Clark & Lex is a reimagining of beginning of the feud between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. This DC Zoom title is by far my least favorite. At each turn, the story felt like a missed opportunity. Very much main character energy where only Superman gets anything close to an arc. Other characters felt flat, which is a disservice to middle grade readers who are capable of understanding deeper stories.

Recommended for purchase where DC Zoom and Ink titles are very popular.

This was an enjoyable story of Superman and Lex Luther’s beginnings. Although Lex’s turn is not really explained, the story was still interesting and the artwork was well done. I liked that it had a more modern feel to it that young readers will be able to relate to. This will be a great addition to our classroom and school library. I look forward to the next installment. Thank you NetGalley and DC Entertainment for the arc.

Having read Brendan Reichs before, I was looking forward to reading my first graphic novel of his. It certainly didn’t disappoint. With action from start to finish, this sets up a great new series about Superman’s youth and how his rivalry with Lex Luthor began.

It starts with a chance to win a summer internship with the Daily Planet. There are only two spots available and a lot of candidates who want them. Soon Clark befriends a kid named Lex whose father’s company is hosting the contest, though Lex had to test in just like everyone else. Soon strange things start happening…like Clark loses his powers around certain contestants and other contestants start disappearing. Can Clark and Lex keep their top spots?

I’d like to thank the publisher, author, illustrator, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

My child loves so many graphic novels, and I read all the graphic novels she gets also, and I have learned to love those too. I keep an eye out for new ones all the time. I want to see what each and every new one looks like. I want to see the art; I want to see the text. It seriously fascinates me how text and illustrations work together to create an absolutely different reading experience from reading a regular book where there is text only.

And only now, when I sat down to write the review, I saw this book’s author's name. Brendan Reichs. Son of Kathy Reichs. And I love love love Kathy Reichs, I have loved her books for 20+ years, and now I have her latest book on my tbr list for next month.

I have also read every book Brendan and Kathy created together, and I loved, absolutely loved those. Speaking of which, I will have to give the Virals to my child, I’m sure she will love those now also!

And now this. This absolutely fab graphic novel.
Ok, that’s it, I’m adding Brendan Reichs to my auto-buy and auto-read list.


Ok, back to the book, back to Clark and Lex!
I asked my daughter to write what she thinks about this book when she read it also.
This is what she had to say:
- Clark and Lex were best friends until Lex’s father told Lex that Clark cheated to get his internship in Metropolis, and Lex turned evil.
- I did not understand why Lex turned bald.
- I liked the drawings.
- I would like to read more from this author.
- I would recommend this book to people who like DC.
- I would rate this book four stars.

And back to me: yes, I too would have preferred the story of Lex turning evil and bald to have some more extra depth and more details, yet as far as a fresh Superman retelling with a new twist goes, this was good. The art was nice and noteworthy also, and each drawing complemented the text.

“Clark & Lex” is too predictable since the start. I thought it would bring a new plot line to Clark and Lex relationship. Reconsidering that Clark and Lex met growing up in Brendan’s DC comic was a nice touch that fall off the wagon to my enjoyment when Lex turned bad out of nowhere. Yet, the elements of the story are well intended. It’s a story that tries to understand and explain Clark and Lex harsh relationship while growing up. I would read a second part if it ever gets another made, totally.

Note: I received access to read this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Clark and Lex explores a budding friendship between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor as kids recruited to a special contest. What follows had me questioning the personality of Clark and the missed opportunity of showing an actual turn within Lex. He just inexplicably becomes bad. The artwork didn't knock my socks off either. This one was just a swing and a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, DC Entertainment, DC Comics, Brendan Reichs, and Jerry Gaylord (illustrator) for the opportunity to read Clark & Lex in exchange for an honest review.

While I am not a huge Superman fan, I do enjoy Brendan Reichs as an author, and I also have deep appreciation for origin stories and middle grade target audience books.

This graphic novel follows Clark Kent, a middle school farm boy who must hide his powers from the world. When a contest for a journalist internship arises, Clark finds it is his chance to win and escape the farm life for a while.

