That’s a very sinister Jon Kent on Taurin Clarke’s impressive cover. The Red Eyes of Anger seem rather inappropriate when your beloved mother is reaching out to you.
Inside the comic, Jon hits several emotional beats, from confusion to fear to joy, but not anger. If you missed last month’s issue, or my bletherings on it, Let It Be Known that young adult Jon Kent had a run-in with a magic entity who grabbed his younger self from the Earth 3 volcano where he was imprisoned by the abusive Ultraman. Big Jon is going to have to have a word with himself.
And that word is ‘lie’.
What is he thinking? He doesn’t want to mess with Jon’s head so he’ll keep that weird new mask on, disguise his voice and hope this very smart kid doesn’t work things out? Well, he will… heck, he seems to have done so by the end of the issue. Super vision likely helps.
The people of Smallville are very excited to see their most recent Superboy back, but having been imprisoned and tortured for awhile he panics when they crowd him, asking them to ‘go away’.
Very loudly.
Everybody rescued – including a woman in a bikini, for some reason – Jon Boy and Jon Man head towards Metropolis, and mutual Mom Lois Lane.
Meanwhile, in El Caldero, the state where a mountain of green kryptonite landed and made the leadership rather rich.
Gotham Globe reporter Vicki Vale had asked if the green K they’ve been merrily moving for megabucks will lose its value since the Man of Steel vanished after the DC KO event, making this comic not so much Superman Unlimited as Superman Unseen.
The use ‘someone’ has found for it is experimenting on chimpanzees, one of whom, strangely strengthened, escapes and finds his way to Metropolis’ Hob’s Bay.
Bibbo, meet Beppo. Not that he’s named Beppo at this point, it’s Bibbo who christens him.
Holy BOOBS, Batman!
And speaking of the Caped Crusader, he and Robin are visiting Lois just as ‘Tomorrow Man’ arrives with Little Jon and decides to lie to her too. Well, not lie. But he’s hardly being open with his mother.
By the end of the scene it seems pretty obvious she’s seen straight though him. But how will Little Jon’s best pal Damian Wayne react?
Well, well, it looks as if we’re going to get a new version of Super-Monkey. I just hope somebody has a spare cape. With luck we’ll soon see him rescuing his monkey mates and wreaking all kinds of 13+Teen revenge on whoever is torturing them in the name of scientific inquiry. Right now we have a lovely scene with Bibbo, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, sensitively drawn by Lucas Meyer.
Meyer really is a boon for this book, his naturalistic approach grounding the madness that is The Life Super. And nowhere is his work more affecting than in the reunion between Lois and the little boy she thought she’d never see again.
I realise older Jon never asked a demon from the 4th Dimension to get tricksy with time travel and rescue himself, with a massive dose of Apparently. But not coming clean with one of the two closest people in the world to you, and someone who literally is you – again, apparently – is asking for trouble. And given the likelihood of being pummelled by a time paradox he’d be wise to tap into Lois’ experience before it happens.
El Caldero and the new Krypto-Knights, I bet we were all excited to see them again.
The Krypto I want to see is a certain cute Superdog, and he’s right here, and rather perturbed – smelling double Superboy scent, maybe?
I think that’s likely where writer Dan Slott is going. His years in comics show with a sharp, well-turned script, with the rarely seen freeze breath and super-voice being particular treats. And ill-advised as Big Jon’s choices are, Slott remembers Jon is basically a kid himself, and we all make mistakes. The look at the lab is upsetting, as it should be… I wonder if the sinister scientists have made a modern version of X-Kryptonite, which powered Streaky the Supercat back in the day. Certainly we didn’t need a scene in El Caldero’s Emerald City to introduce a vial of liquid green K.
Adding their talents to those of Slott and Meyer are colour artist Giuliano Peratelli and letterer Dave Sharpe. The latter carefully modulates the dialogue, while the former makes the pages pop with delightfully bright tones.
A confidently created comic, Superman Unlimited #12 is a fine capper to the first year of the series.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
It’s a good thing older Jon has done almost nothing of note so the world is safe for him disappearing. That costume is eating away at my preference for older Jon though. It makes Captain Ultra’s costume look good by comparison.
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