How did Superboy make me want to buy Teen Titans #1? Don’t get me wrong, I want to be excited for Teen Titans, I love the idea of the teen superhero team, but the art just throws me off completely. With Superboy #1, Scott Lobdell does the impossible and makes me want to see how Teen Titans #1 is going to turn out.

Superboy was another book that I just wasn’t sure about until I saw the online preview of the first couple of pages. The cover really does a poor job of showing off just how vibrant and clean the art is on the inside. Superboy’s new costume, revealed on the final page, is awesome. It’s just too bad there are so many images online that make Superboy look just terrible in the new DC Universe.

There’s more to this book than the last page though. The whole thing is a fascinating character study of Superboy in the first few months of his life. Grown in a lab from a combination of Superman’s DNA and a mysterious human donor’s genetics, the new Superboy focuses his powers (and perception) on his psychic powers. I love how Superman is often depicted as being able to sense so much more than the average human of all that goes around him due to his super hearing and vision. Superboy has a similar level of perception but it appears to be due to his entire body being one big sensory organ on a scale we haven’t seen before. This results in Superboy being a very interesting character. He feels a lot like a Man from Mars through out this first issue, and it’s a really fresh take on the character.

Let’s go back to the art to finish out this review. I’m an unabashed Invincible fanboy. He competes with Hellboy constantly for being one of the best developed characters outside of Marvel or DC. Superboy gives a very familiar, exciting feeling both due to him being a young hero and due to the art. Like I said before, it’s a bright book with sharp, clean outlines of characters. This is the first thing I’ve read from R.B. Silva, and all I can say is that he blew me away. I now want to read everything the guy has ever drawn after reading Superboy #1. The two main female characters – which I’m assuming will be pulling Superboy between the two different ends of his personality spectrum – are drawn quite differently and are never simply eye candy for the reader to enjoy. Silva draws them to appear competent and ass-kicking in their respective specialties, and ultimately Superboy shows off way more skin than either of the girls ever do.

I put off reading Superboy this week for me last comic because I honestly wasn’t very excited about it. Boy am I pleasantly surprised. I’m shocked to say that I enjoyed reading this even more than Batwoman. Out of all the books I’ve picked up for the New 52, Superboy has me most excited to read on a month-to-month basis. I’m putting a lot of stock into the book and now know what it feels like to be nervous about the survival of my favorite little book. As an X-men fan from the 90’s, I’ve read a ton of Scott Lobdell, and I can very easily say this is the best thing I’ve ever read from him. This even beats out my previous all-time favorite Lobdell story in the Age of Apocalypse Generation Next storyline.

Whereas Batwoman #1 is the book I’d recommend to experience readers as the first New 52 issue to pull them into the relaunch, Superboy #1 is the book I’d recommend to the new reader or reader who wants to get back into comics after years of being away. It’s good, it’s tight, and best of all, it introduces the reader to a great character without being repetitive or talking down to the reader. This is going to be a hard book to beat for the rest of the month, and is a great sign that the New 52 is going to continue to reveal some great hidden gems.