lois. It’s actually Taylor’s writing of Lois that suggests to me he might write an interesting Superman title, as he’s checking all the right Lois boxes — smart, capable, fearless, and so on. Though, at the point in which new Truth channel investor Dick Grayson invites Lois to join the media group where Jon and boyfriend Jay work, I did wonder if there was too much Lois in the story. It’s one thing for Lois to be around, but I’m not sure it feels like Jon’s title when his mom is accompanying him to his day job.

On the topic of Lois, however — and the theme of relationships — I thought Taylor did well in a couple of scenes with Lois and the Bat-family. First, the just-funny establishment in the annual that Batman knocks at the front door when Lois is home instead of appearing all of the sudden in the kitchen (that the stuff Batman pulls even with Commissioner Gordon doesn’t fly with Lois Lane) — though Taylor steps on the joke a bit by repeating it at the end of the book. Meanwhile there’s a fantastic scene of Lois and Dick conversing like adults — it occurs to me I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the two of them working together before, but the other halves of the World’s Finest are so level-headed, compassionate, and yet angst-free, I’d love to see Taylor use them again. (But since when did the Lane-Kents move to the suburbs?)

One wants, both in Jon teamed up with Damian and Jon teamed up with Dick, to see some semblance of World’s Finest: The Next Generation. But Nightwing outright offers himself as a mentor to Jon, which is good and right but puts the two on much less equal footing than their respective fathers. Letting alone the big hug that Nightwing gives Superman Jon after a traumatic defeat; Taylor is pretty far out of what I consider standard Superman/Batman territory, though it befits of course a generation much more in touch with their feelings than the previous one.

Again, with Superman: Son of Kal-El Vol. 2: The Rising, I’m not sure if Tom Taylor’s necessarily got the audience focused on the threats he wants them to, but what a Lex Luthor showcase nonetheless. And this remains a very funny book, as in the scene of everyone bursting in to Jon’s bedroom, with shades of the heist gone wrong in Superman: Son of Kal-El Vol. 1: The Truth. Taylor continues to impress.

[Includes original and variant covers, sketches]

Rating 2.5