Review: Challenge Of The Super-Sons #3

Challenge of the Super Sons #3, the print version of the digital first comic, came out this week and continued to be a glorious romp of a story. As always, the juice of the story is the interaction between the young Bat and Super, who are very different and also close friends.

Writer Peter Tomasi has had a good handle on these characters for some time now so I am no longer surprised when I grin while reading. He gives Jon an earnest 'aw shucks', 'we need to be the best we can be' enthusiasm to his heroics. Contrast that to Damian's hard-nosed, occasional 'ends justify the means' approach and you have fertile character soil to be mined.

What I like about this book right now is that the characters are involved in two mingled storylines, one in medieval times and one in the present. Of course, to them it is one timeline but for me the varying locales keeps the book fresh.

Art on this books is done by Jorge Corona and Max Raynor. Both have a style which is befitting the action of the title. I feel like Corona is a mix of Jorge Jimenez and Ken Rocafort. And that stylized approach is perfect for the shenanigans of the action. Raynor is a extremely polished visual storyteller and his work with the other JLA members in the book is stunning.

On to the book.

Last issue, the Sons were captured in the past by Vandal Savage and Felix Faust. Having learned they are from the future, an era where the two villains could perhaps thrive, Faust and Savage decide to try and delve deeper into the boys' minds to figure out their next steps.

While they plot, they have their servant Rura keep watch. 

But she can see into the future with their scrying stone as well. 

It is pretty amazing that within this one story we see this teen Rura and an elderly one as well. Sigh. Time travel stories!

The heroes are just playing possum and once the night comes, they spring themselves.

Again, I love the time travel aspect of this especially when Jon and Damian are trying to figure it all out. This is their first time travel story and so hearing their comments adds to the fun.

Here Jon asks a question I always ask. If you are immortal, when do you stop aging? Now Savage became immortal once an adult. But are beings born immortal babies who grow to adult and then stop changing? Or are they never babies?

But they are stuck in the days of high adventure which means magical creatures.

This odd multi-limbed, multi-toothed creature attacks them. And even Jon's 'hot vision' (another funny line) can't help. This thing swallows the boys.

But this is the exact scene Rura saw in the stone. So nice call back.

I am sure that Damian knows that Superman uses heat vision. So this 'hot vision' line has to be purposeful razzing.

And Rura wants to escape her life. So having seen this, she shows up to save them from being eaten, forcing this thing to regurgitate them. 

Too funny.

I love Jon's shocked look.

But we then flip to the present day when the boys are trying to save the JLAers from the Doom Scroll. I love that all this came from Faust, in the past, seeing he gets routinely schooled by the JLA in the present.

I love this panel with Damian calling Jon his assistant. I get the sense he believes that!

He is saying this to the unconscious Hawkgirl who he is clubbed with her own mace. Because she can't know about them saving her or the scroll will kill her, they have to do this sneakily. 

So it is a little exposition to catch people up. But the assistant line is fantastic.

The scroll's death trap was poison gas which Jon has inhaled and is holding. 

When Damian recommends to have Jon dissipate it in the upper atmosphere, Jon worries it'll kill birds.

No exchange better showcases these characters' differences than this one. I honestly laughed out loud at Jon's pantomime and Damian's face palm!

Hawkgirl is not happy when she wakes up so they boys have to skedattle.

But they run into the elderly Rura again ... this time threatened Vandal Savage who is angry about the whole thing.

I am truly loving this book. As always, it is the character moments that are driving this for me. And I love these sneak attacks happening against the Justice League. 

I hope Tomasi continues to get to tell these 'secret cases' that occurred before Jon was aged.

Overall grade: A