Superboy #28 review

Sometimes it's hard to be a Legion of Super-Heroes fan, grabbing onto every comic with the smallest link to the 31st-Century's greatest super-team. Hence I had to buy another issue of the pretty appalling Superboy series.

Look at that cover - is this a new Legion of Super-Villains in the future currently being visited by the Teen Titans?

Well, the name isn't used, and they think of themselves as freedom fighters, but basically, yeah. The fact that there are just three of them, I actually like, as the LSV's first appearance in the Silver Age featured only Saturn Queen (the bad Saturn Girl), Cosmic King (the evil Cosmic Boy) and Lightning Lord (a twisted Lightning Lad).

And here we have the psychic Schiz, the magnetic Lodestone and the electric Volt.

You laughed, didn't you? Look at those character designs: thunderthighs Schiz, gangly robotic-limbed Volt and ridiculously coiffed, boulder-shoulder Lodestone. I know Lightning Lad once sported a robotic arm, and that Cosmic Boy's first name is Rokk, but seriously?

And what little we see of the personalities is just as bad: Schiz is, appropriately I suppose, all over the place, while her comrades - like her, human/alien hybrids - are all teeth-gritted anger. They've teamed up with Superboy imposter Jon Lane Kent to take down government organisation Echo. JLK is secretly working with hate-filled Titan Raven against their supposed teammates.

JLK's insidious foster daddy Harvest is killing some superhero invented for the occasion (Geoff Johns, take note). Teen Titan Kid Flash is about to be tried for murders committed while he was a freedom fighter/terrorist. Wonder Girl is pushing her boobs into genuine but extremely ill Superboy Kon and insisting he get up and join them at the trial - obviously a lovely day out.

Will somebody please just kill JLK, Harvest, most of the Teen Titans and this whole ruddy series? Writer Marv Wolfman does his best with original New 52 Superboy and Teen Titans writer Scott Lobdell's rubbish concepts, but even a craftsman as talented and experienced as him can't save an entire banquet of dogs' dinners.

Similarly, the talents of penciller Andres Guinaldo and inker Mark Irwin are wasted on this rambling, confused, nasty-minded story that's stretched back more than two years, to DC's 2011 relaunch. And who's that poor 'Johnson' person DC is trying to assign some of the blame to on Rafael Sandoval, Norm Rapmund and Alex Sinclair's excellent, but lying, cover? Former Supergirl writer Mike Johnson? He should sue!

Speaking of which, the family of Superman creator Jerry Siegel fought for rights to the Superboy concept and get a credit every issue, but have they read this stuff? Every episode dishonours the name of Siegel and if they cared about his creations as much as they care about benefitting from them, they'd have a strong word with DC.