After using his powers to win, he meets Lex, another contest winner whose father also owns Luthercorp, the location the finals are being held. Clark and Lex develop a frienship and promise to help each other both get one of the two finalist winning slots. But when kids start dropping off mysteriously--and discovering each other's powers--they find there is something more sinister to this contest than they realize.

While it does not indicate being the first volume of many, there is certainly room for this series to grow as the tensions unfurl between Clark and Lex. The art was fun and flavorful for the target audience and the story was easy to follow. For a Superman story, I was thoroughly invested and just really enjoyed where this graphic novel took me as a reader.

What a fun young superman retelling! Clark was brought a more modern feel with his teenage attitude versus the small town all-american boy that the movies/TV gave us. The artwork was expressive and amazing, although seeing Lex Luthor with hair really threw me for a loop! The story line was great moved along at a good speed. I can't wait to get this one for the library; the kids are going to love it!

Clark is an entitled brat who feels better than everyone and too big for his small town, so he's awful to his parents and cheats on a test that promises the chance at a 3-month internship at The Daily Planet in Metropolis. He gets to Metropolis and makes quick friends with Lex Luthor who is also in the running for the internship, but the next stages of the test are to take place in a remote island and have nothing to do with journalism. It ends up being up to Clark to get to the bottom of things and save the other candidates.
There's a very good opportunity to handle the why behind Lex ultimately becoming a supervillain and I feel like it was missed. I think it's because the emotional and verbal abuse from his father might not be appropriate for the age range, but the fact that it happens completely off the page makes the last act revelation really muddled.
I get that this is aimed at kids and I'm sure the action would probably be interesting enough for young readers to let them ignore the issues, I just can't accept a story where Clark Kent is such an entitled and odious teenager. I get that teens have attitude issues that they grow out of, but there's no way I can accept that Clark got to be that bad.
There are also many plot holes and unexplained little details that abound and never get satisfactorily explained. Maybe if it was just the beginning of a much larger story or if it had more pages to tell the story it does, then I might be able to forgive it as the building block, but this stand-alone story left much to be desired.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and DC Comics for the chance to read in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Clark & Lex was entertaining but not quite what I expected. When I read the part in the summary about "kids going missing" for whatever reason, I pictured these kids getting plucked off the street or at home. So that created a very different image in my head of what would happen in the book. That being said, I enjoyed the plot.

Where I struggled was more with the relationships between Clark and his father, and Clark and Lex. Clark's dad was really just a mouthpiece for morals, and he was also unjustifiably angry and controlling when it came to Clark. It just seemed like if he wasn't spouting the theme/moral lesson of the story, he was slamming doors and chastising Clark for wanting to use his powers. Now obviously, everyone is going to have a different opinion on the matter, but for me, there just was not enough justification or explanation given by Mr. Kent for why Clark shouldn't use his powers. Also, while the story tries to make that point by putting Clark in situations where he can't rely on his powers, it's undermined by the fact that he relies on his powers most of the story, including at the end.

Now as for Clark and Lex's relationship, I was disappointed. This relationship is literally the title of the book. I wanted it to be an epic bromance. I wanted to see them being inseparable best friends. They never reached that point. Clark and Lex meet in a rather contrived way, then Lex asks Clark to hang out with him. They basically go on a date, declare themselves best friends, then enter this competition to work at the Daily Planet. Almost instantly their friendship cracks, and it is such a let down.

What didn't let me down though was the art. I loved how stylized it is. I especially love the design for Lex. I love that his lower lashes are so thick that it looks like he's trying to be goth or something, and that his hair is always a mess. Also, I like the general anatomy of the characters. I appreciate that there are these bumps and grooves to their bodies that add a certain realness to the art while still being cartoony.

Setting aside my feelings about the relationships in this book, I do think it is a solid and entertaining read. I could easily see a young reader enjoying this book, especially if they are interested in Superman. It's very easy to follow and it has a good amount of conflict to keep the reader engaged.

