Review: New Super-Man and the Justice League of China

Quick Summary

Pros: The characters are still entertaining and a newly introduced character is a fantastic match for the League. Some aspects of the book provide interesting continuations to specific narrative threads.

Cons: Small pieces of the main story complicate things in a negative way. The conclusion is rushed and leaves a lot of potentially great plot points up in the air. The artwork is not nearly as good as it was in previous volumes.

Overall: The final volume in the New Super-Man series is a poor reflection of the high-quality storytelling that made these characters so compelling from an early point. This collection combines mediocre stories with lackluster artwork and is wrapped up in a way that doesn’t cover all of the bases. There are still some classic moments here but they are overwhelmed by the book’s problems. This volume may be worth reading for fans who simply want to see New Super-Man’s story continue but isn’t something new readers should necessarily jump into.

Story

New Super-Man and the Justice League of China, by Gene Luen Yang, is a decent comic but is not nearly as overwhelmingly positive or radically entertaining as its three predecessors. Each chapter is able to capture some of the fun that these characters inherently possess and some center around compelling plot points or interesting moral dilemmas. The book also introduces a great new character with an incredibly unique twist. However, many of the chapters also have smaller problems that prevent them from reading as easily as they would have otherwise. It also hurts that the conclusion is very poor and distressingly leaves plot points on the table.

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New Super-Man and the Justice League of China starts out with a pretty solid story arc that has the JLC recruit a North Korean metahuman to their cause, effectively taking on the role of the Aqua-man of China. This arc adds a great new character to the book’s roster, centers around a unique moral dilemma, and provides an interesting take on the situation with North Korea and its relation to Chinese culture.

However, even these more positive chapters are flawed in ways that prevent the story from being as great as it could have been. The love triangle between Kenan, Avery, and Mingming feels incredibly forced and is handled in a way that makes everyone involved seem like less realistic characters. Plus, the “water sculpture” solution to the North Korea situation seems like a ridiculous Silver Age-style conclusion to an arc that has been pretty logical and sensible otherwise.

From here, New Super-Man and the Justice League of China contains a final issue that essentially is forced to wrap up the series. It provides an interesting take on the concept of balance and even of balance within balance, which I found to be one of the most interesting aspects of the book.

However, this conclusion also comes about rather fast and fails to really address many lingering aspects of the series. The story arc that closes the series doesn’t feel like a significant series finale in the way that the story arc from the previous volume did. In addition, Kenan’s parents are barely mentioned, it is unclear how much power the JLC has vs. the Ministry of Self-Reliance, and almost every romance is left up in the air. Almost all of these problems come from the unfortunate early cancellation of the series, which leaves readers wondering what more this comic could have done if it had been published for longer.

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Art

Much like the story, the artwork in New Super-Man and the Justice League of China feels like a significant departure from the quality of previous entries. Brent Peeples is able to effectively tell this story through pages that make sense. However, the characters appear far older in a way that just feels off, which is strange considering this team started out so youthful. Plus, locations aren’t nearly as beautiful as before and some pages just feel plain uncreative. In general, the artwork in this volume is passable but isn’t something that most fans are likely to appreciate.

Continuity

New Super-Man and the Justice League of China continues the story from New Super-Man Vol. 3: Equilibrium (Review).

The New Super-Man series ends with this volume.

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Avery Ho’s connection to the Flash is explained in The Flash Vol. 1: Lightning Strikes Twice (Review). Specifically, over the course of that volume, she appears in every chapter after and including The Flash #3.