Rating: ***1/2*

The Blackest Night has invaded the world of Earth Prime and Superboy Prime. After the events of Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, Superboy of Earth Prime has been living on the newly reborn Earth Prime reading about the comings and goings of the DC Universe. Black Lanterns of all the deceased characters that fell at his hands have invaded Earth Prime and are out for revenge. The second feature of the issue continues the story of Conner Kent, the Superboy of New Earth.

I liked the Conner story more than the Superboy Prime story, but I’ll get into that later. The Prime story is still a lot of fun though as Prime blames the writers of DC Comics for his current situation. Prime doesn’t think he’s going to survive this attack, so he decides to steer his fight with the Black Lanterns to the office of DC Comics. He figures if he’s going to die at the hands of the Black Lanterns, he’s going to take a few DC people with him! Very funny. To those of you who are not aware, Earth Prime in the DC Multiverse is supposed to be our Earth where there are no real superheroes and they only exist in comics. Superboy Prime crashes through DC Executive Editor Dan Dido’s office and proceeds to trash not just his office, but all of the DC offices. Various DC personal also make cameo appearances in this scene as well.

Writer Geoff Johns paints a much more sympathetic Superboy Prime here in this story. You really feel for the character for probably the first time since his return in Infinite Crisis. Prime speaks of the DC writers writing him this way and this is the reason why he has done all of these horrible things. It’s their fault. All he wants is a happy ending. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that Prime will get a happy ending as his true love Laurie is now a Black Lantern. Is she the Laurie that existed prior to the Crisis who technically died when the Multiverse ceased to exist? Not really sure. Whatever the case, I look forward to more Superboy Prime stories as I believe the writers of DC can have a lot of fun with his character running around on Earth Prime. Hopefully we see him again in Blackest Night.

Prime realizes that if he can’t beat them, he’ll join them and he snatches a Black Lantern ring and places it on his finger. However, the ring does not kill Prime, but instead kills all of the other Black Lanterns. As Prime recovers, his long lost love Laurie returns. She tells Prime that “they” allowed her to return. I’m assuming she means the DC writers. She says that they will leave him alone now. They embrace, but we see Laurie is wearing a Black Lantern ring. 

Conner meets up with his own “Laurie” only this one spells her name Lori. She’s vandalizing a doctor’s office and Conner stops her. The doctor had refused to help her ailing mother because of insurance purposes. Conner takes her home and while there, Lori gets a knock on the door. Conner realizes that he can’t see through the door because the paint on the door must be made of lead. Unfortunately on the other side of the door stands Lex Luthor holding a piece of Kryptonite. To make things more interesting, it seems that Lex is Lori’s uncle and we end there. In Pre-Crisis continuity, Lex Luthor had a sister named Lena. With the recent additions of Silver Age continuity being incorporated into the current continuity, I’m assuming Lena is Lori’s mother.

Two fun stories. I like the Conner Superboy story a little better I think more so because of the big reveal at the end. There is a lot of potential for some great storytelling with this addition to the Luthor family. It’s too bad Geoff Johns is leaving Adventure Comics because he could really expand on this story. There could be a big family feud between the Kents and the Luthors with Conner in the middle seeing is how he’s genetically connected to both.

I also would love to Conner meet up with Prime again. Prime could be the bastard child of this story similar to the way Jason Todd is in the Batman world. Geoff Johns’s run on the title ends with next month’s issue. After that, we have a special top secret Blackest Night tie-in issue written by Tony Bedard. Does it have to do with Prime or someone completely different? I’ll stick around to find out, but if with Geoff no longer on the title I’m gone after that.