Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #19 – Mark Waid, Writer; Travis Moore, Artist; Tamra Bonvillain, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Taking a break from the main timeline of the series, this flashback arc—in a flashback series—finds the two main heroes meeting for the first time when Gotham City starts being hit by a distinctly alien menace. Citizens of Gotham—including Alfred—start disappearing, Riddler starts hearing odd voices, and it all comes back to the Phantom Zone. After a first issue that saw the two main characters circling each other like wary cats, they eventually reveal the culprit—not Zod, but his potentially even more deranged fellow criminal, Jax-Ur. The character hasn’t been used too much, but when Clark explains his crimes, it becomes clear just how dangerous he is and just how personal this is for Superman. At the start, Jax-Ur isn’t quite as powerful as Superman, but he’s gaining fast—and he seems to have a very personal reason for wanting to wipe out the last remnants of Krypton.
Superman/Batman team-ups are a little tricky to write when they’re in the same battle, because how do you make Batman keep up? Waid finds some very clever ways to keep the two on different levels of the same fight, and keeps the stakes high throughout. I noticed that this was a much more intense version of the first Batman/Superman meeting than we usually see—in the past, they spent their first team-up fighting Magpie, not a deranged Kryptonian terrorist. But it does a very good job at exploring how the trust between these two formed so quickly. There’s also a fascinating subplot involving a new alien villain lurking in the background—and when his motivation is revealed, it becomes one of the most unique motivations for a new villain I’ve seen in a long time. This subplot also potentially reveals Waid’s next big project, and based on how good this series is, it instantly shoots up my anticipation list.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
