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Review: New Super-Man #7

By Andy Frisk
February 15, 2017 - 14:09

A break in the action during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday leads to the Justice League of China taking some personal time, which includes the settling of some old scores, and for Kenan/New Super-Man, more coming of age lessons.

The team is taking a few days off for the celebration of Chinese Lunar New Year. Baixi and Wonder Woman head to the Bat-Academy on the way home to Baixi's family's place and run into Baixi's little sister and Baixi's former rival for the title of Bat-Man of China. Of course, this leads to the obligatory fisticuffs. Kenan searches out the martial arts master he was referred to in order to get some help in activating the rest of his New-Superman powers, which have been giving him trouble and shutting off at inopportune times. The master, who looks like an older version of Seraph from The Matrix Reloaded, refuses to take Kenan on as a personal student before Kenan enrolls in one of his classes. Kenan refuses and again, fisticuffs ensue.

Gene Luen Yang gives the book a break from the overarching plot: who killed Kenan's mother and why, in order to develop the individual characters a little more this issue. The necessary coming of age plot points have been established for Kenan's development and we actually get to see some progress on Kenan's part towards a little more mature behavior. He's not there yet, but Yang introduces just enough thoughtfulness on Kenan's behalf to make the character dynamic. Something that will definitely be necessary to keep Kenan's story an interesting read.

Billy Tan handles the artwork this issue. A veteran of the comic book scene, Tan's work is well documented as being one of the best in the business and needs little exposition here. He does a great job keeping the characters, their facial expressions and body language very similar to how they were established by Viktor Bogdanovic in the previous issues, so the book's continuity of look is kept despite the change in artist this issue. This continuity, something that several other DC Comics Rebirth titles lack, has been one of New Super-Man's strengths.

Still a top of the pile read as far as the DC Comics' Rebirth line of books are considered, New Super-Man remains one of DC Comic's best.

Rating: 9 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12