Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #18 review

Posted on by martingray1

It’s the secret origin of the World’s Finest team. Again. The original story saw Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne bang heads while on a cruise ship. Decades later the legend had it that they ran into one another on a case involving jewel thief Magpie, a D-lister whose only point of interest is her lameness.

In this latest look at how two very different heroes began working together, writer Mark Waid includes elements of both stories. There’s a ship, two actually. And Magpie makes the scene. But that’s Waid having fun, as he’s put the work in and come up with a new story.

It begins with Superman dropping in on Commissioner Gordon after the Riddler leaves police a clue to a crime in an unusual script.

Superman can read the riddle but he can’t solve it. And he worries that there’s an unknown Kryptonian on the loose.

Of course, Batman does solve the puzzle, which links to millions of dollars that have just vanished from a vault on a riverboat, and the literal disappearance of Gotham citizens – they’re vanishing before people’s eyes.

The heroes rub along not too badly, but Superman tells Batman he can’t easily trust a man wearing a mask. The pair split up… but later Daily Planet editor Perry White informs Clark Kent that he’s been invited to interview one of the paper’s shareholders – Bruce Wayne.

And when Bruce admits that he’s Batman – of course, Clark had worked it out – that’s the mask problem dealt with. Before long they’re in costume and looking for the Riddler and his silent partner who, it turns out, is indeed Kryptonian.

I wasn’t looking for another first meeting of Batman and Superman, but Mark Waid proved himself to be a master storyteller decades ago, and he’s been knocking it out of the proverbial park with this series, so I’m pretty certain I’ll like where he goes. I’ve never been a fan of tension between our heroes, no matter how logical writers claim it is, but Waid doesn’t overdo things. In Phantom Riddles Part One, as well as the Riddler, Magpie and that surprise Kryptonian villain, there’s a very minor Gotham bad guy, one who appeared in possibly the most reviled Superman story of the Seventies. It’s fun to see such a disparate bunch of characters in one story, and the dialogue is always plausible, and often snappy.

Batman’s unravelling of Clark’s secret ID is fun, have we seen that previously? On the Superman side, it’s a delight, how quickly he cleans up messes around Gotham.

As for the art, it’s by Travis Moore, so of course it’s excellent. Our heroes look marvellous, classic… it’s a particular treat to see Batman in his Silver and Bronze Age cowl. And Moore really gets the majesty of a cape – the current Superman titles are being rather silly in replacing cloaks with jackets.

Action sequences are elegant and exciting, and the villains look great, even Magpie. Moore leans into her bizarre design – he wears a wig that Ames her look like an elderly clown – and her panels are huge fun.

Kudos, too, to colour artist Tamra Bonvillain and letterer Steve Wands, who make all things bright and readable. The cover art comes from regular series artist Dan Mora and it’s crying out to be on a collection – it’s a classic composition, exquisitely executed.

All in all, this is a near perfect issue… well, Waid gets half of Clark Kent’s address wrong, shocking for a comics scholar of his calibre!

I don’t know where this story is going – last issue’s teaser page said failed Superman sidekick Boy Thunder is coming back, this issue’s intro page tells us our heroes are going to the future… I’m intrigued, but more importantly, I’m entertained. Thoroughly.

34 thoughts on “Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #18 review”

  1. This is the first issue I haven’t enjoyed. Superman came across as fool. He really couldn’t solve that riddle??? It’s a common one easily answered on the Internet. I could understand him coming to Batman because he believes there is no more to it, but he’d have to be a dimwit not to suss it out on his own. Batman sorting out Superman’s ID was complete bollocks. If he could do what he did, so could the US military, Chinese military, Lexcorp, Ras Al Ghul, etc. It also means Batman should be dead because it’s even easier to track a Batmobile, Batplane, or your choice of Bat-vehicle. Too much done to put Batman on Superman’s level, too much done to limit Superman to being a superpowered doofus. . .and Mark Waid wrote this??? This is “Towe of Babel” bad.

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    1. I didn’t have your visceral reaction or felt Superman was dumbed down but I did feel this one wasn’t up there with almost all of the series so far. It just seemed less exciting to me.

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      1. It’s likely because I’ve read enough stories with Superman dumbed-down for Batman’s benefit and this is definitely one of them. I also believe a majority of readers see Superman as “just a guy from Kansas” and not the highly intelligent being he must be to operate as he does.

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      2. Super Brain was always part of his power set but it tends to fall by the wayside because it either is too hard to write someone as that smart (look at Riddler’s inconsistencies) or it ruins plots.

