What was I saying last week? Never mind that, we got more DC miniseries to wade through this week. And the next. And the next. But this time, as with last week, I’m returning to a series I had touched on briefly last year that introduces us to a new character in DC canon with a fairly unique power: the ability to commune with and control cities. And not just small pieces of road to help find lost trinkets, but whole avatars that feel like villainous caricatures of their cities. We’re back to look at Greg Pak, Minkyu Jung, Sunny Gho, Mike Choi, Sebastian Cheng, and Wes Abbott’s City Boy. 

Cameron Kim has not had a great life. After being abandoned by his mother and experimented on by Intergang, he roams the streets of Metropolis, helping find lost objects when he can. But Intergang wants more from him—they want him to be the harbinger of a New Apokolips that will turn Earth into one giant city for Darkseid to rule. But, as alone as Cameron has felt for most of his life, he still has some people to help free him from the clutches of Intergang and get him on the path to finding his mom. Friends like Superman, Nightwing, and Swamp Thing know their domains well, maybe better than Cameron at times, but it’s the connections that he makes with them that leads him to discovering his mother’s grave on the outskirts of Blüdhaven as well as what he must do to prevent his city powers from enveloping the globe.

We don’t always get the closure that we crave. Even after trekking multiple cities and forests, Cameron is still without answers as to why his mother had abandoned him. He can never get those answers, but sometimes the lingering questions are the only answers we ever get. Cameron goes on his journey to find what happened to his mother and in the journey is the acceptance of his situation. As much as he would want to—and nearly does with a giant metallic avatar that resembles his mother—he knows that what he does with his life as a City Boy is all he’ll have. Even at the end of the story, we come full-circle with him returning a lost toy to a child as he did in the opening moments of issue one. Even if he doesn’t get what he wants in the end, there’s still something for his character to hold onto.

While this is the first solo City Boy series, Pak, Jung, Gho, Choi, Cheng and Abbott make it feel as though he’s been here the whole time. While there have been similar characters with city abilities—like Jack Hawksmoor in the Wildstorm universe—Cameron Kim slots right into the universe, as he would in any city he visits. And that’s the kind of ability that should hopefully see him making more appearances as time goes on. 

Get excited. Get metro.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.