By Rob Siebert
Suddenly Wants to Be a Farmer

THE ISSUE: Adventure Comics #1 (2009)
CREATORS: Geoff Johns (Author), Francis Manapul (Artist), Brian Buccellato (Colorist), Steve Wands (Letterer)
RELEASED: August 12, 2009
THE SCENE: The newly resurrected Conner Kent (long story) enjoys a morning sunrise in Smallville alongside Ma Kent and Krypto.
WHY IT’S AWESOME: Because it’s legitimately one of the most gorgeous images I’ve ever seen in the pages of a comic book.

I remember picking this issue up from Graham Crackers Comics in Downer’s Grove, IL, and feeling my jaw hit the ground when I opened to these pages. It’s been over a decade, and this image has never left me.

As much as Francis Manapul shines here, the real star is Brian Buccellato. That sky is absolute magic. Corny as it is (See what I did there?), how can you look at that and not feel the morning breeze on your face?

There were some additional warm fuzzies here because Conner Kent, a.k.a Superboy, had been gone for a couple years. He’d been killed off in Infinite Crisis, then brought back in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds. Both written by Geoff Johns. When Johns was writing Conner in Teen Titans, he was living with the Kents in Smallville and wasn’t happy about it. So the line, “I can’t believe I ever hated Smallville,” adds the extra exclamation point to the image.

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