In a move to continue its digital offerings, DC has announced ‘Challenge of the Super Sons’, a new digital series teaming characters Jon Kent and Damian Wayne.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, although ‘Superboy’ is currently in the 31st century as part of the ‘Legion of Super-Heroes’ series, and Damian’s status as Robin seems very much in doubt as a result of recent events in the ‘Teen Titans’ and ‘Detective Comic’s titles, ‘Challenge’ manages to sidestep both problems by being set in the past — specifically the immediate aftermath of the previous outing for the Super Sons, 2018’s ‘Adventures of the Super Sons’.
Like that previous series, ‘Challenge’ will be written by Peter J Tomasi, with Max Raynor on art, assisted by Jorge Corona and Evan Stanley.
Tomasi said in a statement, “Stories about Jon and Damian at this time in their lives allows me to tap back into those early years of my own life of being a crazy kid, while also allowing me to mine the fertile ground of my own son’s current adventures, which in turn helps keep me tapped into the general zeitgeist of today’s youth and what they’re going through and thinking about.”
“Jon and Damian are so different — the angel and the devil on your shoulder so to speak — with each one having such a distinctive back story and perspective that the drama between them is organic and damn easy to bring to life on the page. Best of all, it’s a helluva lotta fun!”
In the new 14-part series, Damian and Jon have to deal with the fact that the Justice League are marked for death, literally; their names appear on the Doom Scroll, a mystical artefact that threatens certain death for anyone whose name is written upon it. To make matters more complicated, even if the Super-kids can save their parents, no one can know they were responsible.
‘Challenge’ follows similar digital-only launches from DC including ‘Injustice Year Zero’, ‘DCeased’: ‘Hope at World’s End’ and anthologies such as ‘Represent!’.
In April this year, DC expanded its digital programme with the addition of a number of character-centric anthologies, ensuring constant streams of new content even as the print publication went on a temporary hiatus as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Challenge of the Super Sons’ is set to launch on December 14.