One of the most underrated comics to come out in the last year, in my opinion anyways, has been Superboy. Jeff Lemire has written one of the strangest Superman related comics by having it be more of a character study then just a non-stop, action packed comic book. Well except for that one issue tie-in into that Doomsday storyline. But hey lets all forget that ever happened shall we? With the DC reboot just mere weeks away, and with Superboy changing radically too, issue eleven is sadly the last issue of this really entertaining comic. Does Lemire and artist Pier Gallo end on a bang?

I will give this to Lemire: He puts a lot of story in such a short amount of time. If we aren’t dealing with Superboy and Phantom Stranger fighting Tannarak, we see Simon and Lori deal with Parasite. Lemire is able to juggle these two big set pieces really well without ruining any of the flow. Once again I like how they take a bit of a different approach to stop these villains. Even though the way they get Stranger back into the mix if a bit of a dues ex machina. However there are some problems I had with the end of this. Even though Lemire does a good job rushing to get to an ending, it sure feels like a lot more should have happened at this run. Psionic Lad’s mission of killing Superboy is completely dropped which is a bit frustrating. Plus the final message at the end of the book is pretty good, but it seemed like another issue or two could’ve put that point of across a bit clearer.

To this day I will always claim that Pier Gallo is a great find for DC. Every issue he’s worked on this series has been a joy to look at. It’s so unconventional in regards to what normally the DC books aesthetically that it’s a breath of fresh air. I especially love his attention to detail in regards to how many people he can put into a panel and how some of the backgrounds look. The shed that Lori and Simon are stuck in really looks like it’s made of wood. Plus I like his take on those electric special effects on throughout the pages. The coloring has always been a bit of a problem though with this book and unfortunately the final issue isn’t no different. It has a ‘orange-yellowish’ hue to it all and it isn’t the most pleasing looking book at times. Hell the sequences involving Superboy looks completely different to the pages involving Lori and Simon.

So this isn’t the most perfect issue to end on. The coloring is still not doing justice to Gallo’s pencils and Lemire clearly had to drop plot points in order to finish his run. Those problems aside, I did like this finale overall. It’s a shame because we’ll probably never see a ‘Super’ title like this again. I’m not sure why DC didn’t let Lemire go on with Connor in the DC relaunch. Superboy turning into a cyborg might be the best thing for Lemire, because he could do a whole theme on humanity which would be perfect for him. Oh well, Scott Lobdell with have to do for now.