Review by Frank Plowright

A lot has changed for Naomi. She began as a teenage girl with a Superman fixation who’d grown up adopted, and ended Season One a superhero after a lot of secrets came to light. Since then, via events seen in Dark Nights: Death Metal, she’s become known to the wider superhero community and joined the Justice League. It all very much changes the perspectives, and Season Two is a very different graphic novel.

Thankfully co-writers Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker maintain some semblance of the previous tone by having Naomi still the novice and although well intentioned, sometimes blundering in beyond her knowledge. She’s more interesting as a teenage girl finding her way, and the writers mix that in with the superheroes having far larger roles than in Season One. They’re humanised, though, rather than being full on and punching all the time.

Jamal Campbell switches between the scenes of a normal life he drew so well last time and equally polished superhero art. The way he emphasises light tended to make the superhero scenes a little blurry around the edges before, but that’s revealed here as part of an ongoing pattern deliberately designed to separate Naomi from the standard superhero title. In a lot of ways, who the villains are is of no consequence, and Campbell provides them as distinctively designed and threatening, but in silhouette or hovering, but never entirely in focus. Campbell is equally good with Naomi letting loose, and the apocalyptic effect of an all-out superhero battle on her hometown.

It’s fair way into Season Two before Bendis and Walker supply any more details about Naomi’s powers than her being an energy generator. We’ve also seen her flying. It’s a novel way of dealing with a superhero, as while it’s a mystery being perpetuated, it’s handled in a low key manner, so the focus remains on Naomi as a human being rather than a superhero.

This is good, but without quite matching Season One, because once superheroes are introduced even writers as good as Bendis and Walker tend to fall into patterns. One of the ideas floated is that not everyone with super powers needs to become a superhero, although the way events flow makes that a necessity here. Not everything is cleared up by the end, and where Naomi ends up leaves plenty of room for future exploration, and perhaps that idea is worth returning to.