An interesting story that kind of takes the Clark and Lex relationship in a different direction especially as it is targeting them as middle schoolers rather than later on in life. The artwork was very well done. Easy to distinguish who was who all the time, without a lot of blending even with the henchmen who were supposed to blend in a bit more with each other. The fact that you know enough about Lex to question his motives from the start, or at least I do, makes it a bit more of a challenge to read because I didn't trust anything he did. At the same time, Clark did not make the best choices, and even though he learns to be better and to listen to his dad, he was definitely not blameless in all that came to pass. Sure, he's a young teen figuring things out and wanting to be recognized for being more than just normal. But he's also a rebellious kid who doesn't listen to his parents and pushes his luck when he should know better. And he kind of learns the hard way.

I will admit that a few things got confusing for me, particularly because there were just a lot more folks in the competition who didn't need to be quite as prominent. And I'm still not quite sure how the ending came to pass. But I feel like this is the first in a series, so maybe we'll see where Lex and Clark (and the other specials) go from here.

Cute story of Clark. I am not as familiar with Superman as I am with other DC characters, but this was a lot of fun. A cute book that I think kids will really enjoy.

4 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc of this awesome graphic novel! 💪🏼

"Clark & ​​Lex" is a graphic novel about people who have superpowers. Clark lives with his parents on a farm and they told him not to show anyone his powers because that could be a problem. Since the world is not ready for that or bad people might chase him to capture him.

That's when the day of the test arrive for a trip to Metropolis, which is an important city in this story. Clark is excited and meets the other contestants when he (obviously) won. The games begin and that's when Clark becomes suspicious of these tests along with the others.

Lex is the son of the owner of the corporation that is running the journalism contest which has nothing to do with it. It is a graphic novel full of color, with a plot twist that I did not see coming and with a very beautiful and softness ending. That's when you learn that sometimes you surround yourself with the wrong people.

I am a big Superman fan, especially of the relationship dynamics between characters. Lex and Clark have a really interesting friendship in Smallville so I was eager to see this take for a younger audience. Overall, I was disappointed in the depiction of Clark’s personality. It was entirely opposite of all other portrayals in that Clark was very arrogant, rude to his parents, and not very likable at all. In addition, I think the plot was not well thought out and a bit too cheesy, even for the age group.

I really did not like this one. The idea sounded great. But the execution was... not great.

The total change in character for Clark was just. Ew. And Lex's character was really pretty sympathetic. Except most people probably wont see that, because of who his fathers abuse was handled off page.

The art work felt half done. Too sketchy in places that didn't feel right. Poses and angles were repeated far too often. But the colors would good.

Overall just... not good.

I am not the intended audience for this book. DC continues to disappoint me with its middle grade line of comics -- I went in hoping for a Smallville vibe, but that was not ... whatever this is. It's probably best to go into this one with no expectations.

My super hero loving son really enjoyed this book and I liked reading it with him! Two thumbs up, he says!

RIP to Lex's hair. This one was really fun. I like seeing young super kiddos and the things they get up to.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy of Clark & Lex!

4.5 Stars for this incredibly fun and vibrant graphic novel!
As a big DC fan it was really fun to see this new take where we get to follow Clark as a young and somewhat rebellious teen. Too often we're plopped in to a story where he's already "Superman" and has his strong sense of righteousness and hero-ness embedded in to him already. This was a different situation where he is young and still trying to understand his father's lessons. Battling with WHY he should hold himself back when he can do such incredible things or WHY he should look out for others when he wants to look out for himself were great lessons to watch him learn. There's always been a balance between what makes Clark Kent Superman versus just another Lex Luthor.

This graphic novel has a great art style and vibrant colors and movement. It was really fun to read and entertaining all throughout. Definitely recommend for DC fans!

This Advanced Reader’s Copy was provided by DC Entertainment via NetGalley. Clark & Lex will be released on July 4th, 2023.

Also, there will be SPOILERS so I’m letting you know in case you didn’t see the spoiler tag.

