Review by Frank Plowright

Although continuing from Super Sons of Tomorrow, as that was a crossover it doesn’t rate a volume number, so the fourth Super Sons collection is Vol. 3. After the comparative disappointment of Super Sons of Tomorrow, Peter J. Tomasi ensures Parent Trap bounces Super Sons back to enjoyability. Clever touches include establishing that parents are away, and then ensuring what they’re doing is essential to the story, and the way Kid Amazo returns, but before any of that we have a meeting of the super pets. If you’re reading the super sons in the first place, then you surely have a tolerance for seeing the Bat Cow, Krypto and Streaky the Super Cat, with Detective Chimp thrown in for good measure. It’s nicely drawn by Paul Pelletier, but dragged on too long.

On the rest of the collection Carlo Barberi’s art isn’t as stylised as Jorge Jimenez, but his different approach to presenting the adventures of two youngsters is equally valid, and he applies a fine visual imagination to setting out scenes, an example being the fantastic faster than a speeding bullet page.

What Parent Trap does very well is establish why Robin wants to hang around with Superboy. It’s subtle, but when his mother turns up, still engaged in criminal activities, we’re given a look at what Robin might have been, and for all his front and attitude, it’s not the path he wants, and part of him seems to recognise that the childhood that Superboy has is what was robbed from him. As a story focus that wouldn’t work, but feeding into attempts to stop an assassination it provides an extra layer to a plot that plays out nicely. The Kid Amazo story is one of those desperate battles against impossible odds, and is decent showcase for both characters, spotlighting Robin’s quick thinking and Superboy’s pluck.

With DC again completely changing their Superman continuity, the Super Sons appear to have been surplus to primary requirement, and this completes their ongoing series, although one final story is planned as Adventures of the Super Sons. Watch this space. Overall, while never world changing, it’s been a consistently enjoyable run, and that’s far more than people expected for the revival of a derided 1970s concept. The entire series is collected in the Super Sons Omnibus.