Superman Unlimited #11 review

The Time Trapper has been all over the Superman series recently and now his super-son Jon Kent gets his very own chronal crook.

After time tossing the teenager fails to rattle him, Master Txyz – the ‘arch enemy’ Jon never knew he had – tries another approach… destroying his confidence.

From the past to the far future, Jon amounts to nothing, says the Fifth Dimensional demon. Finally, the self-declared Superman loses it.

Tell us more.

Master Txyz is ticked off.

He gives up the ghost and declares that as undisputed, inevitable winner of the rivalry only he understands, Jon gets a gift.

And that’s how we have young Jon Kent back for this month’s cover.

It certainly sounds like a win, but since when do tricksters from Mr Mxyzptlk’s realm play fair? Big Jon, who survived years imprisoned inside a volcano on Earth 3, hugged by the boy he was, rescued from that same prison?

Did someone say paradox? This won’t end well.

Getting to the end, though, should be entertaining. Writer Dan Slott is more than decent at building character through action, and he enjoys dipping in and out of old continuity.

Which makes it surprising that he gets a big bit of Jon’s history wrong here.

Slott is referencing Brian Bendis’s terrible story in 2018’s The Man of Steel #6. Jon was not taken into the future. Perhaps this is a deliberate change, but I can’t see why that would be…. If you’re going to alter this part of Jon’s past, wipe the whole ruddy thing away!

Seeing a young Jon again does give hope that the disaster that’s been older Jon is being set aside, that this ‘Reign of the Superboys’ serial will end with kid Jon staying, and ‘Tomorrow Man’ going heaven knows where. But, paradox. If L’il Jon doesn’t wind up back in the volcano, Big Jon will cease to exist, because he’s ’grown from’ the kid.

And would DC Editorial really wipe out the character we’ve been following since 2018? Well, they did exactly that with the New 52 Superman, who was killed off, then merged with Jon’s Dad, the post-Crisis Superman.

Still, I can’t see it, much as I’d love to have L’il Jon around full-time. Big Jon, as written in this series of late by Slott, is less annoying than in his series of a couple of years back, not so sanctimonious. Heck, he even punches the bad guy first here.

I suppose that’s a sign he’s losing his calm in the face of an annoying demon, finally getting mighty melodramatic and nicking some poor future fella’s shirt to, er, prove he’s his own man. I look forward to seeing what he does next – he’s already seen off a Fifth Dimensional imp who scared even Mr Mxyzptlk.

The art is just glorious; we’ve seen the strong compositions and sharp finishes of Lucas Meyer in this series previously, but I think this is the first time Giuliano Peratelli has contributed to Superman Unlimited. His colours are positively painterly, with marvellously realistic skin tones and a lovely balance between background and foreground. And Meyer is so good that even when he goes the very obvious route – such as in that panel of Big Jon being overshadowed by Superman – it’s absolutely the correct one.

Dave Sharpe helps dial the drama up and down with his well-chosen and applied fonts, while Dan Mora provides the splendidly straightforward cover illustration.

It looks like we won’t see Superman in this book for a few months, but if the quality of this issue is any predictor, I don’t doubt we‘ll be thoroughly entertained.