Super Sons vs Super Sons
I love the monthly Super Sons comic by Peter Tomasi. It's fun and incredibly cute while also being smart and exciting and just a little dark. I haven't really loved Damian Wayne appearances in other things and wasn't sure I was going to enjoy the series, but it wound up becoming one of my favorites. (And it's still going, same writer but now called Adventures of the Super Sons! Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already.)
Among the things I appreciate about it...
Friendship! It is very good and I like the ways it lets Damian relax and be a human sometimes.
Self-sufficient kids! As an adult it can be a little distressing now to see kids take on too much even in stories, but I remember loving those stories as a kid. They're important for helping kids see themselves as capable and independent, in a safe format. And it's really well-done here. Since Damian and Jon are both very capable of taking care of themselves and it really doesn't make sense to be over-protective of them, they get a lot of freedom...but their parents always know where they are and are there when needed and I like that a lot.
Jon Kent is a precious little ray of sunshine and everything about him is great.
Damian manages to be amazing at everything without becoming obnoxious, which is really hard to write well so I'm impressed.
Their threats are kind of weirdly age-appropriate? Like, it's a lot and it sometimes dips a little darker than I'd like in a kids' comic but not too far and also they get their own villains often their own age so on that level it's kind of relatable and “realistic” (for a superhero comic) but the stakes are still high and problems don't really get wrapped up neatly and go away.
It has its problems. At some point Batman's like “hey, Damian should go to regular school because socializing with kids his own age is clearly the most important thing for him!” But like, school isn't for socializing and he already knows more than all his teachers so it's just a pretty big waste of time. He's being constantly made to stop way short of his potential and put aside everything that makes him who he is to make other people comfortable and go through the motions and also just btw he's helping to overpopulate an already crowded education system and taking attention away from kids who need help and can't afford private tutors so there's that. I really hate this plot point a lot. School was awful and soul-destroying and no one should be put through it who doesn't have to be.
But all in all it's really very good and I recommend it for anyone but especially for kids (maybe slightly older kids, like age 8 minimum but probably more like 11) or people who tend to like things made for kids. So when I saw that there was a new Super Sons graphic novel separate from the series, I was pretty excited!
I should not have been.
Super Sons: The Polarshield Project by Ridley Pearson has nothing at all to do with the series I just described. Jon is pretty much the same, he's a simple character hard to screw up. But instead of Damian we have Ian Wayne, who apart from sharing the same legal/birth name and being Batman's kid has nothing at all in common with Damian. He has all the arrogance and self-centeredness Damian manages to avoid in the ongoing but with none of the reasons Damian has for those things and really none of his good points either.
And instead of super-powered kid villains, we have...global warming? And an evil organization? And capitalism? Look, all good things to fight but kind of a bad thing to wrap up in a tidy little bow for a couple of super-kids to solve in the space of one book by getting one person arrested.
Just sort of a weird choice to make it part of some conspiracy they can solve by finding the right people instead of the results of the way our whole society works that can really only be solved through massive change. Especially awkward since without Damian's back-story and competence, Ian's power is basically having lots of money and therefore, you know, completely dependent on upholding the system as is and contributing to those problems in the first place.
The plot is kind of all over the place and hard to follow, while also being simplified to the point that it doesn't really hold interest enough to bother trying to follow it in the first place. It adds a couple of new characters, probably to add a little diversity to the white boy duo. They're potentially interesting, but there's not really enough space to get to know them well since we're also basically being introduced to a brand new character in Ian, new villains, and a new world in general.
It's trying to undo the existing characters while introducing new ones and also shove in a plot and it's just too much to do any of it well. I think it probably should have been given a smaller scale, similar to the ongoing. Let it be a more personal story, with local kid-relevant villains they can face first while getting to know each other so we can get to know them too.
Obviously, when it comes right down to it, this book just isn't for me. It's not really for fans of the ongoing comic, either. The author says right in his note at the front that he's not familiar with the characters and was encouraged to just make up his own versions, so it just makes sense that these aren't the characters we already know and like. It has a very different tone and seems aimed at a younger audience, so it might be a better fit there.
Personally, though, I can't even recommend it in that case. There are better stories, ones that are less scattered, ones that focus on people other than white dudes from the start, ones that are just plain more interesting and emotionally engaging. Off the top of my head I'd suggest Goldie Vance, Steven Universe, Rainbow Brite, Lumberjanes, Nimona, Feathers (with the caveat that I've only read 2 issues), or anything by Raina Telgemeier. I'm sure there's a lot more I haven't tried myself or am just not recalling right at the moment. Look around!
And yeah, that includes taking a look at this book, I'm not trying to speak for everybody and it might be perfect for you. For me, though, it feels a bit misaimed and I think there were probably better opportunities with lesser-known characters who aren't already starring in a terrific and popular series that's completely different in every way, and I'd rather steer people towards stories like that.