I'm pretty sure Prime knows about his ship with Jason lol

Superman #38, January-February 1946. Jack Burnley cover pencils, George Roussos inks.

(Superman is reading Batman #32, published the month prior.)

⭐️⭐️/5

To preface this, I am one of the biggest Superboy Prime fans to ever exist (obvs). I am so glad he's getting this much spotlight.

But he would not be this chill over breaking up with Laurie. She's such a big part of his story, literally the personification of his character motivation, and she just gets mentioned like she wasn't important at all. That feels disrespectful to her.

Similarly, Witchfire hasn't been written about in a while, and her first appearance back, she's a prop for a love story. A not very well written one at that. I just don't get why she's in this. Sure, she and Prime have some parallels, but that's really not utilised at all. They have no interesting exchanges, no narration that raises the stakes or the themes. It's all kind of empty attraction. I really like Witchfire, and I feel that, just like Laurie, she wasn't given any actual room. What's her motivation besides "saving metropolis from demons"? Why is she in this story, what does she add thematically? And there might be an answer to that, it's just not on the page at all. Is she supposed to be a more ethical hero to thematically oppose Prime? Is she supposed to be a mirror of him? I really wanna know, but we get nothing of the sort. Not even subtly.

That being said, I did like some of the visual storytelling. The upside down page, Prime being in Dan Mora's illustration program, the spelling mistakes from the earliest pages. It's really solid use of the metaness the comic book medium has to offer. Very cool!

All in all, the first 80% of the story is unnecessary and drags down the rest. I would even argue they're a little... not misogynistic, but... dangerously close to it. Unintentionally, of course. But still. Reminds me of the weird stuff in #36 with Zatanna and co thirsting over Prime for no reason. Idk, I wish Williamson would write women in this arc better.

I really hope the Laurie talk wasn't all that we're going to get about her. She's the most important person in Prime's life and hugely relevant to him as a character. You can't mention her in three panels and explain they just grew apart and then never bring her up again. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

I would say #37 had a lot of great character work, so the fact that #38 misses the mark in that department and just felt like filler kinda sucks. I still have high hopes for the next issue, tho! And as always, anything with Prime in it, I'll read no matter what.

Edit because I'm still a little pissed off: I also think the first 80% of this story felt so incredibly unspecific to Prime. From a writing standpoint, the whole storyline didn't feel tailored to him at all. The only real moments of character we get are the Laurie talk (which borders on character assassination) and the fact he enjoys dismembering the demons. Those aren't even real plotpoints tho. Idk I feel this story wouldn't have been different if the protagonist had been literally anyone else until Manchester Black showed up. Which is such a shame when you have the endless possibilities of Superboy Prime as your main character.

I guess the writing was just really really weak in general, apart from a few jokes that I liked. But the overall story could've been an email. And didn't feel connected to the previous issues, really.