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    2. See, now you’ve made me want to re-read Tower of Babel. Was that the JLA story with Batman having all his plans to take down his pals? If so, I’m not rereading, I hated that.

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      1. Yes, that was it. Batman as “god-killer”.Just a miserable notion that he actually made plans against his own friends. This issue smacks of that, since why does Batman need to know Superman’s secret identity? A very weak issue from a writing standpoint.

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      2. I remember liking Tower of Babel more than a lot of other people. I still can’t blame Batman for having contingency plans in case any of his allies were mind-controlled. It happens with frightening regularity. I thought it was a clever idea, both as a seed for a story, and also a source of friction among the League going forward.

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      3. What got me about it was the idea that one member would be so presumptuous about the others and not trust them enough to let it be known he had plots against them.

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      4. “I remember liking Tower of Babel more than a lot of other people. I still can’t blame Batman for having contingency plans in case any of his allies were mind-controlled. It happens with frightening regularity. I thought it was a clever idea, both as a seed for a story, and also a source of friction among the League going forward.”

        1) If mind control is the issue, why doesn’t Batman come up with a solution to prevent it, rather than contingencies to defeat his comrades? He has access to the greatest telepaths in the world, but he goes for combat rather than the actual problem.
        2)I thought the Avengers were the frictious group. 😉

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      5. I suppose he doesn’t trust the telepaths either. How about he keeps Deadman on standby? He could drop into anyone mind-controlled and override them… and surely Batman trusts Deadman (Josh Williamson has their relationship all wrong in Knight Terrors).

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      6. That kind of thing is why I don’t read Williamson’s output anymore. His Flash run was riddled with it.

        (BTW, stop answering me so quick! I’m trying to get to the shower so I can run errands before the temp tops one hundred!)

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      7. I hear you, I’m rushing to get to a Fringe show. We’ve had a superb Sunday in the Park with George today, and need to rush to see Jenny Ryan from The Chase giving her cabaret show.

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    3. One of my only issues with these paranoid contingency plans of Batman’s is how easy it is for them to be found by villains or go rogue. Put them on a PC with no wireless or hard connection to anything else. Hell, he’s got a brain that can create alt personalities t shield himself (no super powers, my aunt fanny BTW) but he can’t remember how he plans to take down mind controlled colleagues?

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      1. Great point. Or maybe all the JLA should be told of the need or ‘need’ for contingency plans and a trusted non-member would enact them, Supergirl, say.

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      2. Ah but Bat-Paranoid Case couldn’t know that whomever he’d share it with wouldn’t be the mind controlled one. BTW, I had a thought just now about why Bruce set up that scene detailing how he figured out Clark was Superman. He’s used to being best and smartest and Clark outclasses him by a large amount. He was showing off and trying to prove he’s not inferior to Clark. Spiler: He is.

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    2. It’s The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis from Superman #330 in 1978. The basic premise is that the true reason Superman gets away with pretending to be Clark Kent is that subconsciously he’s using his super-hypnosis to make the world see him as weedy, with less hair. It even works through the TV cameras so people watching Clark read the news are affected. The key thing is that he’s looking at people through his glasses, made from Kryptonian Plexiglass from his rocket ship…It sounds almost a cool idea until you think about it for ten seconds.

      The idea, which regular letterhack Al Schroeder III came up with, was never mentioned again.

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      1. Ugh. I think that does beat Black Rock. I thought it was a Maggin story but Google says Pasko. I have to admit both those writers are not in my top hundred Superman writers. Bates was my favorite on Superman (as well as Flash) and Bridwell was a treat when he’d do a short. Now that I think about it, if Bridwell had done The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis with Schaffenberger it would have been a delight.

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      2. I think I’d have loved that, but I’m also a fan of Pasko and Maggin; Bates remains my Bronze Age favourite, I’d love to see what he’s do with a comeback run today.

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  4. “The original story saw Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne bang heads while on a cruise ship. . . ”
    Oh, Jeph Loeb did a modern retelling of that meeting, in Superman/Batman Annual #1, which I’m sure you’ve read. 😉

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  5. Another really fun issue — I’m always a sucker for Riddler stories. I agree that Superman could probably solved either of those riddles, though.

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  6. Car Bates did the amazing True Believers at Marvel a few years ago and that Sperman mini where the whole family escaped Krypton’s demise. Truly amazing work. I still want to see the Tue Believers be used linewide. I think they either point at a prodigious skill getting better with age or that he was tailoring his output back then to what the overlords at DC thought we wanted.

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Published by martingray1

Journalist, comic reviewer, theatre critic, film lover, biscuit fan, cat indulger