Some thoughts about Death Metal: Secret Origin #1

There's only one person who can face the Batman who Laughs.

Superboy-Prime has been forced to be a villain for most of his history but if he wants to reattain some of his life, he will have to act like a hero for once.

If there's a character who is just as infamous as the Batman who Laughs, is Superboy-Prime who was created by Geoff Johns as a parody of your typical toxic comic fanboy (although in favor of Prime, he was never portrayed as a Mary Sue). Now both Johns and Scott Snyder put both characters face to face and I must say that I was pleasently surprised by the result.

First of all, this is a story more about Prime than anything else and thank God for that because there's just way too much about Snyder's pet characters already. In fact, this reads more about a Johns story where he continues all the developments he has accumulated about Superboy-Prime over the years in which his typical obsession and immature attitude are prominent but with a little hint of redemption that could happen if only he started acting like the hero he always asks others to act as... which he does here.

There are genuinely heartwarming moments concerning Prime and Krypto that bring back his humanity and leads to the only way he can be redeemed and maybe have another chance at life. The parallels between the Batman who Laughs and him are nicely depicted. All of this finally ending in a way that feels approrpriate and hopefully gives a character some semblance of peace at last.

Jerry Ordway, Francis Manapul, Ryan Benjamin and Paul Pelletier share the pencils and they all do a solid job at their respective segments. Still not a fan of Ordway's style but his art has that old-school vibe that is fitting for the Crisis on Infinite Earths flashbacks and Manapul's work is wonderful as usual.

Great read, wish the rest of the tie-ins were just as good.