Written by Brendan Reichs and Illustrated by Jerry Gaylord, Clark & Lex was a fun read!
While I was born in 2001 I was never old enough to watch Smallville so this was my first time experiencing a storyline where Lex and Clark were friends before becoming enemies. I first want to talk about the art and while I enjoyed the cartoony art style I felt that the art was inconsistent. Either from page to page or even from panel to panel, the art styles didn’t clash well. There’s this overly cartoony style, a normal cartoon art style, and another one that rode the line. This is not to say that the art in this book is bad but it’s different and it was distracting. The way that Clark looked reminded me of his design from that Legion of Super Heroes and Lex looked like Zack Snyder’s Lex from Batman v Superman. This leads to my biggest positive of the book which is its love for the DC Universe. The name of Chapter 10 is Crisis and the lettering is meant to resemble the 1980s event Crisis on Infinite Earths. In Chapter 1, while Clark is cheating on an exam some of the answers have references to the DC Universe and the book has them peppered in here and there. This means that parents who are reading it with their kids or adults who would read this will find something for them. And the kids will begin to learn about the DC Universe. This is what DC excels at, they’re not afraid of their world and will use any character to tell a fun story or engage the audience.

My only real source of criticism is the story. Superman’s known for his relationship with his parents, that it’s them who made him the guy he is. But we don’t get enough time with Ma and Pa Kent. There’s a conflict between Pa Kent and Clark and it doesn’t get solved until the end when you forget it exists by then. Clark has to learn to not rely on his powers too much and that’s the main conflict between the two. But Pa Kent’s characterization feels like a mish-mash between Zack Snyder’s Pa Kent and the normal one we see anywhere else. Pa Kent is afraid that people will be afraid of Clark and that he shouldn’t use his powers. But later in the book, it’s more of “You should be human and balance who you are and the powers you have” and then it ends with “You should help people always”. So Pa Kent’s attitude is all over the place while Clark is going through his rebellious phase. After the first chapter Pa Kent is relegated to flashbacks and being there at the end. I wish there was more time to set up their relationship in a meaningful way so that he uses what he learned from his parents in real life when he meets Lex and goes through the competition. The relationship between Clark and Lex is pretty boilerplate but it does its job. Lex is a sad rich kid with an overbearing father and no friends. Clark is from a farm and feels suffocated. So their dynamic works with one another and they feel a bond between each other that convinces the reader.

Then there’s the tournament arc which ends up being a nefarious plan to collect super-powered kids by LexCorp and I don’t know how to feel about it. A bit ago I read Teen Titans: Earth One and they share similar plot points. But I understand why they had it there because it’s meant to show the divide between Clark and Lex. You can say it is a bit contrived but you do get enough focus between the two to find their “break up” understandable. Lex’s father causing Lex to lose it along with his fear of being left by Clark is what sends him down a spiral. The other kids are there but they feel like they were just placed there to build drama between the main two. We do hang with Taka and Jalen a bit. You assume they’re working together but it ends up not being the case, when I read it I was like “Alright” and just kept going.

In a surprising twist, Lex finds out that Clark has powers that make Lex go off the deep end and he works with his father to capture the kids who are trying to escape the facility. What I didn’t expect is that he goes BALD. We don’t know how or why (I mean we know why but not in the context of the book) but it was a shock. I was screaming “WHAT” and then laughed a bit. Then Lex gets placed in this version of his iconic power suit and we get that first official fight between the two. Even though the book feels short, it’s still sad when they end up fighting each other. You get a good amount of pages dedicated to their friendship and how it crumbles so it works. Lex book ends the book with a “He hasn’t seen the last of me” and honestly? I really want to see where it goes. I have no idea if this is a one-off YA graphic novel but I find the idea of Lex and Superman fighting while knowing each other's identities really compelling. There’s a lot of drama and character growth that can be made from this.

Overall, while I had my issues with the book's plot and some of the art. I have to commend Brendan Reichs and Jerry Gaylord for making a fun graphic novel. It was a book that you can just relax to and it gives you that Saturday morning cartoon type of vibe. With all of that being said, I’d give Clark & Lex a 3.5 out of 5.