Superboy #2

We're gonna need a bigger clone!

I think anytime there is a shark in some pop culture moment, someone has the make the "I think we're gonna need a bigger X" joke! So that was mine.

Last issue, they made mention of Superboy and his telekinetic powers. That's how he splatted Dr. White and all the other lab people. I just kind of glossed over it until reading this issue.

Why does a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor have telekinetic powers? Is it like chemistry? Mixing the DNA of humans and Kryptonians somehow produces something completely different?

I also just watched the end of Carrie last night on television! And I watched a little bit of Children of the Corn on Netflix after work last night! That doesn't have any Telekinetic stuff in it. I don't think. The corn does seem to bend on its own at one point when Joseph is running away from Gatlin. But that just might be some secret corn power of He Who Walks Behind The Rows! Or maybe Psychopathic Teenage Shaun White has telekinetic powers! I also didn't realize Sarah Connor was in Children of the Corn. And Superboy's name is Conner!

In Children of the Corn, when Sarah Connor and her man are driving into Nebraska, they have a copy of Stephen King's Night Shift on the dashboard of their car. Yeah, I noticed that.

So Superboy #2 begins with a return to immediately after Superboy splatted all the scientists. Doctor Redhead is comforting him when a bunch of armor wearing military type guys come in to take care of the escaped Superboy situation. He ends up telekinetically taking them apart.

Apparently this is too much for Dr. Redhead to watch so she takes care of Superboy herself by touching him on the shoulder. Or throwing him across the room. In any case, this happens:



So, Doctor Redhead has some hidden powers of her own! The reader knows they're hidden and secret because one of the infantry guys immediately asks her about Superboy and she lies to him and says he shut down. As if a clone is the same thing as a robot or a cyborg. Infantry peoples is the dumb.

The comic returns to the present and references Teen Titans #1 which I won't be reading for weeks since it takes me two hours to read and blog each comic and it's near the end of the list of 52! I hope there isn't a cross-over event before then! I'll have to skip around!

Superboy is needed to defeat the Teen Titans! But you know that won't happen! He's SuperBOY! So he'll probably end up joining them and falling in love with one of them (Terra, if she's part of it) and then Terra will betray them all and Superboy's heart will break and he'll turn to the Luthor side for about six or seven months until Batman can capture him and Robin can show him how to feel again!

Thankfully, Issue #2 is too early for a cross-over. So Superboy is going to be field tested! Probably against that shark thing from the cover!

Superboy and Rose are taken to some facility overrun by the shark inmates to test out Superboy's abilities. Rose is there as a kind of handler. And possibly to kill him if he doesn't tow the line.



What happens is a big fight where we find out Superboy is basically a sociopath but can empathize with others put in his situation. Is that okay to say? A sociopath who empathizes? Cause he doesn't really. But he sort of does. He's really only feeling for himself since they're in his situation. And his main reaction is to just do what needs to be done to get himself what he wants.

This is probably equal parts the fact that he's a clone that has only been alive for four months and hasn't had time to develop any emotional complexity and the fact that he's 1/2 Lex Luthor.

I would say the 1/2 Luthor, 1/2 Superman thing is just symbolic of the vast extremes that we as humans can represent and how we have the ability to put ourselves anywhere on that spectrum through our actions and beliefs. But since Superboy seems to have a consciousness that is in every cell of his body, I think the whole DNA thing is exerting more influence than normal genetic inheritance.

Superboy loses the fight and everyone else that isn't a shark person evacuates the scene because Superboy becomes a disaster when he's knocked unconscious. His telekinetic powers go out of control and he brings the entire building down on top of him and the shark guys.

And that's it for issue #2!